Reining in Big Tech Corporations: Why Platform Governance Requires Structural Regulation

This paper argues that modern corporations, particularly Big Tech Platform Corporations (BTPCs), should be understood not as private contractual arrangements but as artificial legal entities created and empowered by States. Through incorporation, corporations receive State-like attributes including perpetual existence, legal personhood, capital lock-in, and entity shielding, enabling them to accumulate and organise capital across time and space. The paper introduces the concepts of “Recursive Capital” and “Capital-Constituting Corporations” to explain how BTPCs extend beyond market participation to shape the very conditions under which economic activity becomes capitalisable. Drawing historical parallels with the English East India Company and Gilded Age monopolies, the paper contends that BTPCs now exercise infrastructural and governance power comparable to semi-sovereign actors. Existing antitrust and contractual theories are therefore inadequate. The paper concludes that platform governance requires structural regulation and a reassertion of democratic oversight to recalibrate the delegated powers States have granted corporations.