To exploit and dispossess: The twofold logic of platform capitalism

Fagioli, Andrea

doi:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.1.0126

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Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

Volume 15, Issue 1

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To exploit and dispossess: The twofold logic of platform capitalism

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Author(s): Andrea Fagioli

Publication date (Print): 1 January 2021

Journal: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Platform capitalism, digital labour, exploitation, dispossession, big data

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Abstract

This paper addresses the relation between capital and digital labour in the context of so-called platform capitalism. Based on the taxonomy proposed by A. Casilli - on-demand labour, crowdwork or microwork, and social media labour - I argue that the concept of exploitation is not sufficient to fully account for the logic of platform capitalism, as it only makes up one of its dimensions. The other central dimension is that which targets data capture, which I call, using Harvey's term, ‘dispossession’. Far from proposing a fixed delimitation of the concept of labour, I argue that the two dimensions operate together and, in many cases, it is difficult to isolate them, but they do demand the invention of different political strategies.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50010512

Journal ID (jcode): workorgalaboglob

Title: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN: 1745-641X

ISSN: 1745-6428

Publication date (Print): 1 January 2021

Volume: 15

Issue: 1 ( doiID: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.issue-1 )

Pages: 126-137

Article

Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.15.1.0126

DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.1.0126

SO-VID: 83d75037-709f-4cee-88be-8fa0c61872ac

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Custom metadata

lang eng

ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics

Keywords: dispossession,Platform capitalism,digital labour,exploitation,big data

References

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Arvidsson, A. & E. Colleoni (2012). ‘Value in informational capitalism and on the internet’, The Information Society: An International Journal, 28 (3):135-150.
Bruns, A. & J.H. Schmidt (2011). ‘Produsage: a closer look at continuing developments’, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 17 (1):3-7.
Carchedi, G. (2014). ‘Old wine, new bottles and the internet’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, 8 (1):69-87.
Casilli, A. (2019). En attendant les robots. Enquête sur le travail du clic, Paris: Seuil.
Ciccarelli, R. (2018). Forza lavoro. Il lato oscuro della rivoluzione digitale, Roma: DeriveApprodi.
Dyer-Whiteford, N. (2015). Cyber-proletariat: Global labour in the digital vortex, London: Pluto Press.
Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the witch. Women, the body and primitive accumulation, New York: Autonomedia.
Fuchs, C. (2010). ‘Labor in informational capitalism and on the internet’, The Information Society: An International Journal, 26 (3):179-196.
Fumagalli, A. & C. Morini (2010). Life put to work. Toward a life theory of value. Ephemera, 10 (3/4): 234-252.
Gago, V. & S. Mezzadra (2017). ‘A critique of the extractive operations of capital: Toward an expanded concept of extractivism’, Rethinking Marxism. A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society, 29 (4):574-591.
Gandini, A. (2019). ‘Labour process theory and the gig economy’, Human Relations, 72 (6):1039-1056.
Gerlitz, C. & A. Helmond (2013). ‘The like economy: Social buttons and the data intensive web’, New Media & Society, 15 (8):1348-1365.
Grappi, G. (2016). Logistica, Roma: Ediesse.
Hardt, M. & A. Negri (2004). Multitude: War and democracy in the age of empire, New York: Penguin Press.
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Huws, U. (2016). ‘Logged in’, Jacobin Magazine. Accessed 9 May 2020. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/01/huws-sharing-economy-crowdsource-precarity-uber-workers/
Irani, L. (2015a). The cultural work of microwork, New Media and Society, 17 (5):720-739.
Irani, L. (2015b). ‘Difference and dependence among digital workers: The case of Amazon Mechanical Turk’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 114 (1):225-234.
Jamil, R. (2020). ‘Uber and the making of Algopticon - Insights from the daily life of Montreal drivers’, Capital & Class, 44 (2):241-260.
Kant, I. (2000). Critique of the power of judgment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Mezzadra, S. & B. Neilson (2019). The politics of operations: Excavating contemporary capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Altenried, M. (2020). ‘The platform as factory: Crowdwork and the hidden labour behind artificial intelligence’, Capital & Class, 44 (2):145-158.

[2] Arvidsson, A. & E. Colleoni (2012). ‘Value in informational capitalism and on the internet’, The Information Society: An International Journal, 28 (3):135-150.

[3] Bruns, A. & J.H. Schmidt (2011). ‘Produsage: a closer look at continuing developments’, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 17 (1):3-7.

[4] Carchedi, G. (2014). ‘Old wine, new bottles and the internet’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, 8 (1):69-87.

[5] Casilli, A. (2019). En attendant les robots. Enquête sur le travail du clic, Paris: Seuil.

[6] Ciccarelli, R. (2018). Forza lavoro. Il lato oscuro della rivoluzione digitale, Roma: DeriveApprodi.

[7] Dyer-Whiteford, N. (2015). Cyber-proletariat: Global labour in the digital vortex, London: Pluto Press.

[8] Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the witch. Women, the body and primitive accumulation, New York: Autonomedia.

[9] Fuchs, C. (2010). ‘Labor in informational capitalism and on the internet’, The Information Society: An International Journal, 26 (3):179-196.

[10] Fumagalli, A. & C. Morini (2010). Life put to work. Toward a life theory of value. Ephemera, 10 (3/4): 234-252.

[11] Gago, V. & S. Mezzadra (2017). ‘A critique of the extractive operations of capital: Toward an expanded concept of extractivism’, Rethinking Marxism. A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society, 29 (4):574-591.

[12] Gandini, A. (2019). ‘Labour process theory and the gig economy’, Human Relations, 72 (6):1039-1056.

[13] Gerlitz, C. & A. Helmond (2013). ‘The like economy: Social buttons and the data intensive web’, New Media & Society, 15 (8):1348-1365.

[14] Grappi, G. (2016). Logistica, Roma: Ediesse.

[15] Hardt, M. & A. Negri (2004). Multitude: War and democracy in the age of empire, New York: Penguin Press.

[16] Harvey, D. (2004). ‘The “New” imperialism: Accumulation by dispossession’, Socialist Register, 40:63-87.

[17] Harvey, D. (2010). A companion to Marx's Capital, London/New York: Verso.

[18] Hayns, J. (2016). ‘A sharing economy strike’, Jacobin Magazine. Accessed 7 June 2020. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/deliveroo-strike-sharing-economy-living-wage.

[19] Heeks, R. (2017). ‘Decent work and the digital gig economy: A developing country perspective on employment impacts and standards in online outsourcing, crowdwork’. Accessed 25 May 2020. hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/di/di_wp71.pdf.

[20] Huws, U. (2014). ‘The underpinning of class in the digital age: Living, labour and value’, Socialist Register, 50:80-107.

[21] Huws, U. (2016). ‘Logged in’, Jacobin Magazine. Accessed 9 May 2020. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/01/huws-sharing-economy-crowdsource-precarity-uber-workers/

[22] Irani, L. (2015a). The cultural work of microwork, New Media and Society, 17 (5):720-739.

[23] Irani, L. (2015b). ‘Difference and dependence among digital workers: The case of Amazon Mechanical Turk’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 114 (1):225-234.

[24] Jamil, R. (2020). ‘Uber and the making of Algopticon - Insights from the daily life of Montreal drivers’, Capital & Class, 44 (2):241-260.

[25] Kant, I. (2000). Critique of the power of judgment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[26] Loffler, M. & A. Tschiesner (2013) ‘The Internet of Things and the future of manufacturing’, McKinsey Digital. Accessed 2 May 2020. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/the-internet-of-things-and-the-future-of-manufacturing.

[27] Marazzi, C. (2016). Che cos'è il plusvalore?, Bellinzona: Casagrande.

[28] Marx, K. (1976). Capital: A critique of political economy, Vol 1, London: Penguin.

[29] Marx, K. & F. Engels (2010). Collected works, 34, London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[30] Mezzadra, S. (2018). In the Marxian Workshops: Producing Subjects, London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

[31] Mezzadra, S. & B. Neilson (2018). ‘Entre extraction et exploitation: des mutations en cours dans l'organisation de la coopération sociale’, Actuel Marx, 63 (1):97-113.

[32] Mezzadra, S. & B. Neilson (2019). The politics of operations: Excavating contemporary capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

[33] Míguez, P. (2020). Trabajo y valor en el capitalismo contemporáneo, Los Polvorines: UNGS Press.

[34] Negri, A. (2017). Marx and Foucault. Essays, London: Polity Press.

[35] Negri, A. (2015). Storia di un comunista, Milano: Ponte alle Grazie.

[36] Nicoli, M. & L. Paltrinieri (2019). ‘Platform cooperativism: Some notes on the becoming «common» of the firm’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 118 (4):801-819.

[37] Ochoa, X. & E. Duvel (2008). ‘Relevance ranking metrics for learning objects’, IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 1 (1):34-48.

[38] Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2017) OECD digital economy outlook 2017. Accessed 3 June 2020. https://www.oecd.org/internet/oecd-digital-economy-outlook-2017-9789264276284-en.htm

[39] O'Meara, V. (2019). ‘The threat the bot brings. Instagram, influencers, and engagement automation’, Notes From Below, 8. Accessed 19 April 2020. https://notesfrombelow.org/article/threat-bot-brings

[40] Pasquale, F. (2015). ‘The other big brother’, The Atlantic. Accessed 2 June 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/corporate-surveillance-activists/406201/

[41] Pasquinelli, M. (2009). ‘Google's pagerank algorithm: A diagram of the cognitive capitalism and the rentier of the commun intellect’ in K. Becker & F. Stalder (eds) Deep search: The politics of search beyond Google, London: Transacción Publishers:152-162.

[42] Pasquinelli, M. (2015). ‘Italian Operaismo and the information machine’, Theory, Culture & Society, 32(3):49-68.

[43] Pasquinelli, M. & V. Joler (2020). ‘The nooscope manifested: Artificial intelligence as instrument of knowledge extractivism’ AI and Society. Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Communication, forthcoming.

[44] Rossi, U. (2019). ‘The common-seekers: Capturing and reclaiming value in the platform metropolis’, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 37 (8):1418-1433.

[45] Schmidt, F. (2017). Digital labour markets in the platform economy. Mapping the political challenges of crowd work and gig work. Accessed 26 May 2020. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/wiso/13164.pdf

[46] Srnicek, N. (2016). Platform capitalism, London: Polity Press.

[47] Tammisto, T. (2018). ‘When Mr. robot is your boss: Working under algorithms’, Notes From Below, 5. Accessed 17 May 2020. https://notesfrombelow.org/article/when-mr-robot-is-your-boss.

[48] Terranova, T. (2000). ‘Free labor. Producing culture for the digital economy’, Social Text, 18 (2):33-58.

[49] Toffler, A. (1990). Powershift: Knowledge, wealth and violence at the edge of the 21st century, New York: Bantam.

[50] Vecchi, B. (2017). Il capitalismo delle piattaforme, Roma: Manifestolibri.

[51] Vercellone, C. (2012). ‘La legge del valore nel passaggio dal capitalismo industriale al nuovo capitalismo’. Accessed 29 May 2020. http://www.uninomade.org/vercellone-legge-valore/

[52] Vercellone, C. (2020). ‘Les plateformes de la gratuité marchande et la controverse autour du Free Digital Labor: une nouvelle forme d'exploitation?‘, Information et Communication, 2, Revue ouverte d'ingénierie des systèmes d'information, 2 (1). Accessed 4 May 2020. https://www.openscience.fr/Les-plateformes-de-la-gratuite-marchande-et-la-controverse-autour-du-Free

[53] Virno, P. (2011). Convenzione e materialismo, Roma: DeriveApprodi.

[54] Warden, P. (2011). Big data glossary, Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

[55] Williams, E. (1944). Capitalism and slavery, Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina University Press.

[56] World Economic Forum (2016). The future of jobs. Employment, skills and workforce strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Accessed 23 April 2020. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs.pdf

[57] Zuboff, S. (2018). The age of surveillance capitalism. The Fight for a human future at the new frontier of power, New York: Public Affairs.