This text highlights relationships between different regimes of labour and how they are exploited by capital, in the context of textiles and clothes. Global inequalities are being exploited through the help of ICT and the general drive to labour saving techniques. What makes matters worse is that those participating as producers and consumers remain invisible to each other.
Paper delivered as part of Networks and Sustainability stream at the 6th European Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, 15 – 19 June 2010, Riga, Latvia. Soon to appear in a publication edited by RIXC The Centre for New Media Culture.
This text argues that the erosion of privacy is not a by-product of information and communication technologies, but a systemic property of informational capitalism. The foundational myths of the information society motivate and legitimise the building of control systems applying probabilistic techniques to control future risks. At the root of this configuration are antagonistic labour relationships which have determined the path of technological development since the Industrial Revolution. Those tendencies have reached a culmination in the recent neo-liberal crisis. The digital commons offers itself as an incomplete and tentative remedy.
This text is a first draft, trying to identify key topics for an inquiry into the new organisation of labour. It starts with a historic analysis and then explores the notion of Post-Fordism.Specific sections are devoted to cognitive capitalism, the creative industries, informational capitalism and the split between manual and mental labour. It ends with a modest proposal for an alternative path of development.
This excellent book by Harry Braverman revolves around the main thesis, that labour in the 20th century has become 'degraded'. The combined effects of mechanization, scientific management and other control techniques allowed management to wrest control from workers and enforce, under ever changing circumstances, alienating practices onto workers across all industries, including office and service jobs.
My current flexi-job in the Land of Cog involves research on an arts project. It's a good gig – my colleagues/managers are old friends, the hourly rate is better than normal here (AUS $27 per hour), and the work interesting. The core of my work is interviewing artists and tradespeople who have been partnered in a professional exchange project.
