Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a political economic critique of the Alphabet corporation by showing its being relies on capitalism and its becoming is also that of capitalism. It explores if computational methods of network analysis will benefit a political-economic critique of Alphabet. The book looks at three implications of network. The first implication of seeing Alphabet as a network is that corporation is not a thing, but a nexus of contractual relationships between shareholders and executives, executives and employees, and employees and consumers. The second implication of seeing Alphabet as a network is that the Internet and search engine have to be understood in a historical political-economic context. The third implication of seeing Alphabet as a network is that human–human and human–non-human relations can be visualized by applying computational methods of network analysis.