Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Big Tech and Planetary Crisis

by Nick Dyer-Witheford, Alessandra Mularoni

An anti-capitalist guide to breaking the power of Big Tech

Big Tech firms dominate the global economy. But what value do they actually produce? In this brilliant survey of global tech economy, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Alessandra Mularoni argue that the role of firms like Amazon and Google, Palantir and Uber, is in the automation of circulation.

By applying digital technologies to processes of market exchange—everything from advertising and shopping, to logistics and financial services—Big Tech aims to subject these activities to the level of control and predictability that capital has secured in industrial production.

But there is a way out of the multiple crises that Big Tech has helped precipitate. If we are to break their grip on the global economy then it’ll take more than just antitrust legislation or reducing individual time online.

By understanding the central role Big Tech plays in contemporary capitalism, Dyer-Witheford and Mularoni argue that what is required instead is a new, ambitious and comprehensive program of democratic collective planning that can move us beyond capitalism. 

Cybernetic Circulation Complex offers not only a compelling analysis of the power of Big Tech and their role in our current global crises, but a roadmap for a new form of biocommunism, a digital degrowth that can help us steer between the double boundaries of ecological sustainability and equitable social development.

Genres: Technology, Economics, Nonfiction

266 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 11, 2025

Reviews

[Murray Katkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful theory of big tech as a part of modern capital. Just as long as it needs to be without dragging out too much, it is the perfect text to understand big tech in the functioning of the capitalist system today, from data miners to generative ai. Great half price books find per usual

[Zuzanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing new but the biocommunism concept is cute

[SY · Rating 3 out of 5]

[2.5 stars] This was a bit disappointing. Maybe I had the wrong expectations going into it. I wanted it to get much more into cybernetics and how it has evolved, and to really engage with the reactionary and anti-humanist thoughts that are sometimes associated with California ideology, but instead, a lot of the book just feels like particularly verbose rehashing of talking points that are already well circulated in the media, and already have broad consensus in academic settings.

[kilian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes I wish my brain let me abandon books more easily because damn was this stalling my reading. Probably doesn't help that I hate both economics and fancy/ obscure writing styles, but I think this could've been an essay explaining biocommunism rather than this long-winded journey through well-known information to a short blip about a (semi?) new idea.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a summary of platforms and a touch of theory introducing 'biocommunism'

[Will Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bio communism, a nice idea.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always nick dyer-witherford provides a lucid and inspired analysis of the power of big tech and its influence on our contemporary world. Theoretically profound and yet crystal-clear analysis.

[E B]

I read most of this in a field