S03E34 - Cecilia Rikap on Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism and Corporate Power in the Age of AI

Cecilia Rikap explains how today’s big tech hegemons build intellectual monopolies and use their power for corporate planning beyond ownership.

This episode was recorded during a live event with Cecilia Rikap, hosted by the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation Berlin. Many thanks to everybody involved!

For information on the event, see: https://www.rosalux.de/en/event/es_detail/2MGCX

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If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help:

Democratic planning – an information website

https://www.democratic-planning.com/

Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1.

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1

Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk]

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction

International Network for Democratic Economic Planning

https://www.indep.network/

Democratic Planning Research Platform:

https://www.planningresearch.net/

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Shownotes

Cecilia Rikap at University College London (UCL):

https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/94616-cecilia-rikap

Cecilias upcoming book:

Rikap, C. (2025). The Rulers. Corporate Power in the Age of AI and the Cloud. Verso Books.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790833/the-rulers-by-cecilia-rikap/

Rikap, C., & Lundvall, B.-Å. (2021). The Digital Innovation Race: Conceptualizing the Emerging New World Order. Springer Nature.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89443-6#overview

Rikap, C. (2021). Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered. Routledge.

https://www.routledge.com/Capitalism-Power-and-Innovation-Intellectual-Monopoly-Capitalism-Uncovered/Rikap/p/book/9780367750299?srsltid=AfmBOoohn2o3_THE5S57rt4kTs62Fp3kv5AUNj8rUTdn7ywK9LFhfEro

Rikap C., Durand, C., Paraná, E., Gerbaudo, P. and Marx P. (2024). Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty: A Roadmap to build a Digital Stack for People and the Planet.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2024/dec/reclaiming-digital-sovereignty

Bensussan, H., Durand, C., Rikap, C. (2023) 100 years of Corporate Planning. From Industrial Capitalism to Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism through the lenses of the Harvard Business Review (1922-2021).

https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:171107

Rikap, C. (2023) Mapping the Cloud. Big Tech taking the Sky by Storm. CITYPERC Working Paper, No. 2023-05.

https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/280831

Rikap, C. (2024) From Planning AI to Planning the Green Transition. Intellectual Monopolization amid the ecological breakdown.

https://youtu.be/cckqeiwXuHA?si=N3lRKBiN-KVQaXyA

Rikap, C. (2022) Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism. Knowledge Predation and Corporate Planning in the 21st Century.

https://www.youtube.com/live/VMU1IHm8838?si=jiOLSryWIyM9NvYL

Rikap, C. (2022) Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism. How Big Tech Companies became the World’s largest Planners.

https://youtu.be/4va-JedZGQA?si=0p_Lm-CJ-mbK6GoN

on the concept of Value Chains:

https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/education/graduate-study/pgcerts/value-chain-defs

on “demand sensing”:

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