Techno-economic Assumptions

Birch, Kean

doi:10.1080/09505431.2017.1377389

Cited by 54 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…My aim in this article was to think through the implications of STS for economic rent theory—and vice versa—in light of the increasing importance of rentiership in contemporary capitalism, as evidenced by—but not limited to—things like the spread of IPRs, financing of technology start-ups, monetization of free labor, and discursive role of future expectations in financing research and development (e.g., Mirowski 2012; Beckert 2013; Birch 2017c, 2017d; Schwartz 2017). In arguing that these things are characteristics of an increasingly technoscientific capitalism, I wanted to show how STS can contribute analytically to ongoing debates about the implications of contemporary changes in capitalism for research and innovation (e.g., Tyfield 2012; Birch 2013; Tyfield et al 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Today, it represents a way to calculate the value of future earnings-using a discount rate to work out their current value-and therefore the suitability of something for investment (Muniesa 2012(Muniesa , 2014. As such, it involves a valuation based on future expectations rather than past work, meaning that it is constituted by a collective financial ecosystem-since valuations cannot be derived from current market exchange because value is going to be realized in the future-comprising a range of technoeconomic experts and expertise which forms part of the ongoing management and governance of value through valuation claims (e.g., stockbroker prospectuses), valuation devices (e.g., analyst reports), valuation monitoring (e.g., accountant due diligence), and so on (Birch 2017d(Birch , 2017c. Rentiership depends on this active and ongoing organization, governance, and management of value-akin to performativity claims made by Callon (1998)-meaning that it is not a passive process; it involves significant effort on the part of asset owners (or rentiers) to manage the valuation claims and decisions of investors.…”

Section: Turning Things Into Assetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the one, technoscience is increasingly constituted by specific forms of financing (e.g., corporate research and development spending) and financial logics (e.g., return on investment calculations), while, on the other hand, capitalism is increasingly constituted by specific forms of technoscience (e.g., disruptive and predatory innovation) and technoscientific logics (e.g., network effects). Examples range widely, including the growth in intellectual property rights (IPRs; Schwartz 2017) and the expansion of a global IPR regime (Tyfield 2008) centered on technoscientific innovation (e.g., biotechnology); the growth of start-up technology firms as vehicles for financial speculation (Mirowsk 2012; Mazzucato 2018); the increasing monetization of free, immaterial, or cognitive labor, such as user-generated content on social media like Facebook and YouTube (Arvidsson and Colleoni 2012); the development and popularity of technoeconomic platforms such as Uber, Airbnb, and Taskrabbit (Langley and Leyshon 2017); and the regular deployment of future technoscientific promises and expectations in support of public science funding as well as financial investment strategies (Beckert 2013; Birch 2017c).…”

Section: Technoscientific Capitalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

Birch

2019

Science, Technology, & Human Values

Self Cite

165

169

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Contemporary, technoscientific capitalism is characterized by the (re)configuration of a range of “things” (e.g., infrastructure, data, knowledge, bodies) as assets or capitalized property. Accumulation strategies have changed as a result of this assetization process. Rather than entrepreneurial strategies based on commodity production, technoscientific capitalism is increasingly underpinned by rentiership or the appropriation of value through ownership and control rights (e.g., intellectual property [IP]), monopoly conditions, and regulatory or market devices and practices (e.g., investment dispute courts, exclusivity agreements). While rentiership is often presented as a negative phenomenon (e.g., distorting markets, unearned income) in both neoclassical and Marxist political economy literatures—and much in between—in this paper, I conceptualize rentiership as a technoeconomic practice and process framed by insights from science and technology studies (STS). So, rather than a problematic “side effect” of capitalism, the concept of rentiership enables us to understand how different forms of value extraction constitute, and are constituted by, different forms of technoscience. This allows STS to contribute a distinctive analytical approach to ongoing debates in political economy about economic rents and rent-seeking.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Turning Things Into Assetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Technoscientific Capitalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

Birch

2019

Science, Technology, & Human Values

Self Cite

165

169

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“…The case of network technologies can be seen as a strong example of how economic theory is performative for economic markets (Birch, 2017; Callon, 2010; MacKenzie, 2003), in the sense that correspondences ‘between economic theory and economic reality are not discovered but built’ (Breslau, 2013). This paper will examine how this performativity of economics plays out with regards to the notion of ‘transaction costs’, a concept originally introduced to explain why markets include institutional structures such as bureaucratic organizations, but since then taken as a real obstacle for further economic progress.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fictions and frictions: Promises, transaction costs and the innovation of network technologies

Pesch

Ishmaev

2019

Soc Stud Sci

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New network technologies are framed as eliminating ‘transaction costs’, a notion first developed in economic theory that now drives the design of market systems. However, the actual promise of the elimination of transaction costs seems unfeasible, because of a cyclical pattern in which network technologies that make that promise create processes of institutionalization that create new forms transaction costs. Nonetheless, the promises legitimize the exemption of innovations of network technologies from critical scrutiny.

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“…ventions they do not want, executives have to think more like shareholders in the first place. It goes without saying that thinking like an investor entails equating value creation with return on investment rather than with the research or development of new products and services(Birch 2017d;Muniesa 2017; Glabau 2017). Assetization is linked here with the prevalent power of the investor, raising the question of whether there is an alternative to seeing the world like an investor.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Assetization and Technoscientific Capitalism

Birch¹,

Muniesa

2020

Assetization

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Kean Birch and Fabian Muniesa capital investment. Those are very different things, and the aim of contributors to this book is to flesh out this central point. Our perspective, then, is that we cannot characterize and analyze technoscientific capitalism solely in commodity terms anymore, not in the era of Uber and Airbnb, Google and Amgen. Can we understand the "unicorns" stalking Silicon Valley (i.e., firms whose notional valuations top $1 billion, promising huge returns to shrewd investors), the biopharmaceutical firms ramping up drug prices (while buying back their shares to shore up their share value), and governments turning the atmosphere into financial assets (and giving them away to polluters) without struggling within prevailing conceptions of the commercialization, marketization, and commodification of technoscientific research and innovation? As the latest stage of capitalism entrenches, it becomes even more difficult to see what is driving the accumulation of capital. As the marginal cost of production approaches zero, it is increasingly evident that productivity increases will not lead to sustainable profits. What will? Business model sorcery perhaps? Intriguing things are going on indeed, we contend, as a consequence of an emerging "asset form" that has come to replace the commodity as the primary basis of contemporary capitalism. By asset, we mean something that can be owned or controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream, often involving the valuation of discounted future earnings in the present-it could be 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, and so on. Discounting reflects an assumption about the future value of money, which is framed by expectations about future inflation, risks, and uncertainties (Muniesa et al. 2017). Assets can be bought and sold, yes. But the point is to get a durable economic rent from them, not to sell them in the market today; here we use the term rent to mean the extraction of value through the ownership and control of an asset, which usually entails limiting access to it (Birch 2020). 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. One intention with this book 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

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Techno-economic Assumptions

Cited by 54 publications

References 48 publications

Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

Fictions and frictions: Promises, transaction costs and the innovation of network technologies

Introduction: Assetization and Technoscientific Capitalism

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