Digital Working Lives

Tim Christiaens is assistant professor of economic ethics at the Department of Philosophy of Tilburg University in the Netherlands. His research focuses mainly on contemporary economic issues, such as financialization, socio-economic exclusion, and the digitalization of work, viewed through Italian and French critical theory (Foucault, post-workerism, Deleuze, Agamben). His research has been published in journals like Theory, Culture & Society, Philosophy & Social Criticism, Critical Sociology, and European Journal of Social Theory.

The global financial crisis of 2007 ushered in the "digital gig economy" and, with it, promises of emancipating workers from human bosses and providing worker autonomy. Digital platforms, such as Uber and Airbnb, offered workers freedom from the traditional labor contract and touted that both individuals and the public would benefit from the platforms' use of idle resources. In Digital Working Lives, Christiaens defines the digital gig economy and studies the work-related problems of digital surveillance. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

• 1. The Creeping Uberization of Work1.1 What is the Digital Gig Economy?1.2 Post-Workerism and the Struggle for Workers’ Autonomy1.3 Toward Convivial Autonomy in the Digital Gig Economy2. Governing the Workforce: From the Factory to the Digital Gig Economy2.1 The Industrial Factory under Fordism2.2 The Age of Post-Fordism2.3 The Role of Digital Technology in the Post-Fordist Corporation2.4 Conclusion3. Exploitation and the Capture of Social Cooperation3.1 Against the “Free Labour”-Thesis 3.2 The Becoming-Rent of Profit3.3 Digital Capture and Enclave Rent3.4 Digital Capture and Financial Rent3.5 Conclusion 4. Alienation in the Platform Economy4.1 The Ambivalence of the General Intellect4.2 Alienation and the General Intellect4.3 Conclusion5. The Human Limits to Growth5.1 Marx on the Problem of Fatigue5.2 Digital Connection and Fatigue in the Digital Gig Economy5.3 The Hidden Abode of Social Reproduction5.4 Conclusion 6. Workers’ Autonomy as Self-