This book offers a critical account of Karl Marx’s dazzling theory of labour power which is also one of the most influential concepts in the history of contemporary philosophy. Labour power is the dark side of the digital revolution. Working men and women are invisible and treated like human service, flesh and blood automatons or organic extensions of a machine that produces data on its own. Automation is viewed as something magic made possible by algorithms whose life is independent of human beings. Labour power, however, has not disappeared. Without drivers, Uber cannot connect customers on its platform; without searches on its browser, Google grinds to a halt; without us, Facebook or Instagram is desert. Labour power is the dwarf hidden inside the puppet of technology that allows algorithms to be intelligent and make the biggest profits in the history of capitalism. The invisible centrality of labour power is the political enigma of our times. Today a new account of the theory of labour power is needed more than ever in order to understand the political economy of digital capitalism on new grounds. Unlike a long tradition in the history of work, labour power is not only the work or the data it produces, but a potency that does not coincide with its current commodification. The actuality of labour power does not exhaust the virtuality that can be actualised by its faculty. Even when reduced to a commodity, labour power does not exhaust the potency of its being otherwise. Immersed in the constant propaganda that boosts the latest technological inventions, we neglect the fact that this wealth is produced by us and that it could be ours precisely because it is a part of our potential to be other than what we are at present. This book is a vibrant invitation to consider the fact that we are always connected with the potency that is constantly at work in our life. If this were not the case, we would not be alive. If we do not strive to become consciously and collectively active, we will never know.

Much of the debate on the future of work has focused on responses to technological trends in the Global North, with little evidence on how these trends are impacting work and workers in the Global South. Drawing on a rich selection of ethnographic studies of precarious work in Africa, this innovative book discusses how globalisation and digitalisation are drivers for structural change and examines their implications for labour. Bringing together global labour studies and inequality studies, it explores the role of digital technology in new business models, and ways in which digitalisation can be harnessed for counter mobilisation by the new worker.

This volume contains an English translation of Karl Marx's influential essay.

The attention economy is a notion that explains the growing value of human attention in societies characterised by post-industrial modes of production. In a world in which information and knowledge become central to the valorisation process of capital, human attention becomes a scarce and hence increasingly valuable commodity. To what degree is the attention economy a specific form of capitalist production? How does the attention economy differ from the industrial mode of production in which Marx developed his critique of capitalism? How can Marx’s theory be used today despite the historical differences that separate industrial from post-industrial capitalism? The Attention Economy argues that human attention is a new form of labour that can only be understood through a systematic reinterpretation of Marx. It argues that the attention economy belongs to a general shift in capitalism in which subjectivity itself becomes the territory of production and exploitation of value as well as the territory of the reproduction of capitalist power relations.

The classic text of Italian workerism available in English for the first time Workers and Capital is universally recognised as the most important work produced by operaismo, a current of political thought emerging in the 1960s that revolutionised the institutional and extra-parliamentary Left in Italy and beyond. In the decade after its first publication in 1966, the debates over Workers and Capital produced new methods of analysis and a new vocabulary for thousands of militants, helping to inform the new forms of workplace, youth, and community struggle. Concepts such as “neocapitalism,” “class composition,” “mass-worker,” “the plan of capital,” “workers’ inquiry” and “co-research” became established as part of the Italian Left’s political lexicon. Five decades since it was first published, Workers and Capital remains a key text in the history of the international workers’ movement, yet only now appears in English translation for the first time. Far from being simply an artefact of the intense political conflicts of the 1960s, Tronti’s work offers extraordinary tools for understanding the powerful shifts in the nature of work and class composition in recent decades.

Dockworkers have power. Often missed in commentary on today's globalizing economy, workers in the world's ports can harness their role, at a strategic choke point, to promote their labor rights and social justice causes. Peter Cole brings such overlooked experiences to light in an eye-opening comparative study of Durban, South Africa, and the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Path-breaking research reveals how unions effected lasting change in some of the most far-reaching struggles of modern times. First, dockworkers in each city drew on longstanding radical traditions to promote racial equality. Second, they persevered when a new technology--container ships--sent a shockwave of layoffs through the industry. Finally, their commitment to black internationalism and leftist politics sparked transnational work stoppages to protest apartheid and authoritarianism. Dockworker Power not only brings to light surprising parallels in the experiences of dockers half a world away from each other. It also offers a new perspective on how workers can change their conditions and world.

Essential writings from classical and contemporary sociological theorists engagingly introduced and brought to life for students This Concise Reader in Sociological Theory contains excerpts from the writings of a wide range of key theorists who represent the dynamic breadth of classical and contemporary, macro- and micro-sociological theory. The selected writings elaborate on the core concepts and arguments of sociological theory, and, along with the commentary, explore topics that resonate today such as: crisis and change, institutions and networks, power and inequality, race, gender, difference, and much more. The text contains editorial introductions to each section that clearly explain the intellectual context of the theorists and their arguments and reinforce their relevance to sociological analysis and society today. The excerpts include writings from the classicists Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, W.E.B. Du Bois to the contemporary Patricia Hill Collins, Dorothy Smith, Raewyn Connell. This indispensable book: Offers a concise review of the diverse field of sociological theory Includes contributions from a wide range of noted classical and contemporary theorists Incorporates engaging empirical examples from contemporary society Demonstrates the relevance and significance of the ideas presented in the theorists’ writings Designed for undergraduate and graduate students in sociology and in social and political theory, Concise Reader in Sociological Theory is an engaging and accessible guide to the most relevant sociological theorists.