notes on 'The Fantasy of Equivalence'

story © Michael Betancourt | published December 7, 2017 | permalink |  |  

An erasure of ontological distinctions plays a crucial role in the commodification of human labor as an assumption of equivalence between not only differently skilled labor, but the products of that labor: that the variable quality of production does not figure into its valuations. This basis is innate to the question Karl Marx addresses at the start of his analysis, “Why is labor represented by the value of its product (commodities), and labor time by the magnitude of that value?,” which reveals equivalence as a foundational, even necessary part of the definition of capitalism. Although exchange value arises from social activity, it is at the same time dependent on the suspension of difference—equivalence reifies the commodity form as an abstraction apart from its materiality, a separation that recalls the aura of the digital—returning digital capitalism to its origins in the industrial labor. Marx’s analytic enshrines equivalence by setting aside distinctions between high and low quality, as well as between skilled and unskilled labor, in order to advance an abstraction of that productive process that depended on the assumption of the interchangeability of commodities, labor, and capital. His disregard for the material and qualitative differences between commodities mirrored the labor-intensive manufacturing processes of the period when he developed his critique: the concern with the productive capabilities of labor as a constraint on production provides a literal limit on quantity, valuation, and quality of the productive labor performed, for example, by the unskilled child labor employed in the factories Marx was considering. This issue—child labor—is an implicit and unacknowledged component assumption for his analytic, one that simultaneously passes without comment in its construction but that guides the conclusions he derives.

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story © Michael Betancourt | published December 6, 2017 | permalink |  |  

The emergence of the “fake news” phenomenon in the United States during 2016 and 2017 demonstrates the political applications of agnotology, quite apart from its structural role in maintaining digital capitalism. In being used for obviously political ends, agnotology reveals its foundations in equivalence: a social relations and assumptions, whether between instances of ‘type,’ qualitatively distinct actions, or in divergent forms of immaterial (intellectual) labor are symptoms of the expansive semiotic processes of digital capitalism.

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story © Michael Betancourt | published November 12, 2017 | permalink |  |  

The German translation of The Critique of Digital Capitalism is available for pre-order from the publisher, WBG Verlag!

Die größten, erfolgreichsten und mächtigsten Unternehmen unserer Zeit sind längst nicht mehr nur im klassischen produzierenden Gewerbe zu finden. Der atemberaubende Erfolg von Firmen wie Facebook oder Google beruht auf der Bereitstellung immaterieller Dienstleitungen, insbesondere aber auf der Sammlung von Daten.

Mit seiner ›Kritik des digitalen Kapitalismus‹ legt Michael Betancourt eine scharfe Analyse dieser neuen ökonomischen Verhältnisse vor und beleuchtet deren Eigenschaften und Probleme. Von der vermeintlichen Demokratisierung der Gesellschaft durch die freie Verfügbarkeit von Informationen über die Illusion der kostenfreien, weil nicht physischen Herstellung digitaler Produkte bis zur Neudefinition des Verhältnisses materieller und immaterieller Güter: Betancourt setzt sich mit den Begleiterscheinungen der digitalen Wirtschaft auseinander, die schon längst unser Leben bestimmen und prägen.

story © Michael Betancourt | published July 9, 2017 | permalink |  |  

The capitalist conception as labor value being wholy dependent on the amount of time required for production, described by Karl Marx as a foundational principle of his critique, depends on an assumption of equivalence between not only differently skilled labor, but on the products of that labor. This fantasy authorizes the valorization of intellectual labor and production regardless of its validity within the database: the precession of agnotology around this apparent relativism depends on the same beliefs in equivalence, a reification of abstract principle as instrumentality. Marx’s analytic reveals this fallacy precisely in setting aside the issues of distinction between labor in order to advance an abstraction of that productive process—his disregard for the material differences between skilled an unskilled labor mirrored the labor-intensive productive processes of the period when he developed his critique: the concern with the productive capabilties of unskilled labor as a constraint on production provides a literal limit on the production work performed, for example, by child labor.

story © Michael Betancourt | published December 5, 2016 | permalink |  |  

CTheory has posted my new article, "The Paradox of Agency," that describes the new alienation we all live within: created by automation, this alienation masquerades as a liberating force enabling fluid forms of identity/action/being in the digital society, but if and only if we accept the limited range of constraints generated by the digital system’s builders. A new, contemporary alienation originates from within this affective surplus of agency created by digital systems. Any action or behavior not contained by this structural preconception is designated as “invalid”—rendered impossible through a technology that transforms the social restrictions into instrumentalities that cannot be questioned. The limits of this “freedom” are immediately apparent in the situation of “gig” workers (such as on-demand labor) whose work is managed by autonomous systems. The separation of action from result by the aura of the digital reveals this alienation in the paradoxical dispersal of efficacy and immediacy of control.