Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University: Academic Labour, Commodification, and Value

Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University: Academic Labour, Commodification, and Value

A new book by John Preston

New York: Routledge

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003081654

eBook ISBN9781003081654

ABSTRACT

Using Marxist critique, this book explores manifestations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education and demonstrates how it contributes to the functioning and existence of the capitalist university.

Challenging the idea that AI is a break from previous capitalist technologies, the book offers nuanced examination of the impacts of AI on the control and regulation of academic work and labour, on digital learning and remote teaching, and on the value of learning and knowledge. Applying a Marxist perspective, Preston argues that commodity fetishism, surveillance, and increasing productivity ushered in by the growth of AI, further alienates and exploits academic labour and commodifies learning and research. The text puts forward a solid theoretical framework and methodology for thinking about AI to inform critical and revolutionary pedagogies.

Offering an impactful and timely analysis, this book provides a critical engagement and application of key Marxist concepts in the study of AI’s role in Higher Education. It will be of interest to those working or researching in Higher Education.

The book is free to read on Creative Commons, @ https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003081654/artificial-intelligence-capitalist-university-john-preston

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

Rules for the World Market

RULES FOR THE WORLD MARKET

Professor Paul Cammack

Tuesday, 27 October 2015, 5-7 PM

Room G3 (SOAS Main Building)

Discussant: Dr Alessandra Mezzadri (SOAS)

Abstract: It is too often forgotten that some of the first calls for structural adjustment from the late 1970s on came from the OECD and the World Bank, and were directed towards the advanced Western economies. These organizations urged them to reform their welfare regimes and to open their economies to exports from the newly industrialised countries in particular. This paper characterises them primarily as producers of rules for the world market, and follows the evolution of the ‘world market project’ through to the present, with reference to the successive conjunctures of 1989-91 and 2008-2009. The principal focus is on the promotion of competitiveness, and the reform of labour markets and social protection. It is argued that the project is best understood as centrally concerned with the development of capitalist relations of production on a global scale.

Professor Paul Cammack received his PhD from the University of Oxford. He was until recently a faculty member in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong, China where he taught Global Political Economy. Professor Cammack has recently published “World Market Regionalism at the Asian Development Bank” in the Journal of Contemporary Asia and a series of Working Papers on the multilateral development banks and the Global Financial Crisis. Professor Cammack’s research interests include the response of multilateral development banks to the financial crisis, the political economy of Latin America, Marxism, south-south cooperation and the politics of development.

ALL WELCOME, NO NEED TO BOOK.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/professor-paul-cammack-rules-for-the-world-market-soas-ocober-27

We Are the Crisis

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

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Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

How Class Works 2016 Conference

Social Class

HOW CLASS WORKS 2016 CONFERENCE

A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook

June 9-11, 2016

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How Class Works – 2016 Conference, to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 9-11, 2016.

Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 9, 2015, according to the guidelines below.  For more information, visit our Web site at <www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass>.

Purpose and orientation: This conference explores ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and the variety of ways in which analysis of societies can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship across the globe.  Theoretical and historical presentations should take as their point of reference the lived experience of class in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, within nations and internationally.  Presentations are welcome from people outside academic life when they sum up and reflect upon social experience in ways that contribute to conference themes and discussion.  Formal papers are welcome but are not required.  All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience.

Conference themes: The conference welcomes proposals for sessions and presentations that advance our understanding of any of the following themes:

* The mosaic of class, race, and gender: To explore how class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic experience, and how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences within various classes shape the meaning of class.

*  Class, power, and social structure: To explore how the social lives of working, middle, and capitalist classes are structured by various forms of power; to explore ways in which class dynamics shape power structures in workplaces and across broader societies.

*  Class in an age of income inequality:  To explore the implications and consequences of the growing income gap between top earners and the rest for the lived experience in class in different corners of the world.

*  Class, Community, and the Environment: To explore ways in which class informs communities and environmental conditions where people work as well as where they live; also to consider questions of “home,” community formation and sustenance, and environmental justice.

*  Class in a global economy: To explore how class identity and class dynamics are influenced by globalization, including the transnational movements of industry, capital, and capitalist elites; the experience of cross-border labor migration and organizing; and international labor and environmental standards.

*  Middle class? Working class? What’s the difference and why does it matter? To explore the claim that the U.S. and other developed nations have become middle class societies, contrasting with the notion that the working class is the majority; to unpack the relationships between the middle class and capitalist, working and other subordinate classes both in the developed and the developing world.

*  Class, public policy, and electoral politics: To explore how class affects public deliberations and policy in a variety of nations around the world, with special attention to health care, the criminal justice system, labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and education; to explore the place of electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces on policy matters.

*  Class and culture: To explore ways in which cultures and subcultures transmit, sustain, and transform class dynamics around the world.

*  Pedagogy of class: To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in labor studies and adult education courses.

How to submit proposals for How Class Works – 2016 Conference:  We encourage proposals for panel sessions (three or four papers) and roundtables that bring diverse perspectives and experiences into dialogue: scholars with activists; those working on similar themes in different disciplines; as well as those working on similar issues in different parts of the world. Proposals for individual presentations are also welcome. Proposals for presentations must include the following information [for session proposals this information must be included for all proposed presentations, as well as indication of presenters’ willingness to participate]: a) short descriptive title; b) which of the conference themes will be addressed; c) a maximum 250 word summary of the main subject matter, points, and methodology; d) relevant personal information indicating institutional affiliation (if an y) and what training or experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter’s name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will be limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal presentations. Sessions will not include official discussants.

Submit proposals as an e-mail attachment to michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu or as hard copy by mail to: The How Class Works – 2016 Conference, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384.

Timetable:  Proposals must be received by December 9, 2015. After review by the program committee, notifications will be mailed by the end of January 2016. The conference will be at SUNY Stony Brook June 9-11, 2016.  Conference registration and housing reservations will be possible after March 7, 2016.

Details and updates will be posted at: http://www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass

See flyer: http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/workingclass/images/HCW-2016%20call.pdf

Conference coordinator:

Michael Zweig

Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life

Department of Economics

State University of New York

Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384

631.632.7536

michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu                   ##

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/how-class-works-2016-conference-proposals-due-december-9-2015

 

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Persistent Unemployment, Automation, and the Transcendence of Capitalism

PERSISTENT UNEMPLOYMENT, AUTOMATION, AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF CAPITALISM

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2015

6:30-9:30 PM

Westside Peace Center

3916 Sepulveda Blvd., near Venice Blvd. (free parking in rear)

Suite 101-102, press #22 at door to get into building

Culver City (LA area)

 

SPEAKERS:

Sarah Mason, former Occupy LA activist

Ali Kiani, Iranian Marxist activist and translator

 

Capitalism today is marked by persistent unemployment, particularly of youth, as well as low-wage labor.  This is not only a local but also a global problem. Although the displacement of human labor by machines is as old as industrial capitalism, it has accelerated and moved into new sectors in recent years.  These issues have been debated widely from Marx’s time, to the Critical Theorists and Marxist-Humanists of the 1950s and 1960s, to today.  Is persistent unemployment due to technological change a further oppression of the working people, or does it offer possibilities for human liberation?  How can both of these issues be connected, in dialectical fashion?  We will explore these issues by examining some pages from Marx’s GRUNDRISSE and CAPITAL, from Herbert Marcuse and Raya Dunayevskaya on automation, and from Paul Mason today.

 

Suggested readings:

Paul Mason, “The End of Capitalism Has Begun,” GUARDIAN, July 17, 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun

Raya Dunayevskaya, “The ‘Automaton’ and the Worker,” PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION, pp. 68-77

Herbert Marcuse, on automation, ONE-DIMENSIONAL MAN, pp. 28-37 http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/64onedim/odm2.html

Karl Marx, Section 5: “The Struggle between Worker and Machine,” in Ch. 15: “Machinery and Large-Scale Industry,” in CAPITAL, Vol. I https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S5

Karl Marx, on machinery in GRUNDRISSE, Nicolaus translation, pp. 699-713, online here https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch13.htm and here https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm

Sponsored by the West Coast Chapter, International Marxist-Humanist Organization

More information: arise@internationalmarxisthumanist.org and http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/

Here is URL for meeting for Facebook, Twitter, etc.: http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/events/los-angeles-persistent-unemployment-automation-and-the-transcendence-of-capitalism

Join our Facebook page: “International Marxist-Humanist Organization” https://www.facebook.com/groups/imhorg/

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

When Work Is Sex

WHEN WORK IS SEX: BODIES, CHOICE AND CAPITALISM

See: http://www.xtalkproject.net/?p=1224
Radical Politics & Critical Perspectives for the Sex Worker Movement
17 December Conference 2015, London
Register Now – tickets on sale http://www.eventbrite.com/e/when-work-is-sex-bodies-choice-and-capitalism-conference-tickets-18706273969

Sex worker activism in the United Kingdom is once again gathering momentum and energy. From Twitter, to the streets of Soho and regular organising meetings, in student unions and universities, sex worker activists can be heard and our voices are strong. The recent decision by Amnesty International to include sex workers’ perspectives in their policy development has reflected a wider shift that sees the value and necessity of incorporating sex workers’ organisations in decision making about the sex industry. But we know that the demand for decriminalisation is just the beginning, not the end of the struggle to transform our industry. We also know that the growing strength of the sex worker movement is producing a number of conflicts and disparate perspectives on how to achieve radical change and transformation. Within our industry there are different experiences of migration, gender and race that impact our safety and ability to earn a living. We often face the paradox of wanting to critique our workplaces, bosses and work but end up having to defend ourselves from radical feminist representations of our experiences and the claim that we are victims in need of rescue. The energy and time it takes fighting to be heard means we often don’t have the space to focus on the very institution we want to bring down: that of capitalist work itself.

When Work is Sex: Bodies, Choice and Capitalism is an opportunity for sex workers, activists and academics who are interested in the politics of work and sex to come together to take stock of the sex worker movement and to consolidate and to strengthen the multiple campaigns, plans and struggles that are already in motion. It will also be a space to debate and discuss some of the different politics and perspectives that have developed in the sex worker movement. We are interesting in asking questions and debating what the goals and orientation of the sex worker rights movement should be. What should a union for sex workers look like? How useful (or limited) is the language of rights? What demands are being made and which should be being made? How can we ‘scale up’ our activities? How can we develop a more robust anti-capitalist orientation? The conference is open to those who are interested in where the sex worker led movement has come from, where it is going and how we can develop a more radical politics of sex work.

The conference is organised into three streams Bodies, Choice and Business. We would like to invite participation in the form of papers, panels and workshops framed around the following themes:

Bodies – How can we address questions and experiences of violence, safety and sexual violence? What does the politics of safe(r) spaces and victimhood mean within the sex worker movement? What are the connections between the criminalisation of (some) bodies and (some) violence? How can we develop a radical concept of autonomy and how could a feminist politics intersect with these concepts?
Choice – How do the discourses of choice, work and identity structure the politics of sex work. How can we approach the politics of consent and notions of freedom? How useful is the claim that sex work is ‘my choice’. What is the role of the entrepreneur in late capitalism and in the sex industry? How can we move beyond the claim for rights and towards a more radical anti-capitalist position?
Business – What are we selling? What are they buying? What does a politics of reproduction bring to the discussion of sex work? How does sex work organise gender and reproductive labour? How has migration changed the conditions of the sex industry? How can we understand our relations of exploitation and complicated class positions in the sex industry?

Submissions for conference papers, panels and workshops are due November 1st. Please send submissions to dec17conf@gmail.com with your name (or working name if you prefer), title, short (300 words max) description and any access or equipment needs you have.

This conference has been organised by the x:talk project and is supported by the Sex Worker Open University, SCOT-PEP and STRASS (France). Email dec17conf@gmail.com to add your organisation’s names to the list of supporters.

On December 17 – the International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers we renew our commitment to solidarity. The majority of violence against sex workers is not just violence against sex works — it’s also violence against transwomen, against women of color, against drug users and against migrants. We cannot end the marginalization and victimization of sex workers without also fighting transphobia, racism, stigma and the criminalization of drug use.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/when-work-is-sex-dec-17-conference-call-for-participation

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Working to Death: Alienated Labor Under Capitalism

Working to Death

WORKING US TO DEATH: ALIENATED LABOR UNDER CAPITALISM

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2015

6:30-9:30 PM

Westside Peace Center

3916 Sepulveda Blvd., near Venice Blvd. (free parking in rear)

Suite 101-102, press #22 at door to get into building

Culver City (LA area)

 

SPEAKERS:

Stephan Hammel, Marxist musicologist

Kevin Anderson, author of Marx at the Margins

Mansoor M., Iranian computer engineer and cultural worker

 

Since the 19th century, capitalism has radically transformed work, making the worker, in Marx’s language, a mere “appendage to the machine.”  This deepened under 20th century assembly lines and has been extended globally today, as seen in places like China or Bangladesh.  In recent years, alienated labor has begun to spread from the factory floor into white collar and professional work in the U.S. and other developed countries. All of this is fueled by fear in a system wherein ever-larger sectors of the population face permanent unemployment and precarity.

Suggested readings:

Recent New York Times article on Amazon (white collar and professional workers) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0

New York Times article on suicides of Apple workers in China from 2012 (factory workers) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html

Marx: Alienated (Estranged) Labor essay from 1844: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm

Marx: Fetishism section from Capital https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4

Sponsored by the West Coast Chapter, International Marxist-Humanist Organization

More information: arise@internationalmarxisthumanist.org

http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/

Here is URL for meeting for Facebook, Twitter, etc.: http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/events/los-angeles-working-us-to-death-alienated-labor-under-capitalism

Join our Facebook page: “International Marxist-Humanist Organization” https://www.facebook.com/groups/imhorg/

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Radical Histories / Histories of Radicalism

The Usual Suspects

RADICAL HISTORIES / HISTORIES OF RADICALISM

CALL FOR PAPERS

RADICAL HISTORIES/HISTORIES OF RADICALISM

A MAJOR CONFERENCE AND PUBLIC HISTORY FESTIVAL

1-3 July 2016, Queen Mary University of London

This international event commemorates twenty years since the death of the leftwing social historian Raphael Samuel and forty years since the founding of History Workshop Journal. The event will explore radical approaches to the past and histories of radical ideas and action through lectures, panels, performances, screenings, workshops and exhibitions.

The event is hosted by Queen Mary University of London and organised by the Raphael Samuel History Centre (www.raphael-samuel.org.uk). It is intended to engage a diverse audience, and to bring together practitioners of many varieties of historical research, curatorship, writing and performance, from both inside and outside the academy. Other venues and partners for the event include Bishopsgate Institute, the London Metropolitan Archives and Tower Hamlets Local Studies Library.

The event will open on the evening of Friday 1st July with a plenary session ‘Radical history then and now’ involving radical historians, historians of radical movements and movement activists, past and present. It will close with a panel discussion on ‘Raphael Samuel and his Legacies’. In between these plenary sessions, there will be papers, film screenings, workshops, meetings and performances, all exploring a wide range of themes and ideas in radical history.

We have grouped these themes as follows:

1. Radical movements:
   History of radical movements and organisations; parties; left-wing activism; working-class radicalisms; national liberation struggles; popular mobilisations, past and present.
2. Diversity, difference and beyond:
   Histories of feminism, gender and sexuality; histories and activism of race and ethnicity; disability politics.
3. Local and global histories:
   Radical London; migration/movement of peoples; empire/post-colonial histories; globalisation; internationalism in a global age.
4. Culture, art and environment:
   Heritage and public history; radical arts; environmental activism; housing politics.
5. History, policy, and the idea of politics:
   Europe; government; elites; the move to the right; austerity; neo-liberalism; the politics of the academy

How to contribute:
Contributions that reflect on any of these themes in relation to any period of history are invited from academic and non-academic historians, and from those working or practising in the arts, education, heritage and culture, as well as activists campaigning in any of these areas.

The themes are indicative only, and we will consider proposals that fall outside them so long as these relate to the overall conference theme. We welcome offers of traditional academic papers but would particularly like to encourage proposals for other session formats likely to engage a varied audience, for example panel discussions, interactive hands-on workshops (for example, around primary source materials), photo-essays, exhibitions and performances. Contributions that focus on any period of history are welcome, as are contributions that offer reflections on methodologies (whether of the historian or the activist).

Please send a 250 – 500 word proposal, including a description of the format and content of the proposed paper, session, workshop, meeting, screenings, or performance. Include an abstract if appropriate, and the names of any other speakers or participants. AT THE TOP OF YOUR PROPOSAL PLEASE INDICATE THE CONFERENCE STRAND (A –E above) TO WHICH YOU THINK YOUR PROPOSAL RELATES MOST CLOSELY.

Please submit your proposal to Katy Pettit, Raphael Samuel History Centre administrator (k.pettit@uel.ac.uk) by Monday September 14th. Proposers will be notified by November 30th.

***

About the Raphael Samuel History Centre (RSHC)
Originally founded by the historian Raphael Samuel at the University of East London in 1996 as the Centre for East London History, and renamed after him in 2008, the Raphael Samuel History Centre has since expanded into a partnership between UEL, Birkbeck College University of London, Queen Mary University of London and Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London.

An extensive range of events, projects and research activities operates under our umbrella as we seek to stimulate debate about the continuing force of the past in the present. Our dynamic and engaged approach to history goes beyond the limits of the academy to include people of all ages and backgrounds.

The Centre is recognised nationally and internationally as the hub for intelligent debate that links history to present-day concerns and crosses boundaries between academic and public/popular history. We aim to put history in conversation both with other disciplines, and with contemporary activism and politics. In the spirit of Raphael Samuel and more broadly of the History Workshop movement, we are committed to a democratic, non-elitist and inclusive approach to history. We aim to support, nurture and encourage both new-career academic historians and those working in history outside academia. We provide a forum for debate about the place of history in public life, in schools, heritage organizations and the media. We enter into partnership with other organizations – large and small – in order to stimulate interest in and discussion of history.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-radical-histories-histories-of-radicalism

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Work and Peer Production

Work

WORK AND PEER PRODUCTION

CALL FOR PAPERS

Journal of Peer Production

Work and Peer Production
Editors: Phoebe Moore (Middlesex University London), Mathieu O’Neil (University of Canberra), Stefano Zacchiroli (University Paris Diderot)

The rise in the usage and delivery capacity of the Internet in the 1990s has led to the development of massively distributed online projects where self-governing volunteers collaboratively produce public goods. Notable examples include Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects such as Debian and GNOME, as well as the Wikipedia encyclopedia. These distributed practices have been characterised as peer production, crowdsourcing, mass customization, social production, co-configurative work, playbour, user-generated content, wikinomics, open innovation, participatory culture, produsage, and the wisdom of the crowd, amongst other terms. In peer production, labour is communal and outputs are orientated towards the further e xpansion of the commons, an ecology of production that aims to defy and resist the hierarchies and rules of ownership that drive productive models within capitalism (Moore, 2011); while the commons, recursively, are the chief resource in this mode of production (Söderberg & O’Neil, 2014).

Peer projects are ‘ethical’ as participation is primarily motivated by self-fulfillment and validated by a community of peers, rather than by earning wages. Their governance is ‘modular’, understood in a design sense (decomposable blocks sharing a common interface), but also in political-economy terms: participants oppose restricted ownership and control by individually socializing their works into commons. Conflicting interpretations of their societal impact have been articulated (O’Neil, 2015). Skeptics view the abjuration of exclusive property rights over the goods they produce as irrelevant, and ethical-modular projects as increasing w orker exploitation: participants’ passionate labour occurs at the expense of less fortunate others, who do not have the disposable income, cultural capital, or family support to engage in unpaid labour (Moore & Taylor, 2009; Huws, 2013). In contrast, reformists, often hailing from a management perspective, suggest that the co-optation of communal labour by firms will improve business practices and society (Arvidsson, 2008; Demil et al., 2015). Finally activists celebrate the abjuration of exclusive property rights, and present ethical-modular projects as key actors in a historical process leading to the supersession of capitalism and hierarchy (Kostakis & Bauwens, 2014).

This last perspective raises a central challenge, which is the avoidance of purely utopian thinking. In other words, how can commons-based peer production reach deeply into daily life? How can ‘already existing non-capitalist economic processes’ be strengthened, ‘new no n-capitalist enterprises’ be built, and ‘communal subjects’ be established (Gibson-Graham, 2003: 157)? An increasingly large free public goods and services sector could well cohabit in a plural economy with employment in cooperatives, paid independent work, and the wage-earning of the commercial sector. However analysis of peer production typically eschews mundane considerations such as living wages, benefits, job security, working conditions, work-induced medical conditions, and debates on labour organization. How can peer production operate as a sustainable practice enabling people to live, if labour and work issues are not formally addressed?

To advance this agenda, the tenth issue of the Journal of Peer Production, titled Peer Production and Work, calls for papers in two linked areas:

*Peer production in a paid work society*
Nowadays firms attempt to monetize crowdsourced labour. The paradigmatic example is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk labourers (popularly known as ‘Turkers’, ‘cloud workers’ or ‘click workers’) who accomplish micro-tasks such as tagging and labeling images, transcribing audio or video recordings, and categorizing products. This extreme modularization of work results in their status being that of independent contractors rather than employees with rights, necessitating novel means of protection and redress (Irani & Silberman, 2013). The so-called ‘sharing economy’ also uses peer production methods, such as the self-selection of modular and granular tasks, to extract ever-more value from the labour of volunteer ‘prosumers’ (Frayssé & O’Neil, 2015). Capitalist firms are also increasingly engaging with ethical-modular organizations, in some cases paying wages to participants. Such labour is thus both ‘alienated’, or sold, and ‘communal’, as workers freely cooperate to produce commons. Do traditional categories such as exploitation and alienation still apply?
Topics may include, but are not limited to:

* Peer production and the global political economy
* Peer production and the rise of precarious work
* Peer workers and possibilities for worker organisation
* Does the autonomy of peer workers cause conflict in firms, and how is it resolved?
* What strategies do firms adopt to co-opt peer production (e.g., ‘hackhathons’)?
* Do tensions around property rights emerge?
* Subjectivity in peer production
* Peer production and intellectual property, coded work

*Paid work in peer production projects*
How does paid labour affect ethical P2P projects? Mansell and Berdou (2010) argue that firms supporting the work of programmers who contribute to volunteer projects, to the commons, will not affect the ‘cooperative spirit’ of projects; nor can this support prevent the results of labour from being socialized into commons. Is this always the case?
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
* How do peer projects deal with the presence of paid or waged labour?
* Is this topic discussed within peer production projects? In what way?
* What benefits do paid or waged workers enjoy in peer projects?
* How does paid labour affect peer production projects?

*Timeline*
300-500 word abstract due: 30 July 2015
Notification to authors: 30 August 2015
Submission of full paper: 31 December 2015
Reviews to authors: 15 February 2016
Revised papers: 30 April 2016
Signals due: 30 May 2016
Issue release: June/⁠July 2016

*Submission guidelines*
Submission abstracts of 300-500 words are due by July 30, 2015 and should be sent to work@peerproduction.net

All peer reviewed papers will be reviewed according to Journal of Peer Production guidelines. See http://peerproduction.net/peer-review/process/
Full papers and materials are due by December 31, 2015 for r eview.
Peer reviewed papers should be around 8,000 words; personal testimonies or ‘tales of toil’ in the Processed World tradition should be up to 4,000 words.

*References*
Arvidsson, A. (2008). The ethical economy of consumer coproduction. Journal of Macromarketing, 8, 326-338.

Demil, B., Lecoq. X. & Warnier, E. (2015). The capabilities of bazaar governance: Investigating the advantage of business models based on open communities. Journal of Organizational Change Management, in press.

Frayssé, O. & O’Neil, M. (2015) Digital labour and prosumer capitalism: The US matrix. Basingstoke: Palgrave, in press.

Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2003). Enabling ethical economies: Cooperativism and class. Critical Sociology, 29, 123-164.

Huws, U. (2013). The underpinnings of class in the digital age: Living, labour and value. Socialist Register, 50, 80-107.

Irani, L. & Silberman, M. (2013). Turkopticon: Interrupting worker invisibility in Amazon Mechanical Turk. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Kostakis, V. & Bauwens, M. (2014) Network society and future scenarios for a collaborative economy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Mansell, R. & Berdou, E. (2010). Political economy, the internet and FL/OSS development. In Hunsinger, J., Allen, M. & Klastrup, L. (Eds.) International handbook of Internet research (pp. 341-362). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Springer.

Moore, P. (2011). Subjectivity in the ecologies of P2P Production. The Journal of Fibreculture FCJ-119. Online.

Moore, P. & Taylor, P. A. (2009). Exploitation of the self in community-based software production: Workers’ freedoms or firm foundations? Capital & Class, 99-117.

O’Neil, M. (2015). Labour out of control: The political economy of capitalist and ethical organizations. Organization Studies, 1-21.

Söderberg, J. & O’Neil, M. (2014). ‘Introduction’. Book of Peer Production (pp. 2-3). Göteborg: NSU Press.

****

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-journal-of-peer-production-work-and-peer-production

 

***END***

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European Labour History Network Conference

Labour History

EUROPEAN LABOUR HISTORY NETWORK CONFERENCE

First ELHN Conference – Turin, 14-16 December 2015

“Factory Level Analysis: A Methodological Exploration”

ELHN website: http://socialhistory.org/en/news/european-labour-history-network

Although among different types of work, industrial work has received the utmost attention by labour historians, studies focusing on a single factory are very few. Factory as a site of both industrial production and social relations of production is often taken as given and treated as the backdrop for the real action. The ELHN Factory History Working Group (FHWG) calls for a reconsideration of this particular workplace as the site of one of the most important relationships in society that between worker and employer with the insights gained from the new social history.

This reconsideration could be carried out on a number of lines some of which are as follows. To begin with, the study of a single factory is based on a complex weave of history, economics, culture, labour, industry, production, and ideology. As such, the history of a single factory lies at the intersection of different disciplines, sub-disciplines and methodological approaches: social history, economic history, business history, urban history, Marxist social theory, sociological inquiry, discourse analysis and micro-level analysis. A complete study of factory history would have to look at a number of social phenomena related to its actual physical existence (such as its relation to urban space, to ecology etc.), as well as its economic, political and social functions. Thus, factory level analysis could put labour history in a dialogue with other historical fields of study resulting in a rich array of details on the experience of industrial work.

The study of the relations in production at the factory level allows the historian to depict the connections between the labour process and the changes in workers’ consciousness and their individual and collective political behaviour could be depicted. Also, factory level analysis makes the divisions within the labour force most visible. Documenting this heterogeneity could also be helpful in understanding different types and levels of militancy, shop loyalty, alienation, and competition among workers. Moreover, a systematic study of factory files could bring the hidden, and isolated instances of resistance to surface. Focusing our attention on the level of factory not only enriches the historical details of that process, it also allows the historian to depict the dense and non-deterministic web of interrelationships at the point of production. Studying a single factory requires that the management is also given special attention. The analysis of the shaping and reshaping of the form and content of the managerial practices in relation to workers’ resistance practices paves the way for a more dynamic depiction of the relations between management ideologies and practices and workers’ reactions to these. Similarly, analysing the changes in the ownership patterns could shed light on their effects on labour relations.

The FHWG invites scholars to explore the methodological possibilities of factory level analysis. Both individual paper proposals and session proposals are welcome.

Please send your proposal (200 words max. for single papers, 8000 words in total max. for sessions) to both coordinators until June 30th 2015.

Görkem Akgöz, Hacettepe University, gorkemakgoz@yahoo.com

Nicola Pizzolato, Middlesex University, N.Pizzolato@mdx.ac.uk

 

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/european-labour-history-conference-factory-history-cfp

***END***

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Corporate Care: Migrant Labour and the Care Industry in Times of (Non) Crisis

Outland

CORPORATE CARE: MIGRANT LABOUR AND THE CARE INDUSTRY IN TIMES OF (NON) CRISIS

CALL FOR PAPERS

Corporate Care: Migrant labour and the care industry in times of (non) crisis

A one-day conference at Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London, 29 October 2015

Deadline: June 12, 2015

Though unsurprisingly hitting the low-income and unemployed harder than ever, the 2007-2011 Global Economic Crisis and subsequent politics of austerity have also revealed the emergence of new and unexpected trends in the West: in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, both non-migrant and migrant women in numerous Western countries were less affected than men in terms of jobs losses, though their working conditions might have not improved. Subsequent austerity policies, on the other hand, seem to have disadvantaged women in terms of working conditions, though they also appear to have reinforced their commitment to paid work (Karamessini and Rubery, ed., 2013; Farris, 2015).

The intertwined fate of non-migrant and migrant women during and after the crisis is due to their position vis-à-vis care, or social reproduction. The assumption that care is a “woman’s job” remains firmly in place, while public state care provision continues to shrink. But while non-migrant women’s rate of participation in the workforce means that they do less unpaid care work in comparison to previous periods, migrant women from ‘post-socialist’ countries and the Global South take on the bulk of the social reproductive tasks in paid form in the booming care industry.

But what is the care industry? How did the crisis change its configuration?

Studies conducted across Europe and the West in the last ten years show that the care industry was not negatively affected by the crisis. On the contrary, the demand for care and domestic service has grown rather than decreased. Moreover, a process of polarization appears to be impacting upon migrant workers employed in the care industry: on the one hand, a proliferation of domestic and care placement agencies as well as so-called ‘non-profit’ organisations (particularly in Southern Europe) is increasingly meeting the growing demand for carers and housekeepers by individual households. Effectively functioning as corporations, many of these organisations are making enormous profits out of mediating for, or directly exploiting, the hugely needed work of migrants in the care sector. On the other hand, anti-immigration policies at the national level and the refusal of numerous states to issue visas for care and domestic workers (particularly during the first years of the crisis) have pushed migrants working in this sector into the underground. But rather than being discouraged to employ migrants, more and more families in fact rely upon “word of mouth” to hire them as carers and housekeepers, as they remain the most cost-effective solution for their caring needs. Yet even in the underground, illegal agencies and organisations profiting from this flourishing industry begin to emerge.

With the crisis and austerity politics in the background, this one day conference aims to analyse this new set of dynamics by focusing upon the care industry, the emergence of corporate care and (female) migrant labour in particular.

While the employment of migrant women in the care industry has been widely studied, the impact of the recent crisis and austerity politics on female migrant labour in the care sector and the boom of care placement agencies have remained largely under-scrutinized.

This conference thus aims to fill a gap in this field of studies by seeking papers that address the following questions in particular:

• How does the increasing presence of corporations and also non-profit organisations in the care industry in a period of crisis and austerity affect the sector?
• How does the profitability of care impact upon our understanding of social reproduction theory in particular?
• How do care and domestic placement agencies change conceptions and cultures of care and domestic work?
• How have the crisis and austerity politics transformed the working conditions of migrants in the care sector in different countries?

Abstracts should be 300 words long and clearly state the question they address. Preference will be given to papers that seek to combine theoretical and empirical work.

Deadline for submission is June 12, 2015. Please send abstracts and any inquiries to s.farris@gold.ac.uk

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-corporate-care.-migrant-labour-and-the-care-industry-in-times-of-non-crisis.-goldsmiths-college-29-october-2015

***END***

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Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex

The Failure of Capitalism

CYBER-PROLETARIAT: GLOBAL LABOUR IN THE DIGITAL VORTEX

NEW FROM PLUTO PRESS:

Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex

By Nick Dyer-Witheford

http://bit.ly/1AeNq5z

—————–

Praise for CYBER-PROLETARIAT:

‘Cyber-Proletariat tracks the eddies and flows of the perfect storm that is contemporary capitalism. This panoramic work reveals the relentless force of material destruction and brutal violence concealed by the sleek surfaces of digital culture’ – Benjamin Noys, Professor of Critical Theory, University of Chichester and author of Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism

—————–

Coltan mines in the Congo; electronics factories in China; devastated neighbourhoods in Detroit. Cyber-Proletariat shows us the dark-side of the information revolution; an unsparing analysis of class power and computerisation.

Nick Dyer-Witheford reveals how technology facilitates growing polarisation between wealthy elites and precarious workers. He reveals the class domination behind everything from expanding online surveillance to intensifying robotisation. At the same time he looks at possibilities for information technology within radical movements; contemporary struggles are cast in the blue glow of the computer screen.

Cyber-Proletariat brings heterodox Marxist analysis to bear on modern technological developments. The result will be indispensable to social theorists and hacktivists alike and essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how Silicon Valley shapes the way we live today.

—————–

ON THE PLUTO BLOG: http://bit.ly/1HsH55Z

READ THE BOOK ONLINE: http://bit.ly/1K0fr0B

—————–

Want an inspection copy for your course? Visit www.plutobooks.com/lecturers.asp for more details.

Want a book for review? Email our publicity team at publicity@plutobooks.com.

Sign up to our newsletter for special offers, news and events: www.plutobooks.com/subscribe.asp.

Follow us online:

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Flickr: flickr.com/photos/95999817@N02/

—————–

Paperback | 9780745334738 | £18.99 / $30 / €23
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PDF | 9781783712816 | £60 / $99

Even Bigger Data

 

***END***

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Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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Why is There Unemployment?

No Future

WHY IS THERE UNEMPLOYMENT?

WHY IS THERE UNEMPLOYMENT?

WHY ARE THOSE WITH JOBS OVERWORKED?

WHAT CAN WE DO?

SUNDAY, MAY 3, 2015

7:00-10:00 PM

Westside Peace Center

3916 Sepulveda Blvd., near Venice Blvd. (free parking in rear)

Suite 101-102, press #22 at door to get into building

Culver City (LA area)

 

SPEAKERS:

Ali Kiani, Iranian Marxist activist and translator

Sarah Mason, former Occupy LA activist

 

Questions to be addressed:

**Why is the U.S. economy characterized by persistent unemployment for tens of millions? Does it stem from the downturn since 2008, from neoliberal capitalism, or is it a permanent feature of capitalism itself?

**Why at the same time are tens of millions required to work long hours, often far beyond the 40-hour-week?  Why has the 40-hour standard, in place for 80 years, not been reduced?

**Are more jobs the solution to unemployment, or does the whole concept of work and wage labor need to be questioned?

 

Those seeking more background before the meeting might consult these readings:

Marx, “The Progressive Production of a Relative Surplus Population or Industrial Reserve Army,” in CAPITAL, Vol. 1 (14 pp.)

Marx, “The Struggle for a Normal Working Day,” in CAPITAL, Vol. 1, Ch. 10, section 6 (24 pp.)

Peter Frase, “Post-Work: A Guide for the Perplexed,” in JACOBIN 2-25-13 (3 pp.)

 

Sponsored by the West Coast Chapter, International Marxist-Humanist Organization

More information: arise@internationalmarxisthumanist.org

http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/

Here is URL for meeting for Facebook, Twitter, etc. http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/events/los-angeles-why-is-there-unemployment-why-are-those-with-jobs-overworked-what-can-we-do

Join our Facebook page: “International Marxist-Humanist Organization” https://www.facebook.com/groups/imhorg/

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

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Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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