Abstract

LINS RIBEIRO, Gustavo. The Price of the Word. The Hegemony of Computer-Electronic Capitalism and Googleism. Desacatos [online]. 2018, n.56, pp.16-33. ISSN 2448-5144.

I am interested in understanding how internet entrepreneurs and innovators have become powerful capitalists. The commodification of words, the virtual global market, the “bait economy” and the link/like/hit economies are modes of profit making that are crucial to understand the rapid growth of some of the leading corporations of our times. I also argue that Googleism is to current capitalism what Fordism and Toyotism were: models of managing factors of production that are globally disseminated. Crowdsourcing, or massive innovation on line, is seen as a mode of appropriating online creativity basic to the reproduction of electronic-computer capitalism.

Keywords : Google; capitalism; crowdsourcing; innovation; commodification.