Amazon: A story of accumulation through intellectual rentiership and predation

This article elaborates on intellectual monopoly theory as a form of predation and rentiership using Amazon as a case study. By analysing Amazon’s financial statements, scientific publications and patents, we show that Amazon’s economic power heavily relies on its systematic innovations and capacity to centralize and analyse customized data that orients its business and innovations. We demonstrate how Amazon’s innovation activities have evolved over time with growing importance of technologies related to data and machine learning. We also map Amazon’s innovation networks with academic institutions and companies. We show how Amazon appropriates intellectual rents from these networks and from technological cooperation with other intellectual monopolies. We argue that Amazon, as other data-driven monopolies, predates value from suppliers and third-party companies participating in its platform. One striking characteristic of Amazon is the low rate of reported profits. The centrality of innovations leads us to suggest an alternative calculation that shows that Amazon’s profits are not as low as they appear in Annual Reports. We also argue that lower profits are coherent with Amazon’s rentiership and predatory strategy since they contribute to the avoidance of accusations of excessive market power. Finally, the paper offers preliminary observations on: (i) the complementarities between financial and intellectual rentierism and (ii) how data-driven intellectual monopoly expands big corporations’ political power. Going beyond the specific case of Amazon, we thus contribute to a better understanding of the role of lead firms and power dynamics within innovation networks

La autonomía universitaria como autogobierno: ¿crisis de representatividad en la Universidad de Buenos Aires? = University’s Autonomy as Self-Government: a Crisis of Representativeness in the Universidad de Buenos Aires?

En la Constitución Argentina de 1994 se reconoce explícitamente por primera vez la autonomía de las universidades nacionales. Sin embargo, se deja abierta la discusión sobre sus determinaciones y alcance, particularmente en cuanto a su capacidad de autogobierno y su relación con el Estado. En este artículo, nos proponemos contribuir a esta discusión a partir de analizar el alcance e impacto de la autonomía universitaria en la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) en esa doble dimensión. Para ello, y en tanto qué se entiende por autonomía es parte del mencionado debate, recuperamos de la historia de la Universidad el concepto de autonomía universitaria en su dimensión de autogobierno y de vínculo con autoridades xternas. En la Universidad Medieval esta dimensión aparece como autonomía corporativa, e identificamos su vigencia en la Universidad Ilustrada. La recapitulación histórica se completa con una referencia local: la Reforma Universitaria de 1918. Ésta inaugura el cogobierno universitario, estructura de gobierno que se propone garantizar la autonomía como autogobierno. A partir de allí repasamos cómo la historia de la Universidad en Argentina contribuye a moldear las determinaciones y alcance de su autonomía en la doble dimensión propuesta. La reconstrucción histórica es utilizada para evaluar la estructura de gobierno de la UBA en la actualidad y su vínculo con el Estado. El artículo concluye con una reflexión sobre la crisis de representatividad de los órganos de cogobierno de esta universidad y sobre la tensión en su vínculo con el Estado, reflexión que pone en cuestión el alcance de su autonomía.  The Argentinean Constitution of 1994 recognizes the autonomy of national universities. Nevertheless, it leaves an open discussion concerning its determinants and scope, especially regarding its self-government capacity and its relationship with the State. In this article, we expect to contribute to this discussion by analyzing the scope and impact of university’s autonomy in the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) concerning that double dimension. In order to do so, and considering that how autonomy is defined is part of the ongoing debate, we start by stu dying the meaning of university’s autonomy through University’s history focusing on its self-government capacity and its relationship with external political authorities. In the Medieval University this double dimension of university’s autonomy was developed as its corporative autonomy and it remained valid in the Enlightenment University. This historical recapitulation is completed by referring to a local experience: the 1918 University’s Reform which inaugurates university’s co-government, a governance structure that aims to assure university’s autonomy as its selfgovernance. We then revisit who the recent history of Argentina’s university contributes to define the characteristics and scope of its autonomy in this double dimension. All these historical references are used to evaluate the UBA’s current governance structure and its relationship with the National State. The article ends with some considerations about the crisis of representativeness that the UBA is facing and about the tension concerning its relationship with the State which allows us to challenge the scope of its autonomy

Ciencia privatizada en América Latina

In regions such as Latin America, the commodification of science involves its subordination to the production of innovations at the global level that reinforce current power structures and the dependent place of the region. To account for these specificities, the article introduces the concept of privatized science. It is understood as science that, by copying exogenous agendas and priorities alien to the context of knowledge creation and social needs (and even if its results are public), benefits the accumulation of private profits without any revenue being left for the institutions producing that knowledge, nor therefore for their countries of origin. The article shows concrete dimensions of privatized science, namely: blind transfer of knowledge, the orientation of the research agendas to the priorities of foreign companies or international organizations, and/or to mainstream international agenda, and the relevance of the international editorial oligopoly. These dimensions penetrate deeply into the region given that papers published in peer-review international journals are the privileged evaluation criteria. Thus, this article ends by suggesting alternative indicators for the evaluation of public science and technology research

Corporate financialization’s conservation and transformation: from Mark I to Mark II

This paper argues that, as far as the investment behavior of non-financial corporations is concerned, the apparent continuity over the last four decades suggested by the corporate financialization label is misleading. Indeed, while the disconnection between profitability and investment is a robust stylized fact for most of the period, with cumulative detrimental consequences for labor, we contend that the underlying mechanisms changed meaningfully at the turn of the millennium. This contribution identifies—empirically and theoretically—two distinct successive corporate financialization regimes (Mark I and Mark II) and explains their evolutionary articulation. Financialization Mark I is characterized by the empowerment of financial actors: in a context of high interest rates and full-blown liberalization, diminishing retained earnings by non-financial corporations resulted in a dramatic slowdown of investment. Contrastingly, Financialization Mark II is characterized by a strongly established financial hegemony with new forms of intellectual and financial monopoly. In this configuration, interest rates are low and global value chains are deeply seated. This fuels rampant deflationary pressure, which changes the overall dynamic of the profit-investment nexus. Then, in Financialization Mark II, contrary to what occurred during Financialization Mark I, distributed profits are the consequence of slow investment

Producing and using artificial intelligence: What can Europe learn from Siemens’s experience?

This paper examines the innovation strategy of Siemens, a key player in Europe’s digital economy, by performing network and lexical analyses using data derived from Siemens’s patents and scientific publications since 1998. We observe that the company’s innovation efforts evolved from a broader attempt to develop internal information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities – alongside its historical industrial priorities – to a strategy focused on developing artificial intelligence (AI) for sector-specific and niche applications (such as life and medical sciences). As a result, it became dependent on tech giants’ clouds for accessing more general AI services and digital infrastructure. We build on the intellectual monopoly literature focusing on the effects of tech giants on other leading corporations, to analyse Siemens’s experience. By abandoning the development of general ICT and given the emergence of tech giants as digital economy intellectual monopolies, we show that Siemens is risking its technological autonomy towards these big tech companies. Our results provide clues to understand the challenges faced by Europe and its firms in relation to US and Chinese tech giants

Academic dependency: the influence of the prevailing international biomedical research agenda on Argentina’s CONICET

Background The prevailing health and biomedical sciences (HBMS) research agenda, not only determined by leading academic institutions but also by large pharmaceutical companies, has been shown to prioritize the exploration of novel pharmacological interventions over the study of the socio-environmental factors influencing illness onset and progression. The aim of this investigation is to quantitatively explore whether and to what extent the prevailing international HBMS research agenda and the key actors setting this agenda influence research in non-core countries. Methods We used the Web of Science database and the CorText platform to proxy the HBMS research agenda of a prestigious research institution from Latin America: Argentina’s National Research Council (CONICET). We conducted a bibliometric and lexical analysis of 16,309 HBMS academic articles whereby CONICET was among the authors' affiliations. The content of CONICET’s agenda was represented through co-occurrence network maps of the most frequent concatenation of terms found in titles, keywords, and abstracts. We compared our findings with previous reports on the international HBMS research agenda. Results In line with the results previously reported for the prevailing international agenda, we found that terms linked to molecular biology and cancer research hegemonize CONICET’s HBMS research agenda, whereas terms connecting HBMS research with socio-environmental cues are marginal. However, we also found differences with the international agenda: CONICET's HBMS agenda shows a marginal presence of terms linked to translational medicine, while terms associated with categories such as pathogens, plant research, agrobiotechnology, and food industry are more represented than in the prevailing agenda. Conclusions CONICET’s HBMS research agenda shares topics, priorities, and methodologies with the prevailing HBMS international research agenda. However, CONICET's HBMS research agenda is internally heterogeneous, appearing to be mostly driven by a combination of elements that not only reflect academic dependency (the adoption of the prevailing research agenda by non-core research institutions) but also local economic determinants associated with Argentina’s place in the international division of labor as an exporter of primary goods

Whose shoulders is health research standing on? Determining the key actors and contents of the prevailing biomedical research agenda

BACKGROUND: Conflicts of interest in biomedical research can influence research results and drive research agendas away from public health priorities. Previous agenda-setting studies share two shortfalls: they only account for direct connections between academic institutions and firms, as well as potential bias based on researchers' personal beliefs. This paper's goal is to determine the key actors and contents of the prevailing health and biomedical sciences (HBMS) research agenda, overcoming these shortfalls. METHODS: We performed a bibliometric and lexical analysis of 95,415 scientific articles published between 1999 and 2018 in the highest impact factor journals within HBMS, using the Web of Science database and the CorText platform. HBMS's prevailing knowledge network of institutions was proxied with network maps where nodes represent affiliations and edges the most frequent co-authorships. The content of the prevailing HBMS research agenda was depicted through network maps of prevalent multi-terms found in titles, keywords, and abstracts. RESULTS: The HBMS research agendas of large private firms and leading academic institutions are intertwined. The prevailing HBMS agenda is mostly based on molecular biology (40% of the most frequent multi-terms), with an inclination towards cancer and cardiovascular research (15 and 8% of the most frequent multi-terms, respectively). Studies on pathogens and biological vectors related to recent epidemics are marginal (1% of the most frequent multi-terms). Content of the prevailing HBMS research agenda prioritizes research on pharmacological intervention over research on socio-environmental factors influencing disease onset or progression and overlooks, among others, the study of infectious diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Pharmaceutical corporations contribute to set HBMS's prevailing research agenda, which is mainly focused on a few diseases and research topics. A more balanced research agenda, together with epistemological approaches that consider socio-environmental factors associated with disease spreading, could contribute to being better prepared to prevent and treat more diverse pathologies and to improve overall health outcomes

Erratum: Whose shoulders is health research standing on? Determining the key actors and contents of the prevailing biomedical research agenda (PLoS ONE (2021) 16:4 (e0249661) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249661)

The following information is missing from the Funding statement: This study was supported by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)