2008), who work completely for free and help maximize the rate of exploitatior (e = s / ν = surplus value / variable capital) so that profits can be raised and new media capital may be accumulated. This situation is one of infinite exploitation o the users. The wages paid to users for their surplus value generation equal zero, sc that the rate of exploitation converges toward infinity. This means that capitalist prosumption is an extreme form of exploitation, in which the prosumers work completely for free. Marx (1867) distinguishes between necessary labor time anc surplus labor time. The first is the time a person needs to work in order to create the money equivalentfor a wage needed for buying goods that are neededfor her or his survival. The second is all additional labor time. Users are not paid on corporate social media (or for consuming other types of corporate media); therefore they cannot generate money for buying food. All time spent on corporate socia media servicesis surplus labortime.
Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) reported that Chinese Foxconn workers who produce iPhones, iPads, iPods, MacBooks and other information and communication technologies face the withholding of wages, forced and unpaid overtime, exposure to chemicals, harsh management low wages, unsafe work environments, and lack of basic facilities.7 In 2010, eighteen Foxconn employees attempted suicide, and fourteen of them succeeded.8 SACOM describes Foxconn workers as “Slave Behind the iPhone."9In February 2012, Foxconn announced a 25% salary increase.1º This shows, on the one hand that civil society pressure and struggles can improve working conditions and, on the other hand, that corporations, due to the drive to raise profits immanent to capitalism, do not automatically care about the lives of their employees, which presents an ongoing challenge for civil society and watchdog groups to monitor corporate irresponsibility and corporate crime. Given the frequent lack of resources among such groups, the monitoring is cumbersome and incomplete and shows the limits of and inhumanity built into the capitalist system. This example shows that the exploitation andsurveillance of digital labor—labor that is needed for capital accumulation with the help of Internet communication technologies—is in no way limited to unpaid user labor butincludes various forms of labor—user labor, wage labor in Western companies for the creation of applications, and slavelike labor that creates hardware and some software in economic developing countries under inhumane conditions. Digital labor is based on the surveillance, blood, and sweat of superexploited labor in economic developing countries. Post-Fordism does not substitute Taylorism, but it looks more like an even bloodier form of Taylorism.
Toward a Communist Internet in a Communist Society
We are living in times of crisis, unrest, and global transformations. Some observers have argued that understanding and mastering these times requires the “renaissance of Marxist political economy" (Callinicos 2007: 342). “Once again the time has come to take Marx seriously"(Hobsbawm 2011: 419). Göran Therborn has argued that the “new constellations of power and new possibilities of resistance" in the 21st century require retaining the “Marxian idea of human emancipation from exploitation, oppression, discrimination" (Therborn 2008: 61).
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Organized Networks in an Age of Vulnerable Publics