Title Assetization : turning things into assets in technoscientific capitalism / edited by Kean Birch and Fabian Muniesa

Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource Series Inside technology Inside technology. Contents Intro -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: Assetization and Technoscientific Capitalism -- I: Turning Knowledge into Assets -- 2. Patents as Assets: Intellectual Property Rights as Market Subjects and Objects -- 3. Datassets: Assetizing and Marketizing Personal Data -- 4. A Crisis for Cures? Tracing Assetization and Value in Biomedical Innovation -- II: Turning Infrastructure into Assets -- 5. High-Speed Contradictions: Spanish Railways between Economic Criticism and Political Defense 6. Turning Sunlit Rooftops and Windy Sites into Energy Assets -- III: Turning Nature into Assets -- 7. Expropriating the Future: Turning Ore Deposits and Legitimate Expectations into Assets -- 8. From Commodity to Asset and Back Again: Property in the Capitalism of Varieties -- 9. Turning Nature into an Asset: Corporate Strategies for Rent-Seeking -- IV: Turning Publics into Assets -- 10. English Higher Education: From a Public Good to a Public Asset -- 11. Recidivists, Rough Sleepers, and the Unemployed as Financial Assets: Social Impact Bonds and the Creation of New Markets in Social Services 12. Conclusion: The Future of Assetization Studies -- Contributors -- Index -- Series List Summary "This is a professional edited collection for the Inside Technology series looking at what the editors call assetization. They ask: what lies in the wake of commodification? How should we characterize and analyze technoscientific capitalism in the era of Uber and Airbnb, the business model sorcery of giants like Google and Genentech, rising immaterial and cognitive labor productivity represented by the explosion in Big Data, and the construction of population behavior as money-making resource? The editors define an asset as something-a piece of land, a skill or experience, a sum of money, a bodily function or affective personality, a life form, a patent or copyright, etc.-that can be owned or controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream, often involving the valuation of discounted future earnings in the present. Assets can certainly be bought and sold, yes. But the point is to get a durable rent from them, not to sell them away in the market today. How do things become assets, then? They are made so: the asset form is not, it is important to stress, the consequence of some inherent or embodied quality. The intention of this volume is to show how assets are constructed, how a variety of things are and can be turned into assets, examining the interests, activities, skills, organizations, and relations entangled in this process. Another is to stress that technoscientific capitalism entails specific practices that make the uncertainty inherent in innovation understandable and calculable as part of a broader capitalist system. The asset form reflects the tumult in contemporary technoscientific capitalism, in which it becomes harder and harder to draw clear boundaries around what counts as or comes to constitute capitalism How different is assetization from commodification? Which kind of legal constructions, political arrangements, and economic operations does it entail? Where does it find justification? What kind of critique does it call for? The research gathered in this edited volume opens directions in order to tackle these problems from a critical, qualitative perspective"-- Provided by publisher Analysis SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY/General ECONOMICS/Economic History ECONOMICS/Finance Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Subject Social capital (Sociology) Commodification. Technology -- Social aspects. Temporary employment. New business enterprises. Uncertainty. Capitalism. Commodification Capitalism Commodification New business enterprises Social capital (Sociology) Technology -- Social aspects Temporary employment Uncertainty Form Electronic book Author Birch, Kean, editor ISBN 9780262359023 0262359022 0262359030 9780262359030

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