Network production entails a discursive redefinition of workers, with two key analytical innovations. The first is the dissociation of work (i.e., the investment of labor power in production) from employment (i.e., the institutional arrangement of livelihood, or the embeddedness of individuals within the social arrangement of production). The notion of “workers,” in fact, becomes an unstable signifier standing for hobbyists and dabblers. By extension, this redefinition also legitimates new modes of employment. This is of course not only an innovation but also a continuation of a long process of the rationalization and automation of production where labor and skills are increasingly objectified and are hence dissociated from the laborer (Aronowitz and DiFazio 1994; Braverman 1974; Robins and Webster 1999).
The second analytical innovation is the construction of workers as “prosumers,” an amalgam of producers and consumers. This renders the distinction between labor and capital obsolete and allows equating big corporations with small-time hobbyists; analytically, both are seen as homologous units of prosumption that can now meet in the digital marketplace and trade directly as equals. Moreover, with the redefinition of workers as prosumers, the category of “worker” as a distinct category is eliminated and instead the worker emerges as entrepreneur, an attribute I discussed in the previous chapter (Greenbaum 1995, 92; Huws 2003; Sennet 2006, 52).
It is through these analytical lenses that we can comprehend the astounding reference to the talent and work power of the crowd as “latent” (Howe 2006). According to this framework, only network technology is able to uncover and mobilize this talent and work power into productive results and, of course, with the condition that this talent is not paid or poorly paid. We must ask, then, why is it latent, and why can it only be uncovered and mobilized with network technology? Some answers can be glimpsed from some of the case studies of crowdsourcing explored in the article.
Network Production
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