Labor Under Capitalism
Tara McMullin and
Labor Under Capitalism
The hacker class experiences extremes of a winner-take-all outcome of its efforts. On the one hand, fantastic careers and the spoils of some simulation of the old bourgeois lifestyle; on the other hand, precarious and part-time work, start-ups that go bust, and the making routine of our jobs by new algorithms—designed by others of our very own clas
... See moreView of Errand Runners of Digital Platform Capitalism: The Errand Economy as a Contribution to the Discussion on the Gig Economy | tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal...
triple-c.at“The gig economy, regardless of workers’ competence, undermines workers’ rights, and makes every job cheap and precarious. Thus, an errand economy can be defined as the process of transforming all workers, regardless of skill level, into people who do the footwork, gruntwork, legwork, and odd jobs under a newly formed working regime.”
Highlighting the consequences of an automatic society running amok, the late philosopher of technology Bernard Stiegler suggested that successive ages of technological proletarianization since the 19th century have resulted in human losses first in the knowledge of how to make and do (savoir-faire), followed by the knowledge of how to live (savoir-... See more
Ziyaad Bhorat • The Right To Be Free From Automation | NOEMA
Journalism has become ground zero for the vocation crisis
theconversation.com
What would happen if we stopped acting as if the primordial form of work is laboring at a production line, or wheat field, or iron foundry, or even in an office cubicle, and instead started from a mother, a teacher, or a caregiver? We might be forced to conclude that the real business of human life is not contributing toward something called “the e... See more
David Graeber • A practical utopians guide to the coming collapse – David Graeber
American economy creates new jobs through organizing waste which is at best harmless and at worst poisonous and destructive.
James Boggs • The American Revolution: Pages From a Negro Worker's Notebook
From the editor's’ foreword to “The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook” by James Boggs, 1963
On the one hand, the silhouette of a self-deterministic, dream-bearing, free-roaming, modern-age worker emerges as an aspiration. Ironically, these workers are also often the most alienated from the fruits of their labor. The dichotomy between 'us' and 'them' is stark. The product sees an absence of credit or attribution to freelancers at an organi... See more
Tina He • A New Genre of Work
This doesn’t mean decentralized collective action can’t be effective; rather, the efficacy of action through voice within the existing platform ecosystem is limited .
A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy
Not only do today’s platform-based workers exist in a nascent labor category, but their participation is decentralized, making it harder for them to connect with each other. As the industry has matured, and consolidation has led to monopsony power, platform labor has reached a turning point. Platforms are increasingly governing participants’ opport... See more
A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy
Platform workers’ liminal status makes them much more vulnerable to exploitation. In the United States, most gig workers and creators are classified as “independent contractors,” a categorization the IRS defines as “people who offer their services to the general public” in an independent trade, business, or profession. In practical terms, this clas... See more