{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","uuid":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","normalized_title":"digitallabortheinternetasplaygroundandfactory","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","isbns":["9780415896948","9780415896955","9780203145791"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":267,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/DIGITAL%20LABOR%20THE%20INTERNET%20AS%20PLAYGROUND%20AND%20FACTORY","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/search"},"page":{"printed_page":53,"pdf_page":60,"physical_index":60,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"0fbff181ec5ee03c7f8cbee697ccc587484f49aecc80d3cf5ed76948b22c7a94"},"chapter":"DIGITAL LABOR","content":"Within the economic limits of capitalist economies, then, living labor is doubly exploited. To the increasing exploitation clearly visible in the domain of waged digital work (decreasing autonomy and falling wages for increasing productivity), we have to add, then, a new kind of exploitation—that which concerns the immaterial commons of cultural and technical production. Such exploitation must be conceptualized differently than the one concerning waged work. It implies a privatization of the wealth produced byfree labor that takes theshape of an impoverishment of potential users’ appropriation of the fruits of such labor. This impoverishment can be understood in terms of the unilateral appropriation and hence accumulation of the wealth generated by users interactions (both personal data, which become property of the company, and the general activity of sharing, posting, linking, commenting, etc.) but also in the actual qualityof the participation to the digital economy constrained bythe control unilaterally exercised by web giants on the technical configurations ofsocial networking platforms. As the mechanisms of such expropriation are clearly embedded within forms of financialization that impoverish society as a whole, asking for the liberation of free labor means asking for two things: that such profits be returned to those who actually produce them—that is, to living labor—and that social networking platforms should be deprivatized—that is, that ownership of users' data should be returned to their rightful owners as the freedom to accessand modify the protocols and diagrams that structure their participation.\n\nThese seem like simple conclusions, but their consequences are far reaching. Giving free labor access to the wealth that it generates cannot mean, as Michel Bauwens has argued, paying users individually. As the wealth generated by free labor is social, so should be the mode of its return. This means investing this wealth in the reproduction of the common—that is, in new forms of welfare (from the institution of basic guaranteed incometo larger investments in housing, health, education, knowledge, technology, and so on). This implies enormous shifts not only within the specific domain of the digital economy but within the global economy as a whole, which run counter to the current trend toward austerity, reduction of the cost and rights of labor, and extreme competitiveness. Who is the subject that should carry on such struggle to reverse the tendency toward further impoverishment and exploitation? Where is the passage from the class in itself to the class for itself?\n\nThe ambiguity of the current condition is implied in the fact that the means through which such passage can be accomplished are given (with the possible exception of Anonymous) within the context of those social media technologies that today are fully privatized and embedded in the capitalist economy at large. It is within these media that we are witnessing the formation of social and political movements that question not so much the specific domain of social media use but\n\nFree Labor\n\n53","previous_page":null,"next_page":null}