The Crimes of Digital Capitalism

How technology companies profit from our increasing dependence on digital infrastructure and the privatization of data

The Crimes of Digital Capitalism proposes the first comprehensive theory of corporate crime for the digital age. Aitor Jiménez explores the criminal structure of digital capitalism fostered by states and corporations along the supply chain, illustrating how the rise of algorithmic racism, the Googlization of education, and the deployment of AI surveillance/killing technologies brutally impacts the lives of millions of people around the world.

Under the label of digital capitalism, argues Jiménez, lives a system of exploitation that, standing on digital technologies, is pushing the neoliberal project into an entirely new dimension of practices and exploitative policies with its own set of socially harmful consequences. Digital capitalism has accelerated the neoliberal attack on labor rights, expanded previous forms of exploitation, and developed new ways of surveilling and controlling workers. Delving into the structural relation between capitalism and corporate crime in the digital age, The Crimes of Digital Capitalism argues that the massive social harms caused by large technology companies and states should not be seen as accidental by-products, but as criminal strategies necessary for the existence of digital capitalism.

Linking the debates on the platform economy to today’s most pressing social justice issues, this deeply interdisciplinary book connects complex ideas around digital capitalism to everyday problems.