[microsound] "When Facebook Isn't Fun, or, Why iLife Isn't My Life: Immaterial Labor in the Age of Web 2.0" (Draft)

[Charlie DeTar]

Thanks for sending this!  It's a fun to think about.

There are two aims this outline presents that I am sympathetic to:
 * Highlighting the imbalance of contributions to web2.0 sites when
those contributions become owned by the web2.0 corporations
 * Searching for ways to promulgate ideas about alternative ways to view
the world, outside a capitalist perspective; trying to break capitalist
hegemony and understand its modes of self-perpetuation.

That said, I find the over-reliance on Marxist analysis to fall a bit
flat.  Many Marxist ideas are worth considering, and are certainly
important from a historical perspective, but even the example of a "Karl
Marx facebook page" reeks of ineffectual undergraduate clubs which
rehash old ideas and dream of the proletarian revolution as they picket
a university.  I'm skeptical of any overtly Marxist analysis finding
traction in the Web2.0 world, thus I'm skeptical of section V in the
outline.

I don't believe this is just a problem with the fashionability (or lack
thereof) of Marx -- I think there are theoretical problems with this as
well.  It seems that the primary crux of this outline has to do with
labor -- the labor people contribute to web2.0 sites.  The Marxist
analysis would criticize capitalist labor for the alienation of workers
from the fruits of their labor.  But you can't claim that a Facebook
contributor is alienated from their contributions to Facebook -- the
user will have a flashier "wall", nicer photos, more in-depth and
possibly more meaningful relationships with friends, etc.  You can't
pretend that these are merely workers driven into an exploitative
relationship with a capitalist boss.  People are free to use the system
to the extent they wish, and to stop using it at any time, and they get
value from their use.  There may be edge cases where someone gets hurt
by not using Facebook, but this is a stretch.

It is precisely this positive value proposition that makes Facebook
popular, and this is where it is insidious as well:  Facebook exploits
momentum, lack of critical analysis, and an initial lack of superior
alternatives to become hegemonic.  But I don't think this has much to do
with labor, it seems to me that there's a deeper phenomenon of cultural
momentum going on that might be interesting to explore.  You might find
some ideas in the work of Andrew Feenberg here -- he's a
Science/Technology/Society researcher/philosopher exploring the
relationship between social and technical production.  Chapter 5 of his
book "Questioning Technology" deals with the problems of human agency in
a technocratically dominated world; this might be relevant.

A couple of other directions that I would like to see an analysis like
this go:  first, it ought to consider the movements for Free Cultural
Works and Free Software.  These are astonishingly successful movements
where, without the theoretical baggage of anti-capitalism, people are
trying to create societal structures that promote the sharing of work in
a way that preserves freedoms beyond those afforded by the
Facebooks/YouTubes, and thus would eliminate the corporate control over
peoples' production.  The definitions (see
http://freedomdefined.org/Definition ) take into account the radically
different nature of digital production from the agrarian production Marx
was familiar with.

Second, you might consider alternative conceptions of what labor is.  I
found this essay on Buddhist Economics to have a refreshing alternative
perspective on labor, which takes a holistic view on human wellness
rather than the assumption that labor is an inherent "bad":
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
Particularly where the labor you have in mind is labor undertaken during
as recreation, it seems disingenuous to claim that the only value of the
labor is in the commodity that is derived from it.

cheers,
Charlie

David Powers wrote:
> "When Facebook Isn't Fun, or, Why iLife Isn't My Life: Immaterial
> Labor in the Age of Web 2.0"
> 
> ***DRAFT OUTLINE***
> 
> I. It Is Your Patriotic Duty to Consume
> 
> Consumption, in the capital system, is not only a means of individuals
> reproducing themselvees, i.e. in the consumption of basic necessities;
> it is objectively necessary to the reproduction of the system. Thus
> Bush must admonish good Americans, in the wake of 9/11, to please go
> on consuming as usual. Underconsumption represents a danger to the
> system, especially to a system based on overproduction of goods that
> are not produced on any rational basis but only in the hopes of
> realizing a profit (i.e. according to Marx commodities exist only for
> their exchange value, not for their use value). It is imperative for
> capitalism that the commodity be consumed at some point, in order for
> capital, which has been invested in creating the commodity form, may
> again return to the form of money and thus capital. (M-C-M =
> Money-Commodity-Money).
> 
> II. The Curse of Consumption as (Re)Production
> 
> Thus, the more one consumes commodities, the more one participates in
> the reproduction of capitalism. The consumption of commodities is one
> aspect of the reproduction of everyday life under capitalism.
> Consumption of commodities, in this sense, must be understood as an
> entire system, that includes the consumption of advertising material,
> the work of choosing which commodities to buy, and the choice of a
> lifestyle or identity based on the consumption of particular kinds of
> commodities, both physical and cultural commodities (i.e. the high
> school student who identifies as "goth" or the enlightened consumer
> who buys only organic food and listens to NPR). Consumption, far from
> being an exercise of individual freedom, is in capitalism a duty and a
> form of unpaid work which is essential to the ongoing survival of the
> system.
> 
> III. The Reproduction of Everyday Life
> 
> Understanding the productive aspect of consumption requires
> understanding the way capitalism, as a totality, reproduces itself in
> all the mundane details of everyday existence. The works of Adorno and
> Lefebvre are key here, for both wrote extensively on this very
> subject. By exploring their theories, we can deepen our understanding
> of how contemporary capitalism operates not only in the realm of
> production, but as a total system that produces and reproduces persons
> and subjectivities and not only commodities.
> 
> IV. Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free
> 
>>From consumption, we must now return to the realm of production in its
> cultural (and immaterial) form. With the so called "web 2.0
> revolution," we find that consumers are, in their leisure time, also
> becoming producers. But in this case, they are performing unpaid labor
> in the service of major corporations. Whereas once corporations had to
> pay workers to produce content for individuals to consume during their
> so called "free time," now consumers are producing such content
> themselves, for free! (This gives a whole new meaning to the term
> "free time"). Insofar as this production occurs on large corporate
> websites, such as MySpace and Facebook, consumer-producers are in fact
> allowing themselves to be exploited, creating capital (and surplus
> value) for the large corporations without receiving any compensation.
> 
> V. The Struggle for Everyday Life
> 
> Despite the overwhelming colonization of everyday life by the forces
> of capitalism, there are always already new possibilities for struggle
> opened up by changes in technology including the so called Web 2.0
> revolution. Especially, the same technologies used by the major
> corporations are also available to individuals and can be used in
> alternative ways; mailing lists, blogs, bulletin boards, and personal
> websites offer the possibility to produce critical thought and to act
> in non-productive ways that do not strengthen the system. Indeed,
> while overall the Facebook phenomena is an example of a new form of
> exploitation of immaterial labor, its content is ambivalent; one can
> imagine a Karl Marx or Theodor Adorno Facebook page, that uses the
> technology precisely in order to spread critical thinking that weakens
> the system, dispels ideology, and breaks through reified and false
> consciousness. One can also organize anti-capitalist and subversive
> actions more effectively using the internet, cell phones, and Web 2.0
> technologies. As long as capitalism exists there will also exist the
> possibility for anti-capitalist action, a possibility that lays the
> groundwork for future revolution.
> 
> ***
> 
> This is obviously just an outline, and the essay itself will require
> extensive research to complete. Constructive comments would be greatly
> appreciated.
> 
> David Powers
> March 5, 2009
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