The Tyranny of the Task | Josh Gabert-Doyon

The tyranny of the task is no different than the tyranny of the clock.

FOR MANY WORKERS, being paid for the tasks they complete, rather than the amount of time they remain present at a desk, sounds like a straightforward way to dramatically improve their daily lives.

The conditions of this task-based work exemplify the worst of digital labor: it is freelance, poorly paid, and highly informal. Images, texts, and annotated videos flash before the eyes of microwork laborers, each task thoroughly detached from the product that it builds toward. As Jones writes, this “thins the aperture of knowledge to a tiny sliver... See more

But even then, microwork is an ominous warning for progressive ideas about post-work: liberty in the workplace for some often means squalor for others. For those working long hours in more conventional jobs, thinking about their work as a series of tasks might signal the arbitrariness and the deep contradictions of the wage-form. But in the dream o... See more

While a return to what is essentially piecework in the place of waged labor seems to promise a salve against white-collar malaise, it opens up another set of problems. Work Without the Worker, a new book by labor researcher Phil Jones, tries to make sense of the rise of “microwork,” best exemplified by platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk... See more

For those toiling in less well-remunerated salaried work, organizing the workday around tasks and projects is a way to cut through useless meetings and busywork—the misery of what the late David Graeber called “bullshit jobs.” In public-facing service work, as well as jobs in the digital economy, many have become quietly adept at pretending to work... See more