Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/280827 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
CITYPERC Working Paper No. 2023-01
Publisher: 
City, University of London, City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), London
Abstract: 
The critical literature on monopolies, from monopoly capital to recent contributions, focuses on the organization that concentrates either market power, capital or property rights. I complement this literature by conceptualizing monopolies as a power relation, which enables me to integrate different ways in which the term is used, from capitalists' monopoly over the means of production to intellectual monopolization. As I explain here, some firms have developed greater capacities to systematically monopolize intangibles that are essential for organizing labour beyond their owned assets and for controlling demand. Coupled with institutional, political and technological changes, larger absorptive and management capacities to produce and capture knowledge and information resulted in firms' technological differentiation. The systematic winners of the innovation race hold persistent intellectual monopolies while other firms become subordinate due to their lack of technical autonomy. From this perspective, (intellectual) monopoly power is essential for understanding the distribution of value in capitalism.
Subjects: 
monopoly capital
power relation
intellectual monopoly
subordinate firms
valuecapture
JEL: 
L12
O34
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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