Book chapter 953 views
Platforms, Merchants, and Market Space
Christopher Muellerleile 
Market/Place
Swansea University Author:
Christopher Muellerleile
Abstract
This chapter argues that the emergence of telegraphic technologies and their effects on markets in 19th century offers a unique analytical lens through which to rethink the spatiality of contemporary digital platforms. The chapter considers the effects of separating the communication of information...
| Published in: | Market/Place |
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| ISBN: | 9781788211260 9781788211277 |
| Published: |
Newcastle
Agenda
2020
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| Online Access: |
https://www.agendapub.com/books/79/market-place |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa51240 |
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| Abstract: |
This chapter argues that the emergence of telegraphic technologies and their effects on markets in 19th century offers a unique analytical lens through which to rethink the spatiality of contemporary digital platforms. The chapter considers the effects of separating the communication of information from the transportation of physical goods, and what effects this separation has on the character of markets and market makers. Specifically, the chapter compares telegraph enabled commodity and financial exchanges in the 19th century with digital platforms such as Amazon, Airbnb, and Facebook. A number of common effects are apparent. First, in both instances, the merchant class appears to acquire disproportionate power in rearranging the spatialities of the socio-economy according to the logics of exchange value. Second, one of the main ways they acquire this power is through the shrewd management of vast increases in circulating information. In part this is accomplished by constructing new abstract categories and in some cases, full-fledged information infrastructures. Third, financial and commodity merchants and contemporary platform capitalists both succeed by evading previous systems of social and juridical regulation, one effect of which is a tendency toward monopolization. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |