Labor in the Global Digital Economy: The Cybertariat Comes of Age

by Ursula Huws

For every person who reads this text on the printed page, many more will read it on a computer screen or mobile device. It’s a situation that we increasingly take for granted in our digital era, and while it is indicative of the novelty of twenty-first-century capitalism, it is also the key to understanding its driving the relentless impulse to commodify our lives in every aspect.

Ursula Huws ties together disparate economic, cultural, and political phenomena of the last few decades to form a provocative narrative about the shape of the global capitalist economy at present. She examines the way that advanced information and communications technology has opened up new fields of capital in culture and the arts, in the privatization of public services, and in the commodification of human sociality by way of mobile devices and social networking. These trends are in turn accompanied by the dramatic restructuring of work arrangements, opening the way for new contradictions and new forms of labor solidarity and struggle around the planet. Labor in the Global Digital Economy is a forceful critique of our dizzying contemporary moment, one that goes beyond notions of mere connectedness or free-flowing information to illuminate the entrenched mechanisms of exploitation and control at the core of capitalism.

Genres: Economics, Sociology

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

Reviews

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something this book does very well for the general reader is to convey a graphic sense of the structure of current labor relations, and how technology has transformed the field of play between labor and capital. This fills an important gap.

[Gökhan Can · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yazar bu kitapta daha önceki makalelerinde incelediği görüşlerini bir araya getirmiş. Değişen ve karmaşıklasan yalnizca emek değil. Sermaye, kapitalist yapılanma, ilişki ağları ve en nihayetinde sınıflar değişiyor günümüzde. İnsanların yeni sistemde nasıl yer aldıkları ve bu değişen sistemlerin bizleri nereye götürdüğü ara vermeden incelenmesi gereken süreçler. Bu yolda yazılmış bir kitap. Amacına oldukça gerçekçi şekilde hizmet ediyor. Çözüme dair yollar şu an önümüzde belirmediği için 205 sayfalık küçük ölçekli bir kitaptan daha fazlasını beklemek haksızlık olur kanaatindeyim. 5 yıldıza yakın bir 4 yıldız. İçinde yaşadığımız sisteme dair fikir geliştirmenize doğru şekilde yardımcı olabilecek bir kitap.

[Emilio Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes, I decide to read books without any additional reason that a catchy word in the title. This book is one of those cases. I discovered it by chance reading an article about the gig economy. I do not remember the article, but the usage of the term "Cybertariat" immediately captured my curiosity. It is difficult to imagine a better word to define the emerging class of digital workers. As you can imagine, I felt an imminent urgency to read the book that was mentioned in the footnote as the first book where the term appeared (according with the version of the author of the article, of course). That book was "Labor in the global digital economy. The Cybertariat comes of age".

The books has an excellent title, but also quite valuable contents. It is composed of seven essays that explores the impact of the introduction of technology on the labour relationships. One appealing thing of the book style is that the approach of the analysis is mainly based on the classical definitions of labour, the creation of value, surplus, commoditization and other elements that can be found in the books of Marx, Ricardo, Adam Smith and other XIX century economists.

Although all the chapters deserve a reading, I would like to recommend particularly the first essay and the essay before the last. Both of them are about different topics so can give you an idea of the multifaceting of the book. The article called "What will we do?" explores the reasons why ICTs provoke a continuous pressure towards the dissapearance of jobs characterised by stability and the demand of high skils. The essay "Crisis as a capitalist opportunity" describes why ICTs serve as a support for the commoditisation and privatisation of Public Services.

Maybe you have alredy reached the conclusion that the book is a luddite pamphlet. If that is the case you would be in an error. The book is quite neutral and descriptive about what is happening and even put forward in some essays some solutions for a more social-friendly adoption of ICT in the working environment. It doesn´t mean that the book does not reflects a concrete ideology. However, whatever are your political ideas, this is a book you should read if you are interested in digital economy policy making.

[Nikhil Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an insightful collection of essays that picks apart the various strands of inter-relationships built into the global digital economy. It introduces new ways of thinking about the emerging digital model of capitalist production, the changing meaning of employment, the unraveling of old modes of social solidarity and restructuring of the economy. It asks the most banal yet important question: who pays, for what, to whom. The frameworks described in this book challenge the analytical foundations of capitalist relationship between labor and capital.

[Sedanur Demir · Rating 5 out of 5]

çesitli emek çözümeyicileri (marx, engels, standing gibi) ve onların analizleriyle karşılaştırmalı kendi yeni düzen analizlerini sunan, akıcı, bilgi noktasında doyurucu bir eser.