Lucian Wester Annotation-Immaterial Labor

Immaterial labor.

Immaterial labor is the concept that describes the shift in work force from manual to mentally labor. Immaterial labor doesn’t make products but its ‘produces the informational and cultural content of the commodity’ as Lazzarato (1996, p.1) describes it. In the act of consuming of an immaterial commodity the product is not destroyed like a normal product but expanse. Moving from the industrial era into the post-industrial era workers where forced to transform and become subject. By doing so workers gain more responsibilities and appear to have more freedom than in the industrial era. But the capitalist only transformed their grasp on them and called it management. One cold argue that the worker hat more freedom before because they where only forced to give there manual work force and not there ‘intellectual’ work force. But why did the capitalist transform their workers? First they didn’t only change their workers but also the consumers. Why? Because capitalism doesn’t create innovation, subject, like workers and consumers, do create new products. And that is why both workers and consumers, who are essentially the same, need to be managed. The people in the post-industrial era are working constantly, not only physical but mostly mentally by communicating with each other and thereby making themselves more valuable. The process of self-management is the way to make yourself into a successful commodity. Lazzerato uses concepts like valoriation form Karl Marx to validate his theory witch could indicate his point off view.

Bibliography Lazzarato wants to continue his research with text of Mikhail Bakhtin and Georg Simmel. In the footnotes he also mentions Walter Benjamin. Both Bakthin and Benjamin where influents by Karl Marx.