Archive for publications, June 2022

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[Commlist] New Book: Digital, Class, Work: Before and During COVID-19

Tue Jun 07 12:03:50 GMT 2022






*Digital, Class, Work: Before and During COVID-19
*

*(Edinburgh University Press)*


Orthodox Marxist approaches often suggest that exploitation is today embedded across society as a whole. For example, digital corporations exploit us when we use social media, or we are exploited by financial companies when we take on more debt through credit (so-called ‘secondary exploitation’).

/Digital, Class, Work: Before and During COVID-19/rejects these orthodox approaches in favour of a different Marxist perspective. The book explores class relations in digital work both before and during COVID-19 by carefully distinguishing between different circuits of capital and different class relations of economic exploitation and economic oppression.

The book focuses on a number of class relations in distinctive forms of work: ‘productive’ exploited work, e.g. manufacturing; ‘unproductive’ commercial work, e.g. retail; creative work; gig work; and work in the state and public sector.

The book also maps the class relations in these work processes to three types of digital labour: digital labour (or, what is commonly known as platform labour); digitisation of labour (the application of digital technology to everyday work practices); and digitised labour (when automation and smart machines replace ‘real’ workers in an organisation).

Situating this analysis within the global realms of neoliberalism and financialisation, and drawing on numerous pieces of data, the book demonstrates how the use of digital technology in many workplaces has broadly promoted the interests of ‘unproductive’ global capital, particularly financial capital, both before and during COVD-19.

Contents:

 1. Introduction: Digital, Class, and Work Before and During COVID-19
 2. Digital Prosumer Labour: Two Schools of Thought
 3. Alienated Labour and Class Relations
 4. Neoliberalism, Financialisation and Class Relations Before and
    During COVID-19
 5. Productive Digital Work Before and During COVID-19
 6. Unproductive Digital Work Before and During COVID-19
 7. Creative Industries and Creative Classes Before and During COVID-19
 8. Digital Labour in the Gig Economy Before and During COVID-19
 9. Digital Work in the State and Public Sector Before and During COVID-19
10. Conclusions: Towards a Post-Covid-19 Politics of Class Struggle

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-digital-class-work.html


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