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2 results

  • 8 - A Finite Ideology

  • from Part III - Megadeath
  • Glen Whelan, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book:
    Megacorporation
    Published online:
    06 April 2021
    Print publication:
    08 April 2021, pp 159-183

  • Summary

    This chapter begins by defining ideology in a descriptive and amoral fashion. In doing so, it shows that Greimas’s semiotic square provides a useful means by which to conceive, and delineate, the ideology of infinite times from three alternatives that I respectively term the future primitive ideology, the ideology of extinction and the singularity ideology. In line with this framing, the chapter then completes two main tasks. First, it provides a recapitulation of the infinite times ideology; of the role it plays in bringing Alphabet’s diverse activities together; and of the role it plays in aligning the megacorporation’s interests with those of its users worldwide. Second, it explains how Alphabet is directly and indirectly encouraging developments that are consistent with the future primitive, extinction and singularity ideologies that are all, whatever else their differences, similarly opposed to the ideology of infinite times. Given these discussions, the chapter concludes by emphasizing that, as the ideology of infinite times is as finite as any other ideology, it provides one potential source of Alphabet’s ultimate demise.

Megacorporation
  • The Infinite Times of Alphabet
  • Glen Whelan
  • Published online:
    06 April 2021
    Print publication:
    08 April 2021
  • When the scale and scope of influence that a corporation wields is so great that it eclipses that of nearly all other corporations combined, it attains megacorporate status. Whelan proposes that, amongst the current big tech cohort, it is only Alphabet, the parent company of Google, that can be categorized as such. In advancing a novel philosophical perspective, and aspiring to an amoral ideal of analysis, Whelan reveals Alphabet's activities to be informed by the ideology of infinite times, consequently transforming how we experience the past, present and the future at personal and social levels. By shining a light on such corporate existential impacts, Megacorporation: The Infinite Times of Alphabet opens up a new field of research that makes the philosophical analysis of business and society an everyday concern. This novel study on corporate social influence will appeal to readers interested in big tech, business and society, political economy and organization studies.