<html><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><META name="Author" content="Novell GroupWise WebAccess"></head><body style='font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; '><DIV>Jan,</DIV> <DIV>But that is a form of exploitation. If the farmer himself worked on the lland, then the landowner extracted surplus labor from him in the form of surplus product. But, if the farmer used someone else`s labor, then the farmer shared the surplus labor extracted from the laborer with land owner. In both cases the land lord extracts surplus labor, which is the precise definition of economic explotation.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now exploitation can have many different forms and is not limited to the extraction of surplus labor, whether directly or in the form of products or money.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hence, when we claim that Facebook and google exploit , first we need to specify the forms of exploitation, second we need to specify who exploits whom. </DIV> <DIV>In my view contrary to the claims of the proponents of the Cinematic Mode of Production , Attention Econmists, and Brand Economists facebook and goole do not extract any surplus labor from the users, though they may exploit them in other forms, which as said, need to be specified. I enclose here a slightly edited version of a short essay, I wrote on this matter in a different contex.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 13.5pt; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: #888888; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN" lang=EN><Xxml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 13.5pt; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="DISPLAY: none; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: #888888; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-hide: all" lang=EN><A href="http://snuproject.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/occupy-wall-street-and-the-peer-to-peer-revolution-a-discussion-with-michel-bauwens-part-ii/"><SPAN class=meta-nav><SPAN style="COLOR: #888888; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">←</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="COLOR: #888888; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none"> Occupy Wall Street and the Peer-to-Peer Revolution: a discussion with Michel Bauwens Part II</SPAN></A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="DISPLAY: none; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: #888888; FONT-SIZE: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-hide: all" lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><Xxml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Whom Does Facebook Exploit?</FONT></st1:place></st1:City></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">A brief response to Chris Land’s and Steffen Bohm’s Short Essay: “They are exploiting us! Why we all work for Facebbok for free”</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">The gist of the essay is the following hypothesis: The users of Facebook produce value in the same way as wage workers produce it. Hence, Facebook exploits users by expropriating this value.</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">Although I have a great respect for Land’s and Bohm’s good intentions and sympathize with their anti Facebook sentiments their claim that Facebook exploits users by extracting value from them is wrong. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Facebook definitely exploits someone. But whom? The answer is:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>the total world wage labor which is exchanged with capital (variable capital). <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is Marx’s definition of productive labor under capitalism. From the point of view of capital only the labor that produces value and surplus value is productive. Only, in this limited sense productive labor is equated with<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>the wage labor, whether material or immaterial, which is exchanged with capital. Otherwise, all labor as far as it is a purposeful activity is productive, because it produces something, whether material or immaterial. </FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">The overwhelming part of the value expropriated by <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>consists of rents which are extracted from the<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>worldwide wage labor. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Hence to claim that Facebook users produce value is to deny the role of wage laborers and their antagonism to rent-extracting entities such as Faceebook and Google.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Marx, in Vol. 3 of Capital, demonstrates how the surplus values that are <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>produced by different <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>sections of working class become a total pool and then <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>are redistributed among industrial<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>and commercial capitalists ( in the form of profit), Bankers (in the form of interest ), and land owners (in the form of rent). So the source of both interest and rent is surplus value produced by the labor which is exchanged with capital.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We use banks on daily basis and banks lend our money (savings, pensions..) to others in exchange for<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>interests. It would be absurd to claim that users of banks produce value for banks. We spend time and energy to use bank services, even when we use credit cards. But this energy -time does not produce value, because it is not exchanged with capital. Even when users pay fees to banks for using services they, do not produce values but buy values which are produced by bank workers. It is equally absurd to claim that the users of Facebook and Google produce value. Facebook and Google extract rents that are parts of the total surplus value which is produced by the wage laborers worldwide. </FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Actually the knowledge economy in general rests on the shoulders of the wage labor which is exchanged with capital outside it. The overwhelming part of the value circulating in the knowledge economy is produced by wage labor outside it, though knowledge workers themselves also contribute to the total surplus value to the extent that their labor is exchanged with capital (variable capital).</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">The thesis that users produce value for Facebook may lead to the following practical misleading conclusion. The users should build their own p2p cooperatives of Facebooks and Googles, and sell information and collect fees for adverts.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is apparently a fair exchange, because, the members of such cooperatives appropriate the value they themselves have produced. But, such cooperatives only replace Facebook in extracting surplus value in the form of rent from the wage labor. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The thesis foregrounds rentier forms of p2p communities.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Hence, the thesis is indeed a mystification of the exploitation of labor by capital.</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">To conclude the claim that users produce value for Fcebook is a very bad thesis. We should not fight to become rent suckers but to abolish wage labor, surplus value, in all its forms including rent.</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">With solidarity</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Jakob</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">. </FONT></P></DIV> <DIV> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Jakob Rigi</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology</FONT></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><st1:place w:st="on"><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Central</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">European</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></FONT></FONT></st1:place></P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Budapest</FONT></st1:place></st1:City></P></DIV> <DIV><BR><BR> </DIV>>>> "Jan Nolin" <JAN.NOLIN@HB.SE>04/11/12 4:44 PM >>><BR> <META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19190"> <DIV>Mark,<BR>This is a very important discussion. For some of the reasons you mentioned, I find "exploitation" to be a bit misleading for these phenomena. I think we need to develop new and more specific concepts for the things that we analyze. One concept that has some promise is "digital sharecropping", suggested by Nicholas Carr. This creates a parallel to the traditional forms of sharecropping where the farmers worked the land while the land owners reaped the profits.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>/Jan<BR><BR></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <DIV>..........................................<BR>Jan Nolin, PhD <BR>Professor <BR>Bibliotekshögskolan/Institutionen för biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap<BR>Högskolan i Borås<BR>501 90 Borås<BR></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><A href="http://www.hb.se/wps/portal/forskning/forskare/jan-nolin">http://www.hb.se/wps/portal/forskning/forskare/jan-nolin</A></DIV> <DIV><BR>Telefon: + 46 (0)33 435 43 36<BR>Fax: +46 (0)33 435 40 05</DIV>>>> Mark Andrejevic <markbandrejevic@gmail.com> 2012-04-11 03:11 >>><BR>Thanks Christian,</DIV> <DIV>I'm looking forward to the conference -- and have greatly appreciated the pre-conference discussions. I'm very interested to see that there are at least a couple of talks that focus on the question of exploitation. The term has become an important one for me because I'm trying to come up with a formulation other than privacy to explore areas of concern about the collection and use of personal information in the digital era. Recent events in Europe and the US related to Google and Facebook's handling of personal information demonstrate how powerful the privacy "frame" is for talking about the wholesale capture of personal data for commercial purposes is -- and yet, in many cases we are talking about processes of information capture that do not violate conventional expectations of privacy (such as looking at aggregate patterns without attempting to drill down and identify individuals) and in other cases we are talking about forms of privatization (the capture and proprietary use of particular types of data) that rely on conventional understandings of the relationship between privacy and property. </DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>The notion of exploitation looks like a useful one to me because it points to the underlying patterns of commercial ownership and control of communication infrastructures that are coming to colonize an increasing range of social interactions and behavior. The seemingly "free" and ubiquitous character of services provided by Google and Facebook has led to our treating them as if they are public utilities, when of course they are private, for-profit, commercially driven companies whose decisions play an important role in shaping the information environment upon which we are becoming increasingly reliant. When I started studying the mass media -- then considered to be primarily TV, newspapers (magazines), and radio (with some cinema and sound recording thrown in) -- there was a strong critical emphasis on "media monopoly" and the political economy of those industries that shape our information environment. The advent of the World Wide Web and attendant forms of techno-enthusiasm seems to have had the perhaps temporary effect of sidelining such questions as core elements of media studies, and one of the reasons I am looking forward to this conference is that it brings together people who have been challenging this tendency from the start.</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>I have been taken to task on occasion for enlisting a term traditionally associated with critical approaches to the analysis of human suffering and immiseration in the realm of production to critique apparently voluntary forms of behavior that take place outside the realm of production "proper" -- intriguingly such challenges have, on occasion, come from people who have otherwise worked to destabilize these oppositions (by highlighting the convergence of consumption and production, etc.). I am sensitive to the observation that providing data for Facebook is qualitatively different from laboring under sweatshop conditions, and yet, I continue to think that the notion of exploitation usefully points to the structured relations of power that allow for the capture and use of personal information -- often as a tool that can be turned back upon those who generate it. I also think that it is important to note the ways in which the online economy is not isolated from the broader economy that continues to rely on more brutal conditions of exploitation, shored up by the very same relations of ownership and control. </DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>As part of the lead up to the conference I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts about the potential and limitations of the critique of exploitation as a way of thinking about the forms of value production that take place in the context of social media. </DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>As a side note, Facebook's reframing of its privacy policy as a "data use policy" is perhaps a suggestive one -- privacy advocates I know saw it as a move by Facebook to attempt to distance itself from privacy concerns. To me, this looked to like an opportunity to focus on the question of data use and perhaps sidestep the way in which the commercial sector has been working to exploit the ambivalence of the notion of privacy. </DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>I'd be interested in people's thoughts. </DIV> <DIV>best,</DIV> <DIV>Mark</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV><BR><BR> <DIV class=gmail_quote>On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 5:18 PM, Christian Fuchs <SPAN dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:christian.fuchs@uti.at">christian.fuchs@uti.at</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class=gmail_quote>Friday, May 4th, 2012<BR>* Mark Andrejevic (University of Queensland, Australia): Social Media: Surveillance and Exploitation 2.0<BR>* Andrew Feenberg (Simon Fraser University, Canada): Great Refusal and Long March: How to Use Critical Theory to Think About the Internet.<BR>Chair: Christian Fuchs<BR><BR>Mark's and Andrew's talks will bring up questions like the following ones: How do corporations use social networking sites? What is exploitation 2.0 and how does the exploitation of labour work on social media? How is online life commercialized, branded, and monetized? What is the role of surveillance in online exploitation? How can critical theory adequately reflect and criticize these developments?<BR>How relevant is Herbert Marcuse's thinking and critical theory today? What is an adequate strategy for transforming the Internet? Does it require a "Great Refusal" (Marcuse) or a "Long March through the Institutions" (Dutschke, Marcuse)? Does Critical Theory require a blanket condemnation of the Internet? Does Critical Theory need a long march strategy that assesses the Internet's reality against its potentials? What is the essence of the Internet? What is the existence of the Internet? Is there a difference between essence and existence of the Internet? What is a true Internet? What a false Internet?<BR><BR>Pre-conference discussions on these and related questions are welcome over the mailing list.<BR><BR>***<BR><BR>MARK ANDREJEVIC<BR>University of Queensland, Australia<BR><BR>Social Media: Surveillance and Exploitation 2.0<BR><BR>ABSTRACT: This presentation explores the ways in which social networking technologies are being taken up by the commercial sector as ways for integrating social and work life. Thanks to the popularity and ubiquity of social network technologies in some sectors of the population, companies are finding ways to exploit the social connections of their employees, customers, and clients, leading to start-up companies that seek to monetize social network data by linking it with consumer relations databases and other technologies for target marketing. When important aspects of people’s social lives migrate onto commercial platforms these become subject to marketing imperatives, self-branding becomes a new (or updated) form of employee asset. The goal of the presentation is to develop a theoretical approach to the commercialization and monetization of online social life. To what extent might the critique of exploitation be updated and brought to bear upon the productivity of social networks? What aspects of this critique help illuminate the wholesale commodification of social relationships, and what are the implications of relying upon a privately owned commercial infrastructure for their development? The critique of exploitation directs us back to these questions. It urges us to consider the ways in which the commercialization of the platform turns our own activity back upon ourselves in the service of priorities that are not our own, and it reminds us of the double duty done by the privately controlled interactive infrastructure. This infrastructure might serve as a platform for new forms of creativity, deliberation, communication, interaction, and consumption. At the same time, though, it works to assemble the most comprehensive system for mass monitoring in human history. The accusation associated with the critique of exploitation reminds us of the ways in which new forms of marketing driven surveillance help turn our own productive activity back upon ourselves in the service of ends that are not our own.<BR><BR>SPEAKER INFO: Mark Andrejevic is a media scholar at The University of Queensland, Australia. He writes about surveillance, new media, and popular culture. In broad terms, he is interested in the ways in which forms of surveillance and monitoring enabled by the development of new media technologies impact the realms of economics, politics, and culture.<BR><BR>***<BR><BR>ANDREW FEENBERG<BR>Simon Fraser University, Canada<BR>Great Refusal and Long March: How to Use Critical Theory to Think About the Internet<BR><BR>ABSTRACT: Herbert Marcuse suggested two different strategies at different points in his career. The Great Refusal implied a strategy of non-cooptable demands. This notion stemmed from a dystopian sense of the total systematization of society and was in harmony with the uncompromising opposition of the early New Left. But in the later period of what Marcuse called the “preventive counter-revolution”, he adopted Rudi Dutschke’s slogan of “the long march through the institutions”. The choice at this time was between withdrawal, terrorism and participating critically. Marcuse advocated the latter.<BR>I want to think about our critical stance toward the Internet in terms of these two strategies. Does Critical Theory require a blanket condemnation of the Internet? This seems to be the conclusion drawn by many observers. Hypothetically, this could lead one to a Great Refusal of the Internet and all its works, withdrawal to an Internet-free zone of some sort. I will argue that we need a long march strategy based on a much more nuanced critique. We need to measure the Internet against its real potentials and defend it against real dangers rather than condemning it unqualifiedly.<BR><BR>SPEAKER INFO: Andrew Feenberg holds the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, where he directs the Applied Communication and Technology Lab. His main areas of research are Critical Theory and philosophy of technology.<BR><BR>______________________________<U></U>_________________<BR>Discussion mailing list<BR><A href="mailto:Discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net" target=_blank>Discussion@lists.icts-and-<U></U>society.net</A><BR><A href="http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net" target=_blank>http://lists.icts-and-society.<U></U>net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-<U></U>icts-and-society.net</A><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV>. </body></html>