Critique of Immaterial Labor

* Article: REALITY CHECK: ARE WE LIVING IN AN IMMATERIAL WORLD? By Steve Wright , 23 November 2005. Mute, Vol. 2, No. 1, Special Issue: Underneath the Knowledge Commons.

URL = https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/reality-check-are-we-living-immaterial-world

Summary

From the Reading notes of Michel Bauwens, 2006:

Immaterial labor is defined as labor that produces the informational and cultural content of the commodity (Lazzarato).

In the book Empire, 3 aspects are mentioned:

- 1) "the reshaped instance of industrial production which has embraced communication"

- 2) symbolic analysis and problem solving

- 3) affective labor in the service sector

Faced with critiques, they qualified it further in "Multitude"

- 1) "we are not saying that most workers in the world produce immaterial goods"

- 2) "the labor involved remains material; it involves our bodies and brains" - Negri argues that such labor is immeasurable and that the 'law of value' no longer applies. Wright notes that capital seeks to externalize labor costs, if possible to unpaid forms. Caffentzis argues that high tech industries suck out value from high labor sectors, and that on their own, they would collapse:

   - "the computer requires the sweatshop; the knowledge worker requires the slave"

- To determine the value, we should not look at the individual worker, but at the aggregate worker.