3.4 The Reification of Communication Technologies
Lukács on Intellectual Workers
In the essay “Intellectual Workers” and the Problem of Intellectual Leadership, written in 1919, Lukács (2014, 12–18) argues that intellectual workers do not form a separate class. Those “who, like manual workers, are able to participate in production only by means of their labour power (white-collar workers, engineers, etc.)” differ
sharply from those whose intellectual work is only an accessory to their bourgeois status (major share-holders, factory owners). The class distinction between these two groups is so clear to the objective observer that it is impossible to bring them together under one heading, as the class of “intellectual workers”. (Lukács 2014, 12)
“Those ‘intellectual workers’ who participate in production therefore belong (with an unclear class consciousness, at best) to the same class as the manual workers” (Lukács 2014, 13). Intellectual workers are not “a homogeneously structured class, since even within their ranks a clear division into oppressors and oppressed” (Lukács 2014, 13) can be found.
Knowledge Workers in the Information Society
In discussions of the “information society” (Webster 2014), a distinction among the agricultural sector, the manufacturing sector, and the service sector is frequently made. As part of this division, information and knowledge workers are often said to form a distinct group within the service sector. The problem of this argument is, as Lukács indicates, that managers who sustain the control of workers and represent the capitalist interest are said to share the same position in the production process as productive knowledge workers, who directly create commodities that are sold in order to yield profit.
Today, the class character of knowledge workers has become even more complex because many creative workers have the status of freelancers: they sell their labour via one-time contracts and do not have the capital necessary to employ others. Freelancing is especially prevalent among knowledge workers such as data inputters, software and web developers, designers, translators, writers, personal assistants, editors, and proofreaders. Such workers sell their labour-power and yield profit for others. As long as a freelancer does not form a business that besides him- or herself also employs others, there is no doubt that s/he is part of the working class. Journalists are either wage-workers or, increasingly, freelancers. Their position in the production process on the one hand makes them part of the working class. But journalists, consultants, and others who serve, as Lukács writes, “material, ideological and power interests” (Lukács 2014, 13) by justifying capitalist interests in their writings, are just like managers part of the ruling class. Only the critical journalists, who investigate capitalism critically, is fully part of the working class and not part of the ruling class.
Chapter Three | History and Class Consciousness 2.0
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The Reification of Communication Technologies