Informational Capitalism as Phase Shift: Challenges for Digital Constitutionalism

Abstract

In capitalist political economies, the emergence of informational and informationally mediated modes of development has produced important changes in the organization of economic and social activity that are best understood via a chemical analogy: as a phase shift in the nature and structure of interactions that dramatically alters systemic behavior. This chapter first sketches two interlinked sets of changes that are central to the phase shift to informational capitalism: the data-driven, multi-dimensional commodification of economic and social resources and the pervasive embedding of economic and social relations in digital platforms. It then sketches a preliminary account of the implications of the phase shift for theories of digital constitutionalism.

Keywords: platforms, informational capitalism, infrastructure, constitutionalism, digital constitutionalism, commodification, intermediaries

JEL Classification: K30, K40, P16