Work in the digital age
1. We are completing the transition from industrial capitalism to digital and financial capitalism. And everything – work, democracy, any structural element – must be read from this perspective, if we do not want to be left with melancholy.
Work shapes us: fulfillment – it gives us a place in the world –; socialization – sharing spaces –; identification – we are what we do, at least in industrial capitalism –; overcoming – through struggle to gain status –. And it defines different models of society.
In industrial capitalism, the reference point for work was the factory, a unique place where employers and workers met every day. Political and social institutions were organized on the logic of bourgeoisie/proletariat, which has given a long history, with great episodes of exploitation, but also with positive effects; for example, the construction of the welfare state, especially in the so-called First World.
Now we are in another world. It is an unprecedented technological acceleration that, in large part, sets the pace. The digital explosion is the expression of a profound change in model. The bourgeoisie is blurred under the hegemony of financial powers, and new technologies are overflowing the factory as a frame of reference. An out-of-control elite is growing, endangering democracies. The impacts are crossing borders. And social divides are deepening. The world has become smaller — we are closer to each other — and more intense at the same time.
What does "working class" mean today? The factory – a 19th-century myth – and the office – a novelty of the service capitalism – are blurring as social space. And in the most advanced countries, they are largely emptying, to the point that teleworking is increasingly being implemented. Working from home and buying by email, not even going down to the shop, which used to be a place of socialization. What makes this possible? The digital world. Work is individualized; workers are moving apart; personal, direct relationships with colleagues and employers are declining; the screen rules.
A phenomenon of re-individualization? The private sphere is regaining strength, but at the same time, people are exhibiting themselves more than ever on social networks. The digital world is irremissibly penetrating family intimacy. Less is spoken, occupied with messages. Social networks have become the new framework for socialization (or perhaps dispersal), without going out on the street. Outside the digital, there is no life. This means a new divide: digital/analog.
Is work ceasing to be the lynchpin of society, at a time when machines are catching up with more and more jobs? How is society structured without work as a reference point? In other words, how to avoid abysses of exclusion in this new framework?
2. Should we delve deeper into remote work, which fully enters the logic of individualization, of the blurring of collective spaces? The factory created community. Now socialization happens through screens, with all that this implies for the mutation of the way humans are in the world. From physical contact to virtual contact. Working from home. Confusion between public and private. Loss of unique, personal spaces.
We are moving towards new relations of power and domination. And what is the consequence? A very considerable concentration of power in the hands of very few, who precisely dominate the current instruments of socialization: social networks. The digital world can replace a large part of the workforce and AI can wreak havoc on the current power pyramid.
What will become of the surplus, of those who are not needed? Industrial capitalism was embodied – face to face –; financial and digital capitalism is screen-based. At the same time, access to the digital world is not horizontal: not everyone reaches it equally, but it is an essential toll. Consequently, social fractures are worsening and the sectors at risk of being left out are growing.
Work was experienced as a factor of emancipation in the course of the industrial revolution and gave entity and recognition to the working classes in front of their masters. And now what? New work, new society? More machines and fewer people? Can we really believe, naively, that machines will make our individual emancipation possible, freeing us from burdens, which is the promise with which they want to seduce us?
We have articulated societies around work: the obligation that has been taught to us since childhood, our destiny. Work as an illusion that led to emancipation. If work mutates, where will we end up? Some speak of the development of care, of attention to others. Will we end up making friendship a profession? If industrial capitalism represented massive mobilization towards the factory, what will the financial and digital one lead us to? An invitation from Foment del Treball has led me to this reflection.