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

*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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