Digital labour, academic labour and Karl Marx
Below are some initial notes on Christian Fuchs’ book, Digital Labour and Karl Marx (2014). I think it was published about six weeks ago and as far as I can see, has yet to receive any substantive...
View ArticleThe realm of freedom
“…the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual...
View ArticleOn the ‘abolition of labour’
First, from Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, pp.292-3 “The labor process itself is the life of the proletariat. Abolition of the negative ordering of labor, alienated labor as Marx terms it, is...
View ArticleCo-operative labour attacks the groundwork of capital
Below is a section from Marx, written around the same time that Capital Volume 1 was published (1866/7). It is a useful reminder of Marx’s own activism at a time when he was also writing the most...
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The Co-operative University: Labour, property and pedagogy
My paper for the conference, Governing Academic Life is available for download and I welcome comments here or via email. Thank you. Abstract We are witnessing an “assault” on universities (Bailey and...
View ArticleOpen Co-operatives (2)
In the first part of my notes on ‘open co-operatives’, I focused on Michel Bauwen’s most recent statement, Why We Need a New Kind of Open Cooperatives for the P2P Age. There, he outlines four...
View ArticleWages for Students!
“We are fed up with working for free We demand real money now for the schoolwork we do. We must force capital, which profits from our work, to pay for our schoolwork. Only then can we stop depending on...
View ArticleWriting About Academic Labour
This essay calls for a return to the labour theory of Marx, or rather to Marx’s negative critique of labour and its “pivotal” role in comprehending the political economy of higher education. It argues...
View Article“Labour is not a commodity”. Mapping out assumptions on ‘labour’ in the...
I’m approaching co-operative higher education in terms of ‘labour, property, and pedagogy‘ (a revised, refereed journal paper should be published early next year). With this in mind, I’ve been thinking...
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“If the amateur did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.”
My research into the ‘rebirth’ of classical guitar-making in Britain (1947-57) has led me to read around the literature on the ‘amateur’ and ‘autodidact’. There is not much literature to work with,...
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