Overview

Marxist discourse around automation has recently become waylaid with breathless techno-pessimist dystopias and fanciful imaginations of automated luxury communism. This collection of essays by both established veterans of the field and new voices is a refreshingly sober materialist reflection on recent technological developments within capitalist production. It covers a broad range of digital aspects now proliferating across our work and lives, including chapters on the digitalisation of agriculture, robotics in the factory and the labour process on crowdworking platforms. It looks to how 20th century Marxist predictions of the 'workerless factory' are, or are not, coming true, and how 'Platform Capitalism' should be understood and critiqued. Through rich empirical, theoretical and historical material, this book is necessary reading for those wanting a clear overview of our digital world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Florian Butollo (Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, Berlin) ,  Sabine Nuss (Karl Dietz Verlag) ,  Jan-Peter Herrmann
Publisher:   Pluto Press
Imprint:   Pluto Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.50cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 21.50cm
Weight:   0.344kg
ISBN:  

9780745344379

ISBN 10:   0745344372
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   20 February 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Language:   English

Table of Contents

Introduction - Florian Butollo and Sabine Nuss 1. Automation: Is It Really Different This Time? - Judy Wajcman Part I: Productive Force between Revolution and Continuity 2. ‘Voracious Appetite for Surplus Labour’ - Elena Louisa Lange 3. Industrial Revolution and Mechnisation in Marx - Dorothea Schmidt 4. A Long History of the ‘Factory Without People’ - Karsten Uhl 5. The Journey of the ‘Automation and Qualification’ Project - Frigga Haug 6. ‘Forward! And Let’s Remember’ - Christian Meyer Part II: Robots in the Factory – Vision and Reality 7. High Tech, Low Growth: Robots and the Future of Work - Kim Moody 8. Productive Power in Concrete Terms - Sabine Pfeiffer 9. Drones, Robots, Synthetic Foods - Franza Drechsel and Kristina Dietz Part III: Digital Work and Networked Production 10. Networked Technology and Production Networks - Florian Butollo 11. Computerisation: Software and the Democratisation of Work as Productive Power - Nadine Müller 12. Designing Work for Agility and Affect’s Measure - Phoebe V. Moore Park IV: Platform Capitalism under Scrutiny 13. Old Power in Digital Garb? - Christine Gerber 14. The Machine System of the Twenty-first Century? - Felix Gnisa 15. Digital Labour and Prosumption under Capitalism - Sebastian Sevignani 16. Artificial Intelligence as the Latest Machine of Digital Capitalism - For Now - Timo Daum 17. Forces and Relations of Control - Georg Jochum and Simon Schaupp Notes on Contributors Notes Index

Reviews

'Excellent ... summarises the entire breadth of the debate about Marx and digitisation' -- Soziologie Magazin 'Stands out, [...] bringing a remarkably wide range of perspectives to debates often dominated by technological determinism and fetishisation. A compelling analysis of contemporary trends that combines theoretical sophistication with an unusual breadth of empirical detail' -- Virginia Doellgast, Professor of Comparative Employment Relations, ILR School, Cornell University 'In this engaging and valuable collection, Butollo and Nuss show how Marx's lens on the industrial revolution can help us examine and interpret the digital transformation' -- John Zysman, Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley and Co-Founder, Co-director - Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) 'Brilliant. From factory to platform, from value to variety, the authors analyse the past, present and futures of work. Highly recommended for radical educators' -- Kendra Briken, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow 'An essential volume on digitalisation and platforms, moving beyond technology fetishism and technological determinism to highlight the contradictory nature of technical change within capitalism' -- Matt Vidal, Reader in Sociology and Political Economy, Loughborough University, London 'Cuts through the hype about automation and artificial intelligence to explain how technologies actually make it from the showroom to the factory floor' -- Aaron Benanav is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University and the author of 'Automation and the Future of Work'

'Excellent ... summarises the entire breadth of the debate about Marx and digitisation' -- Soziologie Magazin

Author Information

Florian Butollo is a Research Fellow for Globalisation, Work, and Production at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, Berlin. Sabine Nuss is managing director of the Karl Dietz Verlag. As a political scientist, she has published books on Karl Marx's analysis of capitalism, economic crises in capitalism, digitalisation and automation.

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