Del i serien Off the Fence: Morality, Politics and Society

Digital Working Lives

Worker Autonomy and the Gig Economy

Inbunden, Engelska, 2022

AvTim Christiaens

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Recent innovations in digital technologies are fundamentally transforming the world of work. A digital gig economy is emerging that threatens to displace traditional labour relations based on legally regulated labour contracts. Companies like Uber, Deliveroo, or Amazon Mechanical Turk rely increasingly on ‘independent contractors’ who earn piece-rate wages by completing tasks sent to them via their smartphones. This development understandably pushes workers to desire more autonomy, but what would workers’ autonomy mean in the digital age? This book argues that the digital gig economy undermines workers’ autonomy by putting digital technology in charge of workers’ surveillance, leading to exploitation, alienation, and exhaustion. To secure a more sustainable future of work, digital technologies should instead be transformed into tools that support human development instead of subordinating it to algorithmic control. The best guarantee for human autonomy is a politics that transforms digital platforms into convivial tools that obey the rhythm of human life.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2022-11-02
Mått157 x 237 x 20 mm
Vikt449 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieOff the Fence: Morality, Politics and Society
Antal sidor170
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781538173732

Tillhör följande kategorier

Filosofiska discipliner inom Filosofi och religion
Arbetsrätt inom Juridik
Mikroekonomi inom Ekonomi och Ledarskap

Tim Christiaens is assistant professor of economic ethics at the Department of Philosophy of Tilburg University in the Netherlands. His research focuses mainly on contemporary economic issues, such as financialization, socio-economic exclusion, and the digitalization of work, viewed through Italian and French critical theory (Foucault, post-workerism, Deleuze, Agamben). His research has been published in journals like Theory, Culture & Society, Philosophy & Social Criticism, Critical Sociology, and European Journal of Social Theory.

1. The Creeping Uberization of Work1.1 What is the Digital Gig Economy?1.2 Post-Workerism and the Struggle for Workers’ Autonomy1.3 Toward Convivial Autonomy in the Digital Gig Economy2. Governing the Workforce: From the Factory to the Digital Gig Economy2.1 The Industrial Factory under Fordism2.2 The Age of Post-Fordism2.3 The Role of Digital Technology in the Post-Fordist Corporation2.4 Conclusion3. Exploitation and the Capture of Social Cooperation3.1 Against the “Free Labour”-Thesis 3.2 The Becoming-Rent of Profit3.3 Digital Capture and Enclave Rent3.4 Digital Capture and Financial Rent3.5 Conclusion 4. Alienation in the Platform Economy4.1 The Ambivalence of the General Intellect4.2 Alienation and the General Intellect4.3 Conclusion5. The Human Limits to Growth5.1 Marx on the Problem of Fatigue5.2 Digital Connection and Fatigue in the Digital Gig Economy5.3 The Hidden Abode of Social Reproduction5.4 Conclusion 6. Workers’ Autonomy as Self-

The global financial crisis of 2007 ushered in the "digital gig economy" and, with it, promises of emancipating workers from human bosses and providing worker autonomy. Digital platforms, such as Uber and Airbnb, offered workers freedom from the traditional labor contract and touted that both individuals and the public would benefit from the platforms' use of idle resources. In Digital Working Lives, Christiaens defines the digital gig economy and studies the work-related problems of digital surveillance. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals.