Marxist discourse around automation has recently become waylaid with breathless techno-pessimist dystopias and fanciful imaginations of automated luxury communism. This collection of essays by both established veterans of the field and new voices is a refreshingly sober materialist reflection on recent technological developments within capitalist production. It covers a broad range of digital aspects now proliferating across our work and lives, including chapters on the digitalisation of agriculture, robotics in the factory and the labour process on crowdworking platforms.

Difference in the levels of progress between developed and developing countries poses significant challenges for firms from the developing world to operate successfully in markets in the developed world. However, as globalization deepens, firms in the developing world, like their counterparts in the developed world, are forced to look for markets outside of their domestic environment. Increasingly, firms in developing countries will have no choice but to look for markets in large and wealthy developed countries in addition to other similar developing countries.