Network technology is not only at the heart of a revolution in the mode of production but also at the heart of remapping the field of “socially necessary labor” in Marx’s terms (1990, 129), more specifially redrawing the lines between paid and unpaid labor. And to a large extent crowdsourcing, as a new discursive category of production, entails the transference of parts of the productive process from paid, organized, professional labor force to unpaid, atomized, amateurish enthusiasts. Underlying the digital discourse on crowdsourcing is the assumption that, because of network technology, more socially necessary labor can now be done without or with very little compensation: “The open source software movement proved that a network of passionate, geeky volunteers could write code just as well as the highly paid developers at Microsoft or Sun Micro systems. Wikipedia showed that the model could be used to create a sprawling and surprisingly comprehensive online encyclopedia. And companies like eBay and MySpace have built profitable businesses that couldn’t exist without the contributions of users” (Howe 2006).
An increasingly large chunk of the new economy, according to this source, is built—indeed conditioned—on labor that is not compensated or, as we will see below, involves new, more precarious, and partial modes of compensation. In Marxist terms, this is a case of superexploitation, where the whole value produced is in fact surplus value. And these new relations between capital and labor, according to the digital discourse, have been a trend ever since the introduction of network technology, with companies getting ever more sophisticated at extracting profit with minimal or no monetary return to workers: “All these companies grew up in the Internet age and were designed to take advantage of the networked world. But now the productive potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses, too. For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India and China, for cheap labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are—they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia—as long as they are connected to the network” (Howe 2006).
The network is seen in the digital discourse as a new repository for cheap labor, a mechanism for extracting hitherto unexploited resources. But looked at from the point of view of individuals, it is also a boon for small-scale producers: “Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing” (Howe 2006). The final sentence highlights the fact that crowdsourcing is ultimately interpreted in the digital discourse as a new source of profitability. In that sense, crowdsourcing offers not a break but a continuation of the long history of capitalist exploitation, based on increasing levels of surplus value (rather than simply increased levels of productivity). Outsourcing and crowdsourcing are equated, since they are both manifestations of what network technology can offer in ever more sophisticated manners: cheap labor and increased exploitation. In the uncritical, even triumphant language of the digital discourse, this is not seen as exploitation at all because labor is done by “amateurs,” it is “latent,” and it is done outside of productive time.
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Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age