Marxian political economists do not necessarily focus on media, communication, and data as they usually consider it a peripheral phenomenon to the reproduction of capital. This is becoming an increasingly weak position given the dominance of big tech and its insertion into some of the core mechanisms of contemporary capitalism. On the other hand, Marxian political economists of communication focus on the material conditions and power relations within media and communication, accepting that their analysis deals with phenomena within the capitalist mode of production but rarely including the mode of production as their immediate object of study. Such division of labour usually results in misunderstandings and entrenched positions that do not move our understanding of corporate tech giants forward. Debates between these sub-fields are rare. When they do occur, they usually take the form of reverse mirrors in which one theoretical concept raises different concerns in the context of the other subfield. At the same time, these subfields are filled with internal struggles. To forge this collaboration, we had to allow our pre-existing knowledge and assumptions to be tested by the empirical and theoretical material brought to the table during the writing process.

This book is the result of many discussions, debates, arguments, and meetings that took place over a span of three years. During that time, all three of us adjusted, stretched, and changed some of our starting positions while trying to maintain an understanding of the inherent unity of capitalist production and circulation as well as an understanding of the central concepts of surplus value and value form. We do not argue that we have solved all problems posed by our object of study in this process. But we have tried to bring diverse perspectives to improve our understanding of the common problem: the enormous economic, political, and social power of a handful of tech companies fuelled by hunger for data commodification. To do so we also went against the grain of some of the usual Marxian starting points such as cognitive capitalism and the audience commodity debates.