{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","uuid":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","normalized_title":"digitalcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","isbns":["2021022153","9781032119182","9781032119205","9781003222149","2405518376"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":343,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Digital%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/search"},"page":{"printed_page":66,"pdf_page":80,"physical_index":80,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"284be6835356b763c7d88967109370a73cd37db4deed1e32e92b12fdf47a73e1"},"chapter":"DIGITAL CAPITALISM","content":"(CWCE, 242). Already in this early work by Engels, it becomes evident that he did not understand communism as a totalitarian state but as a democratic socialist society. Consequently, Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party spoke of communism as “the struggle for democracy”<sup>4</sup> (Marx and Engels 1848a, 481).\n\nThe struggle for the reduction of the working day is the practical combination of economic and political struggles. In England, the 1847 Ten Hours Bill was the result of the combination of the socialist, the union and the Chartist movement. In the 1860s, the First International, in which Marx and Engels were key figures, formulated the demand of “eight hours work as the legal limit of the working day” (International Working Men’s Association 1868, 5).\n\nIn 1919, the International Labour Organization passed the Hours of Work (Industry) Convention and in 1930 the Hours of Work (Commerce and Offices) Convention that defines the standard working week as not exceeding 48 hours per week and eight hours a day. In 2020, 52 countries had passed the first convention and 30 the second. Given there are 193 member states of the United Nations, it is evident that only a rather low number of countries have signed these international conventions. The prevalence of temporary work, zero-hours contracts, part-time work, freelance labour, etc. shows that labour-time remains a key dimension of the class antagonism between capital and labour in the 21st century.\n\nIn 2020, the digital productive forces are developed to a high degree so that labourtime could be significantly reduced and everyone could work fewer hours but lead a better life. But digital technologies are embedded into what Marx and Engels termed the antagonism between the productive forces and the relations of production.\n\nIn the Communist Manifesto, they speak of the “revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production” in capitalist society “that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange” and “is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells” (Marx and Engels 1848b, 489). In digital capitalism, the antagonism between the digital productive forces and capitalist relations of production takes on the form of an antagonism between digital capital and the digital commons. On the one hand, there are new forms of capital accumulation in the digital industries that combine a variety of digital commodities and digital labour. On the other hand, there are new forms of the digital commons – such as not-for-profit online platforms, non-commercial news media, Wikipedia, the free and open-source software, non-commercial Creative Commons, platform co-operatives, the free software movement, radical open access, etc. – that go beyond digital capital and practically question capital accumulation. The antagonism between the digital machines and class relations has advanced the radical asymmetrical distribution of labour-time. Whereas some workers are highly stressed, have no leisure time and work very long hours, others are unemployed, underemployed, or precarious workers. The productive forces enable a substantial reduction of the standard working day that allows a more symmetrical distribution of labour time and a good life for all. Establishing a reduction of the working week without wage cuts requires class struggles for radical reforms of labour legislation. Just like the labour movement struggled for first for the ten-hours- and then for the eight-hours-working day, in digital capitalism, we need struggles for the five-hours-working day and a fourday-working week with full wage compensation. Such struggles point towards a postscarcity society, in which digital technologies are used to minimise necessary labour time and maximise free time and the good life for all.\n\n66\n\nTheorists\n\n4 Translation from German: “die Erkämpfung der Demokratie”","previous_page":65,"next_page":67}