Intangible labor

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Intangible labor is a term used in operaism (a neo-Marxist current and social movement that arose in industrial northern Italy in the early 1960s). Intangible labor is defined there as a collective term for

Examples of such immaterial work are emotion work , social networks and teamwork .

Immaterial work is decisive for social work in its entirety.

The literary theorist and globalization critic Michael Hardt and the political scientist Antonio Negri , both authors of Postoperaism , defined the concept of immaterial labor more precisely in their Marxist book Empire - the new world order . They highlight three aspects of immaterial labor:

  1. the flow of information between factory and market,
  2. the homogenization of work processes as processes of entering symbols in information systems and
  3. Affective work, in which a feeling of well-being is generated in direct or indirect contact (e.g. in the entertainment industry).

Even if those employed in immaterial production remain a minority, their form of work becomes hegemonic : the properties of immaterial production change all other forms of work, or even society as a whole. At the same time, immaterial labor is very important for society: since it creates symbols , affects and relationships , it can even be said that immaterial labor produces society as a whole. The globalization leads to fundamental changes in the production process , in addition to industrial work is on meaning lose.

Its goal is the production and reproduction of society as a whole. It is no longer limited to economics ( biopolitics , production of subjectivities ). She has a tendency to network , as communication, cooperative and affective relationships are based on networks. Further characteristics are mobility , flexibility and precariousness .

To criticize immaterial labor

In both Empire and Multitude , Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri assume a social relationship that has already realized the general intellect . Giannoli also spoke of the “epoch of general intellects” in the early 1990s, as Negri spoke of post-Fordism at the end of the 1990s “as a regime of 'general intellects'” (Gianolli & Negri, quoted in Haug, p. 57). In principle, Negri's thesis - the conditions are already communist, people just have to become one - from the seventies is reanimated for the umpteenth time and innovations inherent in theory are adapted, as is the case with the consideration of feminist and postmodern as well as poststructuralist theoretical set pieces in Multitude shows. Unlike postoperaism, Haug sees the epoch as “that of the 'general intellect' per se; it [the scientifically based mode of production] comes to a standstill on the threshold of the task of establishing validity for a plural-universal reason in the order of social relations, including natural relations ”(p. 63). And since "we live in the epoch of an irrationality that has become global" (p. 64), the possibility of the social individual is potentially present, but it has not yet made its appearance on the stage of history and at present this seems increasingly unlikely. “As fruitful as it is to pay attention to the 'ever more extensive reappropriation of technoscientific knowledge by the proletariat', it is nonsense to proclaim the 'end of any difference [...] between production and life' (Negri [1993] 1998) “(Haug, p. 60).

What is really new about digitized goods is the "[...] concrete method of distribution and the device-based mediatization of 'reading'" (Haug, p. 86). The immateriality of work is questionable insofar as, in addition to the devices, electricity, etc., spent work is required that does not have to be material, but has a material effect. This can be exemplified by demands such as “Schools on the Internet!” Or “Shopping at the click of a mouse”, because it is quickly forgotten that “you cannot drop the pupils in front of the school gate by e-mail and that computers cannot transport books” ( Kaube, quoted in Haug, p. 96). Nevertheless, the epoch-making new - "[...] the intensification of transnational high-tech capitalism [...]" (Haug, p. 99) - has its origin "[...] in the technologically feasible digitization of information and communication [...] ”(Hickel, quoted from Haug, p. 99).

“The 'immaterial economy' throws the matter of what it has entered into the name of the immaterial in monstrous quantities onto what Marx calls the 'springs of all wealth': 'the earth and the worker'. Between 1997 and 2007 it is believed that 500 million computers are scrapped ”(Haug, p. 115/116).

See also

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Robert Foltin : Immaterial Labor, Empire, Multitude. New terms in the left discussion. To Hardt / Negri's “Empire” . In: floor plans. 02/2002 (PDF)