Presentation from António Moniz, Bettina Johanna Krings and Linda Nierling at the 5th Meeting of Working Groups, COST action IS1202 – Dynamics of Virtual Work ESTM - Polytechnic Institute Leiria, Portugal Peniche, June 3-5, 2015

1. 1 05.06.2015
Digitalisation and the
commodification of work:
how far we are from Marx?
António Moniz [1,2]; Bettina Johanna Krings [1]; Linda Nierling [1]
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis Karlsruhe
Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany [1]
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa,
Portugal [2]
5th Meeting of Working Groups, COST action IS1202 – Dynamics of Virtual Work
ESTM ‐ Polytechnic Institute Leiria, Portugal
Peniche, June 3-5, 2015

2. 2 05.06.2015
Agenda
1) What is considered as 'digital work'? Assumptions
2) Conceptual approaches of 'digital work'
3) Empirical evidence of 'digital work'
4) 'Digital work' as a new quality of commodity – refering to Marx theory

3. 3 05.06.2015
1 // What is considered as 'digital work'? –
Assumptions
o The discussion on material and immaterial work seems very important
to characterise digital work as part of knowledge-based work
o Digital work is not necessarily immaterial work, although those types of
work also are being digitalised step by step
o Less debate is known about digitalised commodities and especially
about digital work as a commodity
o As commodities can be only nominal or conventional, like a property
right or financial claim; they may not even be tangible objects, but exist
only ideally. In this sense we consider digital work as a digital
commodity
o Digital work can be considered as any form of work (typical or atypical)

4. 4 05.06.2015
2 // Conceptual approach of digital work
o Level of technical dimension of digital work seems significant
o Employees do digital work if they regularly use digital technologies
professionally and if this use comprises a relevant part of the working time.
o Digital technologies here include particularly computer and Internet use.
o Scientific debate of 'Informatisation of work' is the starting point in the 1990s
(Boes, Pfeiffer 2006, Schmiede, Huws):
• new socio-technical practises in many professions (temporal & spatial)
• change of institutional framework of employment (flexibilisation,
'employability')
• Blurring boundaries of work & life (dominant character of work in male &
female biographies)
• Speeding-up processes and intensification of work (new forms of
burden and stress at the work sphere)
• Globalisation of work (dependencies)

5. 5 05.06.2015
2 // Conceptual approach of digital work
o level of work organisation:
• The work organisation itself is becoming digitalised (from the global
value chain to corporate structures up to departmental and project
organization). Here, digitisation can act in four forms, which can be
separated analytically, however, often goes hand in hand in everyday
operations:
o Penetration with the goal of a digital image of the existing work organization
(Controlling, indirect control through SAP/MRP standards).
o Digital standardization, in which organizational processes are adapted to a
digital "one best way" as a result of digitisation the organization changed.
o Digital networking: several organizational units will be connected within a
company, but also across the boundaries of the firm‘ value chain and are
thereby partly restructured. Examples: formalisation of communication,
additive/rapid manufacturing, 3D workshops, tele-working (Chesbrough, H. et al.
2006. Open Innovation, Oxford Press)
o Digital automation: replacing human labor that produces organisational
contexts or concerns cross-organizational processes (Kirchner, S.. 2014. Mobile und
digitale Arbeit in Deutschland TAB)
(cont)

6. 6 05.06.2015
2 // Conceptual approach of digital work
o Level of labour power:
• Adressing the result of digitalisation of formal aspects of the working subjects.
(Brynjolfsson, E. 2013, Wired for Innovation, MIT Press)
• These subjects include basically the contractual forms of employment and
their regulation as well as formal qualifications (Klein, et al. 2015: Chancen
und Risiken mobiler und digitaler Kommunikation in der Arbeitswelt, TAB)
o there is, however, less quantitative and qualitative data available on digital
labour!

7. 7 29.05.15
3// Empirical evidence of 'digital work'
ICT at work: recent evolution in Europe
Evolution of technology use, EU27 (%)
Source: Eurofound (2012): Fifth European Working Conditions
Survey, Luxembourg

8. 8 05.06.2015
3// Empirical evidence of 'digital work'
Sectors with digitalised jobs
o Atypical work
• Design
• Tourism
• Translation
• Training
• Construction
• Agriculture
o Typical work
• Automotive
• Health
• Public administration
• Financial services
• Transport
Source: Eurofound (2012): Fifth European Working Conditions Survey, Luxembourg

9. 9 29.05.15
3// Empirical evidence of 'digital work'
Technology use by occupation, EU27 (%)
Source: Eurofound (2012): Fifth European Working Conditions Survey, Luxembourg

10. 10 05.06.2015
3// Empirical evidence of 'digital work'
Identified problems occuring with work digitalisation
o Data protection
o Investment on technology (policies)
o Intensification of tasks
o Flexibility of working time use
o Precarity of contracts
o De-qualification
o Poor task content
o Productivity (just based on technology or on capital?)
• Deep analysis of the processes is needed!

11. 11 05.06.2015
4// 'Digital work' as a new quality of commodity – refering
to Marx theory
Dimensions taken into account when reflecting problems of 'digital work'
o Human-machine relation
o Work value
o Working time
o Intensification of labour
(cont.)

12. 12 05.06.2015
4// 'Digital work' as a new quality of commodity – refering
to Marx theory
Human-machine relation
o A machine replaces a certain amount of labour. Thus the exchange-
value of a machine, for instance, is determined by the amount of
labour-time expended in its production (Critique of Political Economy
1859, p ).
o Machinery, considered alone, shortens the hours of labour, but, when
in the service of capital, lengthens them; since in itself it lightens
labour, but when employed by capital, heigthens the intensity of labour
(Capital, Vol I, ch. 15)
• How (new) technologies may be implemented which does not dominate whole
working processes but offer space for human creativity and social capacity?
• How digital technology may be developed with regard to principles of
'humanity of work'?
(cont.)

13. 13 05.06.2015
4// 'Digital work' as a new quality of commodity – refering
to Marx theory
Working time
o “Hence the remarkable phenomenon in the history of modern industry,
that machinery sweeps away every moral and natural restriction on the
length of the working day. Hence, too, the economic paradox, that the
most powerful instrument for shortening labour-time, becomes the most
unfailing means for placing every moment of the labourer's time and
that of his family... “
• How (IC)technology can contribute to increase the value of production
without increasing the extension of working time?
• How to re-construct moral restrictions on the length of the working day by
providing material existence to the workforce?
(cont.)

14. 14 05.06.2015
4// 'Digital work' as a new quality of commodity – refering
to Marx theory
Work value
o Machinery produces relative surplus-value; not only by directly depreciating
the value of labour-power (…) but also enabling the capitalist to replace the
value of a day's labour-power by a smaller portion of the value of a day's
product (Capital, vol. I, ch.15)
o What is characteristic is the saving of necessary labour and the creating
of surplus labour. The higher productivity of labour is expressed in the
fact that capital has to buy a smaller amount of necessary labour in order to
create the same value and a greater quantity of use values, or that less
necessary labour creates the same exchange value, realizes more material
and a greater mass of use values. (Marx: Grundrisse, p. 325)
• How the work-value may be increased and distributed equally with the use of
digital technologies?
• How the value of work may be considered not only on the quantitative
production output, but on the quality of the value-added in the product?
(cont.)

15. 15 05.06.2015
4// 'Digital work' as a new quality of commodity – refering
to Marx theory
Intensification of labour
o The mode of producing relative surplus-value consists in raising the
productive power of the workman, so as to enable him to produce more
in a given time with the same expenditure of labour(...) This
condensation of a greater mass of labour into a given period
thenceforward counts for what it really is, a greater quantity of labour
(Capital, vol. I, ch.15)
o The use of machinery may increase the surplus-labour at the expense
of the necessary labour by heightening the productiveness of labour
(Capital, vol. I, ch.15).
• How working time may be measured more qualitatively?
• How the 'reproductive sphere' of society and its recreation may be
introduced into the intensive mode(s) of production?

16. 16 05.06.2015
o Labour is a totality (Marx, Grundisse, p. 401) of combined work of the
different workers, and its material unity appears subordinate to the
objective unity of the machinery, of fixed capital, which, as animated
monster, objectifies the scientific idea, and is in fact the coordinator,
does not in any way relate to the individual worker as his instrument
(402).
Thank you for your attention!