V Organon 1

Tomislav Medak erlag fürHandbücher of abstraction The hardmatter The hard matter of abstraction A guidebook to domination by abstraction Tomislav Medak

V erlag für Handbücher Three ways Hyperbolic diagnostic to approach Critique of ideology Real abstraction abstraction 6

Domination Abstract labor, commodity, value by abstraction Real abstraction, social epistemology and technoscience 16

Abstracting Scientific management and the the labor deskilling of labor Labor in the circuits of computerization 31 _____Automating the automators _____Algorithmically driven automation

Owning the The standardization and the soft abstraction law of global exchanges Copyrights and labor wrongs 58 Commodified science and disutility of copyright

Contents 6 H_____yperbolic diagnostic complexity, the social imaginary When faced with the question, develops a diagnostic that what are the developments tends to isolate one social trans- that structure the present, the formation – a hyperbole – that social imaginary resorts to it sees as a privileged point of hyperbole. The epochal chan- entry or one transformation ges over the last decades, that dominates all of the others. catalyzed by the parallel rise of digital communication So much so that the chosen

technologies, the knowledge (March 13, 2011), 1938 social transformation then typi- economy, the “new global cally serves as a name giver order“, the global neo-liberali- for an entire epoch. We are thus zation, the creeping crisis of purported to live under socie- US hegemony, climate change, ties of control, Empire, perma- “A nos amis” (La Fabrique Eds, 2014); Paul Crutzen et nos amis” (La Fabrique Eds, 2014); “A Anthropocene: Conceptual and Historical al., “The of the Transactions Perspectives”, in “Philosophical A: Mathematical, Physical and Royal ” of London Engineering Sciences 369, no. the war on terror, and the 842 – 67, doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0327. nent of exception, regime mass surveillance, form a com- of governing by crisis, the an- plex matrix of interdepend- thropocene, and so on.1 Tech- ent social transformations that nology-driven transformations 7; Michael neither common sense nor – are in particular conducive to critical analysis can easily en- such detection of epochal chan- compass and comprehend ge. Technologies can have a dis- in their totality. Faced with this ruptive impact on our social relations and our relations to the Three ways to environment, an impact that approach abstraction 1_____These are respectively central concepts in Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the of Control”, 3 in “October” 59 (January 1, 1992), Antonio Negri, “Empire” (Harvard University Hardt and Agamben, “State of Exception” 2000); Giorgio Press, (University of Chicago Press, 2005); Comité Invisible, seems to be even less under our 8 Three ways to approach abstraction control than the political or that operates at the level of so- social transformations. We are cial structure and sets the thus purported to live in an condition for their action would epoch dominated by the rise of otherwise require a methodo- robots, the circuits of cyber- logical inquiry – a daunting task. netic control, the dragnet of al- However, by focusing rather on gorithms, the dataveillance, isolated elements of that struc- the trappings of narcissistic self- ture – what in Whitehead’s representation, or the black words constitutes a “fallacy of 2

box societies. TIME’s Person of theAre misplaced concreteness” – — these diagnostic readings achie-

C_____ritique of ideology You Yes, ve an understanding of social — Such ascriptions of epochal reality that is not necessarily to an isolated social or false. First, they reflect the Surveillance State” (Metropolitan Books, 2014); Lev Surveillance State” (Metropolitan Books, 2014); Lev Grossman, “You technological transformation December 25, 2006, http://content. in “Time”, Year,“ time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570810,00. The html; Frank Pasquale, “The Black Box Society: That Control Money and Information”,Algorithms Secret Edition (Harvard University Press, 2015). 1st perspectival positions of par- can indeed have a powerful ex- ticular social actors as con- planatory effect. By isolating ditioned by – i.e. only a single transformation their “cognitive mapping” they provide an intuitive grasp of how processes at the level of of the processes that are too social totality structure and complex and too opaque to be restructure the reality accessible fully understood by social to their experience and their actors at the level of their im- social categories.3 mediate social reality. To access Second, they reflect how social 2_____For more on these concepts see Paul Krugman, accessed Times”, York New “The in Robots”, the of “Rise http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/ May 21, 2015, Alexander R. Galloway, 12/08/rise-of-the-robots/; After Decentralization” “Protocol: How Control Exists Press, 2004); Glenn Greenwald, “No Place to (MIT Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and U.S. the abstract logic of relations institutions are responding to 3_____The notion of cognitive mapping follows Jameson’s definition: “a situational representation on the part of individual subject to that vaster and properly unrepresentable totality which is the ensemble of society’s structures as a whole.” Fredric Jameson, the Cultural Logic of Late “Postmodernism, or, Capitalism” (Duke University Press, 1991), 51. 10 Three ways to approach abstraction those processes by creating and can be understood in adaptations in the organization terms of their historic specific- of economic, institutional or ity. Thus, to unfold an ideologi- legal affairs to accommodate or cal critique of those categories countervail them – i.e. forms of and the social institutions that social reflexivity in response to ground them, we would need to the processes unfolding at the start from an analysis of their level of social structure. coevolutionary relation. To transform them, we need to re- If we don’t want to simply wave sort to collective acts of deter- off these readings, but want minate negation from within that to take them at their word, we relation. have to go analytically a level further in abstraction. A critical R_____eal abstraction account of those positions This guidebook, however, does requires showing the generative not intend to pursue any of relation between the social those hyperbolic diagnostic categories available to a parti- readings nor develop further a cular social position of those critical ideological account of doing the reading and the social such readings. Instead, it will go institutions that ground such yet another analytical level readings in their respective so- of abstraction further by ana- cial realities. Both the categorial lyzing the real abstraction and the institutional are the that grounds and regulates the result of a reified social practice relations of such epistemic 12 Three ways to approach abstraction notions to their social reality in ly practical format of a guide- the abstract logic of capitalist book and the highly impractical relations. It will chart a general topic of abstraction that is theoretical outline of how ab- bound to raise some eyebrows. straction – at the various levels Appearing in a publishing series of social reality, starting from dedicated to manuals, this relations of production all the guidebook in fact looks at how way to property relations – acts the division between the con- as a concrete material force crete, practical, and manual on in the world, how abstraction the one hand versus the ab- organizes the rationality of stract, structural, and intellectual social institutions, and how ab- on the other is constitutive of straction structures categories a historically specific and reified used for their understanding. social reality that we inhabit. By grounding the categories and As we move through economic, institutions in the abstract logic technological, and cultural of capitalist relations, the real environments that compose our abstraction drives the historic social reality, their complexity transformations that reproduce is made navigable for us through the capitalist domination. procedures, signals, and in- structions. And yet as we move But before we continue with the through these environments, analysis of real abstraction, often perusing manuals ranging a word is warranted about the from workplace task lists to contradiction between the high- psychological self-help books, 14 Three ways to approach abstraction in which those procedures and give more detailed analyses of desired actions are laid out for how that highest level of abstrac- us, we move through systems tion under capitalism is re- with little impact on the general flected in lower level abstrac- direction of structures gov- tions that are specific to the erning their operation. To act on dynamic of technological devel- those requires different modes opment and the transforma- of operation and different ma- tions of the organization of pro- nuals, instructing us rather how duction, regulation of com- to lose our sense of the practi- modity flows, and property re- cal and how to betray the logic lations that follow in its wake. of the operative. Such is this It is these lower level abstrac- manual: aimed at charting how tions that stand closer to the multiple and nested forms of concrete experience of social real abstraction at various actors and their capacity to levels of our experience operate oppose the operation of abstrac- as a material force shaping tion in their lifeworld. our reality and reproducing the domination of capital over labor.

The guidebook will start from the notion of abstract domination in capitalism, circumscribe how it shapes social epistemology and technoscience, and then 16 A_____bstract labor, use values they produce by commodity, value their concrete labor are thereby Under capitalism workers must transmuted into an abstract sell their labor power in order labor and an exchange value to earn money with which they that can be quantified and can buy products needed for exchanged for the product of their own subsistence and the any other labor. subsistence of their . Their labor thus enters into an This transmutation of concrete, exchange with the products use-value-producing labor into of other laborers’ labor. In order abstract, exchange-value -pro- to be able to enter into the ducing labor is accomplished exchange with the products of by the double character of com- other laborers’ labor, their modity that is a synthesis of labor has to become quantifi- use value and exchange value.4 able in a universal measure of By entering into an exchange value – the general equivalent. of their labor power for wage, The qualitative aspects of con- the workers contract out crete labor they perform, their their productive capacity to capi- specific actions and skills that tal. The capital in turn under- go into executing them, as well takes to maximize the produc- as the qualitative aspects of tivity of their labor power to produce as many commodities as possible that it can then

Domination by abstraction 4_____For a succinct exposition of the real abstraction of value-producing labor see Michael Heinrich, “Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Eine Einführung” 2005), 45ff. (Schmetterling Verlag, endeavor to sell above the cost 18 Domination by abstraction of contracted labor and other mined by the level of produc- investments into production, tivity of all competing producers thus generating a surplus it can producing a particular commod- appropriate. In the continu- ity and by the relative need ously expanding production of for that commodity in the total- that surplus value, where the ity of goods that are needed i.e. i.e. surplus value produced is rein- – in a society. Hence, the value is without

vested to produce more sur- – determined not directly when plus value, the productivity of a commodity is produced, but labor progressively grows, only later when it enters ex- resulting in an ever greater so- change. If more use value is pro- cial material wealth that remains duced than turns out is need- unequally distributed between ed, its exchange value will drop. those who own the means of If it is produced in less time

production and those who own that analyze the capitalist mode of production from while failing to notice that it is the standpoint of labor, exactly labor – in its abstract-mediating form – that These theories situate the dominates the society. problem of capitalism in the mode distribution property relations and social redistribution being able to ground their critique in the mode of production. than is on average required by nothing but their labor power. competing producers, it will produce a higher surplus. Thus, The inherent measure of value the value of a particular labor of any commodity is a quantity and its product is determined of abstract labor that is socially only from the totality of values considered necessary to pro- produced for exchange and me- duce it. That quantity of abstract diated through the real ab- labor is measured in equal straction of abstract labor, com- units of time. It is socially nec- modity and value.5 essary in so far as it is deter- 5_____For an elaboration of how form-determinations commodity and value mediate the of abstract labor, totality of social production see the chapter “Abstract and Social Labor, labor” in Moishe Postone, “Time, Theory” Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical A Domination: Postone (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 123ff. is particularly poised to ground social mediation in the category of abstract labor in order to oppose theories 20 Domination by abstraction The social production under together and capitalism is not coordinated by orients its structures and devel- an agreement between associ- opment towards the continu- ated producers nor forced onto ous expanded reproduction of them by a person or a class that system. of persons. Rather, it is a form of social production coordi- The structuring categories of the nated and dominated by an capitalist mode of production – abstract mediation of production labor, commodity, and value – for exchange at the level of all have a double character: social totality, conducted under concrete labor – abstract labor, the imperative of the self-expan- use value – exchange value, sion of value. The law of value material wealth – self-expanding works “behind the back of the value. They double firstly as producers”. While they come the material process of produc- together as private individuals tion needed for sustaining the pursuing goals of subsistence livelihood and secondly as an and reproduction, their coming interrelated set of higher level together is organized by the abstractions. The self-repro- invisible hand of production for ducing logic of these interrelat- exchange. Thus, abstraction ed abstractions structures appears as an impersonal, social relations and is a funda- autonomous, and objective force mental characteristic of the that both provides a form of capitalist mode of production, social synthesis that holds the one that abstractly dominates 22 Domination by abstraction the capitalist society. As a con- As already indicated, capital- sequence, in that nexus of ism accomplishes the transmu- real abstraction, labor is not only tation of use-value-producing dominated by capital, but also concrete labor into an exchange- dominated by its own abstract- value-producing abstract ly-mediating character. If the labor. This abstractlabor, as a capital’s ownership over the value producing labor, is not means of production were to be a separate, additional labor to abolished and the value-pro- concrete labor, but rather an ducing organization of labor immanent aspect of labor under maintained, as was largely the the capitalist mode of produc- case in real-existing social- tion.7 This is an abstraction that isms, proletarians would con- is an abstraction operating in tinue reproducing capital-rela- the real and with real effects on

tion by the dint of their own 7_____Michael Heinrich, “Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: 2005), 46-47. Eine Einführung” (Schmetterling Verlag, the character of labor and value-producing abstract labor. social relations. Marx speaks, Only by working to abolish the accordingly, of real abstraction. domination by abstraction, including the abstractly-medi- In Marx’s critique of political ating character of labor itself, economy the central categories do they begin emerge from that live a double life. At the struc- domination.6 tural level they appear as cat- egories of essence – commodity R_____eal abstraction, social form, surplus value, self-ex- epistemology and technoscience 6______Ibid., 123ff. panding value, and capital. 24 Domination by abstraction But, proceeding from the most their socially productive activity, abstract of of which we have said a few capital viewed in isolation to the words in the introduction. Thus level of the reproduction of the social categories that capitalist system under the re- actors use are not mere mental gime of many capitals as they abstractions derived from the are experienced in the economic neutral observation of concrete reality, Marx is able to show processes. They maintain an that the categories of appear- internal and structured rapport ance in which they are per- to the social totality. The struc- ceived by social actors – profits, ture of social cognition and the goods, prices, and wealth – social construction of cognition are necessary for the realization in general is thus structured by of capital and thus for the the processes of real abstrac- continuous reproduction of tion. capitalist relations. How social actors perceive their reality The implications of real abstrac- is structured by the relations of tion on mental abstraction, their immediate reality to real i.e. of form-determinations of abstraction that structures the capital on formalizations of social totality. Yet, their per- abstract reason, initially indicat- ception of the social totality un- ed by Marx, were further de- folds through the lens of their veloped in the work of Alfred immediate reality and that sets Sohn-Rethel.8 Sohn-Rethel the perspectival horizon of 8_____Alfred Sohn-Rethel, “Intellectual and Manual Critique of Epistemology” (Macmillan, 1978). A Labour: sought to demonstrate that the 26 Domination by abstraction cognitive abstractions of modern with the emergence of monetary reason become historically exchange in Antiquity. He thus only possible once the concrete fails to delimit historically and labor is abstracted and society conceptually the capitalist held together by the synthesis mode of production and the sci- of commodity exchange. In his ence under its domination view, all the building blocks of from earlier modes of produc- pure reason are the result of tion and earlier developments that abstraction: time and space of science. However, if we limit as the abstract medium where- the analysis to the historic in the circulation of commodified period where capitalist mode of goods unfolds, substance as production is socially domi- the immutable character of com- nant, it is warranted to claim that modity in exchange, causation the fundamental notions of

as the negative implication of part of the development social relations and not simply a reflection of trans-historic features human species. In Sohn-Rethel’s terms the social synthesis is prior to the transcendental synthesis. Ibid., 169. technoscience and its directions commodity’s potential perish- of development are grounded ability.9 There’s a distinct sense in the real abstraction of capi- of overreach and simplifica- talist social structure. tion in Sohn-Rethel’s schema – particularly as he grounds This is primarily evidenced in the capitalist social synthesis the division of intellectual and in the process of exchange manual labor. Under conditions rather than in the relations of of monopoly capitalism capital production. The historic tra- organizes the production pro- jectory of his diagnostic starts 9_____Thus Sohn-Rethel manages to demonstrate that with the the foundation of modern epistemology, historically particular Kantian articulation of its grounding concepts and with the historically specific formation is of individual subject performing the intellectual labor, cess in the method of constant 28 Domination by abstraction flow to mass produce a uniform noscience. It is to this fetishized product. This requires that the character that Sohn-Rethel work be analyzed, segmented refers when insisting that this and accelerated in terms of se- transcendent activity of intel- quences and time. Once the lectual labor “is made almost work has been analyzed and unassailable by modern posi- workers assigned their strictly tivism which places the origins separate tasks, the intellectual of science outside the range of aspect in the execution of work questions which can be asked.10 can be fully transferred to the […] The practice of science in management that can now orga- the service of capital pays alle- nize work in accordance with giance to an idea of the intel- the exigencies of constant ex- lect which is a fetish concept of pansion of production. But, the human mind seen as the

once it has been separated from 180. 11_____Ibid., spontaneous source of the non- the execution of work, the empirical concepts basic to intellect is no longer appropri- science.“11 As an expansion of ated solely by management. the subordination of manual With the conscription of modern labor to a scientifically managed science into the service of process of production, the industry, it assumes a reified division of labor into intellectual character of an autonomous and manual functions to rein- social force acting above the force the domination of capital level of an individual factory over labor. in the shape of a system of tech- 158. 10_____Ibid., 30 Having established the structur- S_____cientific management al relation of technoscience to and the deskilling of labor the highest level of real abstrac- Harry Braverman in the opening tion, we now turn to various fa- passages of his Labor and cets of lower level abstractions Monopoly Capital notes: “the through which the capitalist distinctive capacity of human system of technoscience in- labor power is therefore not its forms and transforms the con- ability to produce a surplus, crete reality of the production but rather its intelligent and pur- process: the recomposition of posive character, which gives labor, the ambivalent class it infinite adaptability and which position of intellectual labor, the produces the social and cul- standardization processes and tural conditions for enlarging its the intellectual property regime. own productivity, so that its These are organizational, ins- surplus product may be continu- titutional and legal abstractions ously enlarged.”12 It is this that are of particular relevance innovative and productive ca- for the question how abstraction pacity of human labor that the structures, reproduces and capital wants to harness in its regulates domination under pursuit of ever greater sur- capitalism. plus value. However, the infinite adaptability of human labor

12_____Harry Braverman, “Labor and Monopoly Twentieth in the The Degradation of Work Capital: Century” (NYU Press, 1998), 58. Abstracting the labor 32 Abstracting the labor power that can lead to higher quent simplification and chea- productivity and higher surplus pening. But this process didn’t value for capital can be opti- come into its full actualization mized and maximized only under before Fredrick Winslow Taylor a specific organization of labor developed and applied the process. To wit: while the work methods of scientific manage- of skilled craftspeople can be ment. In Braverman’s analysis highly innovative and produc- the scientific management for- tive, their labor can neither be malized three principles that easily made more efficient nor catalyzed the full-fledged de- cheap enough to extract the velopment of the capitalist highest surplus product. mode of production. First, the separation of the conception The historic development of from the execution of work. capitalism had to overcome this Second, the transfer of control obstacle and organize the pro- over the conception and thus cess of production in such a way command over organization of that the skills immanent to work into the hands of the labor could be made conducive management. Third, the transfer to capital’s interest. This it first of technical knowledge from achieved, as famously observed the direct producers to the spe- by Adam Smith, through the cialized R&D sectors directly detailed division of labor in ma- responsible to the management. nufacture and, as observed This abstraction, separating the by Charles Babbage, its subse- intellectual from manual labor 34 Abstracting the labor and handing it into the hands of resulting gains in productivity managerial control over labor, that create a growing reserve has had a number of significant army of labor. Fifth, commodifi- consequences for the devel- cation of ever broader aspects opment of capitalism. First, the of everyday life such as produc- constant deskilling of labor tion and preparation of food, which allows for the substitution care work and maintenance of a highly trained, skilled work- work, and their replacement by force with less skilled, easily the service industry, which replaceable, and cheaper mem- now absorbs both the sections bers of the reserve army of of workers left unemployed labor. Second, the subsumption by automation and the new sec- of workers to the production tions of female workers enlist- process shaped by organizatio- ed from the now-commodified nal, technological and scientific activities of domestic labor. requirements of capital. Third, creation of a middle class of The cumulative trajectory of the more skilled managerial, techni- process of real subsumption cal, and administrative workers of skilled labor under the capi- who are themselves subsumed talist organization of produc- under the scientifically organiz- tion has been the weakening of ed detailed division of labor and the position of labor. Even gradual deskilling. under the conditions of growing Fourth, automation, replacement employment, the expansion of workers by machines, and of the reserve army of labor as 36 Abstracting the labor a result of commodification of rare countries such as Germany domestic labor, global integra- were able to set standards for tion of capitalist production, and the employees across the entire labor migration, has kept the labor market and fend off this solidarity and resistance of la- process, in most of the countries bor in check. the trend was in the opposite direction leading to increasing It is particularly after the crisis fragmentation and weakening of overproduction and profit of the proletariat. squeeze of early 1970s that the fragmentation of organized Some of the social effects of labor as an effect of scientifical- this process have been buffered ly managed capitalism has by the expanding availability shown its full force. Relocation of private credit that followed in of production has successfully the aftermath of the crisis of subjected the skilled and or- 1970s. High interest rates im- ganized segments of the labor posed by monetarist policies in force to the threat of unem- the early 1980s spurred the ployment, whereas outsourcing tremendous growth of the finan- has pushed the replaceable, cial sector, where capital sud- unskilled segments of the labor denly discovered high levels of force into casualization.13 While profit that were absent from sector-level collective bargai- the real economy. However, ning agreements and workers’ since the credit crunch of 2008 participation in management in 13_____An updated view of how processes deskilling have transformed since Braverman’s ground-breaking work published in 1974 can be found Ursula Huws, “Labor in the Global Digital Economy” (Monthly Review Press, 2014), 34ff. the palliative effects of private 38 Abstracting the labor credit, on both the underem- the un(der)employed, the sub- ployed labor and the capitalist proletariat, the indebted stu- expansion, seem to be over. dents, the poor and all the other factions of the underclass. As long as production still re- The power of labor “inside the quires the consent of workers, knot”14 that can challenge capi- the place of production remains tal at the point of production is an important arena of social dulled by the growing segment conflicts. But, as labor finds it- of those who remain outside. self on the defensive – frag- mented and fearing the threats L_____abor in the circuits of automation, outsourcing, of computerization and relocation of production – its However, the class re-composi- concern becomes more main- tion cuts both ways, making taining what it’s got rather than alliances within the ranks of la- developing the forms of class bor daunting. Deskilling is not struggle that are anti-systemic a one-way process: activities and transformative. The class and tasks that are simple, seg- struggle can no longer be pur- mentable into steps, repetitive, sued by labor unless it starts and thereby optimizable find from the problem of changed themselves subject to automa- class composition, where tion. Nowadays, computers an increasing number is left are replacing those administra- outside of the wage-relation or tive and service tasks in which in a casualized relation to it: 83ff. 14_____Ibid., the data processing activities 40 Abstracting the labor can be computerized, the inter- themselves in an ambivalent action between operations position where they are wage optimized, the costs of regula- laborers having to sell their tion externalized, and / or the labor and where their work con- transaction costs lowered or tributes to the conception and passed on onto the consumer. managerial command of the pro- This is exactly what is now duction process. This aligns happening in tourism, retail, and their professional interest with transport sectors where the the technical optimization for process of disintermediation un- the benefit of the enterprise and leashed by internet platforms frequently to the detriment of is cutting out the historically workforce that is replaceable. established intermediary occu- This can be observed in the pations and services such as tech industry where the polari- travel agents, traditional airlines, zation between top talent, en- hotel accommodation, book- joying superior salaries, benefit shops, record shops, or taxis. plans, and stock options, and casualized workers, on work- In that process of replace- fare and zero hour contracts ment, however, the innovating with no access to perks such as workforce continues to be gourmet cafeteria or company highly skilled and in demand. campus bicycle, is sustained by The middle corporate ranks a highly complex process of of engineers, scientists, design- optimization of large-scale ope- ers, and creative workers find rations. Consider warehouse 42 Abstracting the labor workers at Amazon15 or “Scan- resistances the profession Ops” at Google16. Between them encounters from the activities stand middle management, and occupations that it is sup- administrative and clerical occu- posed to automate. Early com- pations that are no less sub- mercial computers required up ject to deskilling, outsourcing, to 30 programmers, meaning or automation. that the computer manufactu- rers could produce much more The replacement of highly de- hardware than there were ope- manding tech jobs is, in turn, rators available to run them. made difficult due to the fre- Pioneering large-scale software quently indeterminate and chan- projects, such as the develop- ging nature of those tasks. ment of the SAGE air defense For example, the profession of ground system initiated in

programmer has been particu- August 4, Leaving the Googleplex,” accessed “Workers 2015, http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/Workers- Googleplex.html. “The Computer Boys 17_____Nathan L. Ensmenger, Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics Take Press, 2012). Expertise” (MIT Technical of 1955 by the RAND corporation, larly hard to define. From its required more programmers emergence in the 1950s, the pro- than existed at the time and the fession has been – as Nathan project had to train 7,000 Ensmenger details in The Com- programmers over five years to puter Boys Take Over17 – marked meet its own demand. Given by a permanent crisis of defini- the lack of high-level program- tion of what constitutes its core ming skills in the newly-re- skills. This has resulted in a cruited workforce, the program- perpetual scarcity of trained ming tasks were subdivided programmers, as well as in Conditions”, Amazon Working 15_____“Anger at August 4, 2015, http:// Channel 4 News, accessed - www.channel4.com/news/anger-at-amazon-wor king-conditions. 16_____The disadvantaged position of workers public throughdigitizing books for Google was aired to the Andrew Norman Wilson, the work of US artist into detailed small tasks, not 44 Abstracting the labor unlike those at the production grammers in the ambit of class lines. Elsewhere the lack of struggle. That position is fur- programmers pushed the para- ther made ambivalent by the fact digms of software develop- that programmers can easily ment toward the production of move up the ranks or leave the code that could be reused a- employment and become em- cross tasks and platforms, lea- ployers themselves. The trend of ding to the subsequent develop- start-ups has worked to that ment of routines, subroutines, effect, driven by the investment assemblers, compilers and frenzy of venture capital and programming languages. The interests of large IT monopolies inherent tensions in the ap- that want to make sure they plied programming between cre- are the first to acquire any new ative aspects of programming service that emerges and and tedious negotiation of com- that might threaten their mono- plex organizational structures poly position if bought up by with which software was sup- another large competitor. The posed to interface, as well hacker no longer works the as the disagreements whether day for the corporation and the programmers should be trained night for the cause. Rather he as computer scientist or re- himself – and it’s still mostly a ceive practical training through him – becomes the corporation certification and practice, has working to develop a cause to continuously perpetuated the sell it to yet larger corporation. ambivalent position of pro- 46 Abstracting the labor This oscillating position be- profession has been subject to tween being inside and outside both automation and upskilling the working class instills two from the very start. In the early opposing value orientations a- days, before the profession was mong programmers: one to- actually born, it was based ward autonomy, another toward on clerical female labor that con- social engineering. It’s a class sisted in connecting cables to conflict in a single individual enter numerical operations into that is reflected in technological the first universal computers. choices. of tech- Soon, as repetitive tasks of en- nologists have an impact on tering numbers were replaced which innovations and techno- by automatic programming, the logies are developed to opti- programming was upskilled to mize the processes of produc- a predominantly male enginee- tion, but their position is struc- ring and scientific profession. turally ambivalent and thus The replacement of numerical never neutral. programming by symbolic programing – in the form of com- A_____utomating the automators puter aided programming and Yet, not all is rosy for the pro- early programming languages – grammer either. If we go back was motivated to a large degree once more to the early history by the need to rationalize the of computing, we’ll see that re- programing work in order to re- gardless of its unstable class duce its tediousness and the identity, the programming demand for programming 48 Abstracting the labor workforce. These processes of clerks. These female clerks rationalization were both driven were wetware computers before and opposed by the program- there were hardware compu- mers. Structured programming ters, tasked with repetitive ma- with its engineering approach thematical calculations required to the task of programming a in operations planning or com- computer allowed to move the manded as input operators profession “from a craft to a on the WWII cryptographic ma- standardized industrial practice, chines. “One could say that and [worked] as a way to create programming became program- disciplined programmers who ming and software became dealt with abstraction rather software when commands shif- than numerical processes.”18 ted from commanding a ʻgirl’ to commanding a machine.”19 The

In fact, in a trenchant inversion 19_____Ibid., 33. emergence of cybernetic sy- of perspective on the early stems is deeply characterized by computer history proposed by the military and gendered cha- Wendy Chun, the automation racter of the institutional setting of cybernetic control through the from which it emerged and the development of universal com- suppression of the female cleri- puter steered by command in- cal and scientific workforce and structions can be seen as an its contribution to the develop- extension of the control of male ment of universal computer. The military officers who were is- growing abstraction of software, suing commands to the female Hui Kyong Chun, “On Software, or the 18_____Wendy Knowledge”, in “Grey Room” Persistence of Visual (January 1, 2005): 37, doi:10.1162/1526381043320741. which was initially nothing but 50 Abstracting the labor the circuitry of the hardware pro- A_____lgorithmically grammed by physical switches driven automation and cable connections, led to an The classical approach to analy- increased demand for ever more zing the substitution of labor powerful hardware. This has by machines arranges the tasks lead to an enormous advance- along two axes: cognitive as ment where nowadays func- opposed to manual tasks and tions of a computer can be fully routinized as opposed to non- emulated within the virtualiza- routinized tasks. It is primarily tion software layer of large ar- jobs which are based on labor- rays of computer farms that intensive routines that tend to go by the name of “cloud”. If the be replaced. While the industrial first software was nothing but automation was focused pri- hardware, much of the hardware marily at removing the detailed today is nothing but software. and routinized manual jobs, In this advancement the proces- the focus of computer-based ses related to programming automation is removing the are themselves subject to con- routinized cognitive jobs and stant computerization, the au- technologically complementing tomators themselves are auto- the work of laborers doing the mated – replaced by automa- non-routine jobs. The aggre- tons.20 gate effect of industrial and computer-based automation in the developed economies such

20_____Ibid., 35. as the US since the 1960s and 52 Abstracting the labor 1970s was a strong trend of and created high levels of replacement of routine manual individual enrichment.22 and cognitive jobs, followed then since the 1980s by a strong The future for large occupational trend favoring a more skilled segments does not look bright cognitive workforce performing either. Recent research confirms non-routine tasks.21 First the that the technological replacea- blue-collar manufacturing jobs bility of cognitive tasks without were lost to assembly line ro- elements of creativity, problem bots, then the white-collar sensitivity, and flexibility conti- clerical jobs were down-skilled nues to hold.23 But, more com- by business machines, and plex cognitive tasks are no lon- finally a widening income gap ger immune to replacement opened between the highly either. While computers can be

skilled workers and the rest of Against the Machine: How Digital Revolution is and Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, Employment and the Economy” Transforming Irreversibly (Lexington, Mass: Digital Frontier Press, 2012). 23_____Graham Joncas, “Machinic Labour in the 21st August 3, 2015, https://www.academ-Century”, accessed ia.edu/12215044/Machinic_Labour_in_the_21st_Century. 24_____Ibid., 2. complementary to the engi- the labor force. Since the 19th neering and scientific occupa- century technologies have hel- tions – serving not only as a ped drive the prosperity of wide tool, but as knowledge-cataly- segments of the of zing machines that can, for in- developed economies, but over stance, recognize patterns from the last four decades technolo- large sets of data where esta- gical advancement and automa- blishing those connections isn’t tion have deepened the structu- possible for human cognition24 ral unemployment, produced – they can now increasingly the winner-takes-all markets, and R. J. Murnane, Levy, F. Autor, 21_____D. H. An Change: “TheTechnological Skill Content of Recent Empirical Exploration”, in “The Quarterly Journal of no. 4 (November 1, 2003): 1296, doi:10. Economics” 118, See Figure 1. 1162/003355303322552801. Andrew McAfee, 22_____Erik Brynjolfsson and themselves no foes of either capitalism or automation, are warning against this development in their “Race solve non-routine tasks and 54 Abstracting the labor recursively learn, thus making physics, mathematics, and the possible the replacement of ʻplumbing’ of markets.“25 even some less creative non- routine cognitive tasks. After deskilling and replacement of manufacturing labor through A case in point is the high fre- industrial automation and after quency trading where, as the removal of non-routine Alberto Toscano has observed, cognitive tasks in administration the financial sector and stock through computerization, the traders in the pit of the stock newest trend in technological market, drivers of the finan- unemployment brought about cial derivation processes, are by more advanced algorithms in themselves coming under the robots is poised to hit the oc- dominion of automation: “The cupations in logistics and trans-

ʻalgorithmic revolution’ could 26_____Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, “The Are Jobs to Future of Employment: How Susceptible Computerisation?” (Oxford Martin School), 44, accessed August 5, 2015, http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/ publications/view/1314. portation, retail and support, thus also be seen as a phase and construction. According to shift in the organic composi- a recent study by Carl Benedikt tion of finance, curiously a do- Frey and Michael Osborne, the main that had fiercely resisted comparative advantage of the depersonalization and de- humans in mobility and dexte- skilling of labour like few others. rity over robots is diminishing, This devaluation of the em- making 47% of all American bodied knowledge in the pit is occupations fall under the risk the obverse of the valuation of automation.26 of bleeding edge knowledge in “Gaming the Plumbing: Toscano, 25_____Alberto and the Spaces of Capital”, Trading High-Frequency August 3, 2013, http://www.metamute.org/ accessed editorial/ articles/gaming-plumbing-high-frequency-tra - ding-and-spaces-capital. 56 However, the findings indicating that tasks can technically be automated does not yet imply that they will be automated, not at the level that they poten- tially could. There are other economic and non-economic factors at play that might slow down or avert replacement: risk of investing into constant capi- tal might be too great, it might be cheaper to relocate the pro- duction, policies might lower the cost of keeping the jobs or might develop new sectors of employment. But, most impor- tantly, it is the resistance of or- ganized labor that can do the most to obstruct the processes of abstraction whereby tech- noscience shifts the command over productive forces into the hands of capital. 58 T_____he standardization and talist system with the private the soft law of global exchanges ownership over the means of So far we have outlined how production – the abstraction abstraction operates on reality, is regulated, and appropriated, be it as form-determinations by property relations – as evi- structuring capitalist social rela- denced in unprecedented levels tions, as transfer of embodied of inequality between societies skills into the technoscientifical- and staggering accumulation of ly driven process of produc- private wealth within them. tion or as increasingly powerful Owning the abstraction trans- capacity of automation with lates into the legal and eco- real-life effects on class com- nomic power to exclude others position. Now we turn to the from the wealth-producing legal regulation and ownership effects of abstraction. over processes of abstraction through technoscience. While Let’s start from the most benign the capitalist mode of produc- form of regulation – standardi- tion is, at the highest level of ab- zation. Standardization is a hete- straction, regulated by an im- rogenous process that cuts personal mediation of abstract across different scales to enable labor, commodity, and value, optimization and reliability of in its dominant form – as a capi- global production and distribu- tion flows. From the segmen- tation of labor tasks, over the Owning the abstraction uniformization of production and 60 Owning the abstraction management processes, to An important cornerstone of the interoperability of logistical standardization is the Interna- systems, it cheapens the com- tional Standards Organization modities, streamlines their ex- (ISO), which regulates a range of change and secures the legal technical and management standing of international busi- specifications related to envi- ness operations. Before a job ronment, labor, health care is broken down into elementary and safety, corporate responsi- tasks and the experience of bility, governance and manage- the worker is codified, the work- ment that allow corporations to place cannot be easily out- get a global seal of approval for sourced or replaced.27 Before a their products and operations. standardized measure in inter- Accredited in this international national shipping transport is in- voluntary membership organi-

troduced and the containers The Power 29_____Keller Easterling, “Extrastatecraft: Books, 2014), 18. of Infrastructure Space” (Verso zation are mostly standard-set- become standardized, the revo- ting bodies and consortia of lution in logistics cannot pro- some 160 states that represent ceed apace.28 Before the inter- private entities and interest national organizations and groups such as business, trade treaties establish standard-set- associations, consumer and la- ting procedures, standards bor organizations. Its standards cannot “create a, soft law’ of are copyright protected and li- global exchanges.“29 censed to a huge number of cer- tifying private companies across

27_____Ursula Huws, “Labor in the Global Digital Economy” (Monthly Review Press, 2014), 72. 28_____Deborah Cowen, “The Deadly Life of Logistics: (University of Trade” in Global Mapping Violence Minnesota Press, 2014), 44. the world. Its most popular 62 Owning the abstraction standard is ISO 9000, a quality Agreements signed in 1995, giv- management standard that has ing international standards over a million organizations “a major role in harmonizing the certified according to a set of technical specifications of rules that codify primarily inter- goods traded on the global mar- nal operations of private com- kets so as to avoid such speci- mercial entities. While the ISO fications to be turned as an im- 9000 standard codifies the pediment to international procedural aspects, it makes, for trade.”30 Already in 1999 OECD instance, no mention of the estimated that some 80% of conflictual aspects of relation international trade was affected between the employer and by standards. The industrial employees, thus allowing the standard-setting thus became a certified companies in the “private form of governance

zones with low labor protections 31_____Ibid., 175. [that] continues to enter and as- to claim technical and mana- sert its authority in a public gerial excellence without mak- arena without a public political ing a mention of their probl- dialogue.”31 ematic role in the international division of labor. Clearly, efficiency and quality are not social bads in them- A major boon for the standardi- selves. They enable rationality zation in international trade and interoperability of systems. was the WTO’s agreement on However, the imbrications of

Technical Barriers to Trade Confederation, “Why Trade-Union 30_____European August 6, 2015, Standardisation Matter?”, accessed https://www.etuc.org/why-standardisation-matter. standardization with the global 64 Owning the abstraction commodity production cataly- stem, introduced a layer of ab- zes vectors of international straction that transformed pro- norm-setting and codification gramming from a craft into an that are, in that context, ena- industrially organized occupa- blers of exploitation of some and tion. This separation of software proletarianization of others. from hardware was underpin- It is in the process of standardi- ned by the creation of property zation that the imbrication of rights and commodification institutionality and rationality of of software. The occupational global capitalism come to the knowledge of the early coders 1930 (University of North 1930 fore. Thus the norm-setting – was being transformed into pro- presents organized labor with a perty rights of their employers.32 field of strategically vital yet painfully asymmetric contesta- This development isn’t new. It languages.” Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, “On Software, or languages.” Wendy Knowledge”, in “Grey Room” the Persistence of Visual Press, 2005), 38. Winter 2005 No. 18 (MIT Knowledge: 33_____Catherine L. Fisk, “Working Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property”, 1800 tion. Carolina Press, 2009). follows a long established pattern since the beginning of C_____opyrights the 20th century whereby the and labor wrongs expertise of employees is trans- As noted above, the solidifica- formed into property of em- tion of software into a sepa- ployers. As Catherine L. Fisk e- rate entity, no longer based on laborates in her study of historic direct input of instructions into relations of worker innovation hardware, but on writing code in and industrial property rights,33 a programming language to be in the competitive capitalism of executed on an operating sy- 32_____“The current status of software as a commodity, despite the fact that its instructions are immaterial and nonrivalrous indicates the triumph of software an industry that first struggled not only industry, financially but also conceptually to define its product. The rise of software depends both on historical moves, such as IBM’s unbundling of its services from products, and on abstractions enabled by higher-level small industrial firms of the 66 Owning the abstraction second part of the 19th century companies to secure the intel- the innovation was the legal lectual property rights over title of the engineer, just as the the innovations and creations literary work was primarily the produced internally by their legal title of the writer. Back then workers were suddenly raised – it was established that the pro- the capacity to exclude the duct of intellectual labor morally competitors from encroaching belonged to the person of on their market became in- the inventor and if the inventor creasingly important. The pro- wasn’t the owner of the compa- perty rights now had to be ny, but rather a junior partner brought into the hands of cor- or an employee, he would fre- porations. quently move on to start his own company and compete with However, for this to become an the former employer on the established practice and insti- basis of the new invention. The tuted in law, several legal inno- technological innovation itself vations had to occur. First, as was driven by the experience in legal title to patent in inventions the production process and and copyright in artwork had not by a separate activity of re- its foundation in the rights of a search. However, with the rise person, it was unusual for a of the large integrated firm, with legal entity to receive such a the separation of R&D and title – thus, corporations had creative departments from ma- to first attain a status of legal nufacture, the stakes for the personality in order to make 68 Owning the abstraction this nexus of individualism of The “working knowledge” of right-holding person and creators didn’t fare better corporatism of innovation in a either. Initially promulgated as large firm stick. This is exactly an equal right meant to incen- what unfolded in the US around tivize creators and their pu- turn-of-the-century.34 Second, blishers, with the rise of modern the inventors and partially creative industries the copy- creators had to become wage right was transformed into a workers, so that their labor con- right only credited to a person, tract would entail that the wage but almost exclusively benefit- compensates them for the fruit ing a corporation fighting to as- of their work, transferring in re- sert itself in the market against turn the title to property to their its competitors. Transforma- innovations and creations tions both in manufacture and

to the firm. The working know- period, the understanding of copyright slowly migrated from the focus on moral aspects of individual authorship of employees to contractual relations between the employer and employee, resulting in 1909 a revision of copyright law instituting employer ownership copyright over works created under employment. culture had the effect of ma- ledge now became a secret or king the economy of intellectual industrial property of the com- property rights increasingly pany, forcing inventors fre- concentrate in the hands of cor- quently into non-disclosure porations and decreasing agreements and barring them economic significance for the from taking their innovation innovators and creators. or their expertise to the com- petitor or starting their own The levels of concentration in competing businesses. the industries with large portfo-

34_____As Fisk details, two transformations proceeded in lockstep: the judicial understanding of corporation slowly migrated from the concept of corporation as an incorporated endeavor of a collective individuals toward a corporate personhood independent from and contractually bound to individuals. Over the same exact lios of various forms of intel- 70 Owning the abstraction lectual property rights is stag- five major publishers, financed gering. The film industry is a up to 75% from the subscrip- US$88 billion industry dominated tions of mostly publicly funded by six major studios. Music in- libraries and achieving extreme dustry is a US$15 billion indus- year on year profit margins – in try dominated by three major the case of Reed Elsevier regu- labels. The publishing industry larly of over 30%, with Taylor is a US$55 billion industry where & Francis, Springer and Wiley- the top 10 take over half of the Blackwell barely lagging revenues. Among patent holding behind. Given that the work of industries the situation is a scientists contributing their little more diversified, but big scholarly work to the journals patent portfolios in general of these publishers is not paid, dictate the dynamics of market but financed by their institutions power and technological de- and that the publications velopment. nowadays come mostly in the form of electronic articles C_____ommodified science licensed for temporary use to and disutility of copyright libraries and no longer sold Scholarly journal publishing in print, the public would not draws the levels of concentra- have to pay twice for the work tion and disservice to the au- of publishers and its interest thors and the public into parti- could be served at a much cularly stark relief. It’s a US$ lower cost by leaving commer- 10 billion industry dominated by cial publishers out of the e- 72 Owning the abstraction quation. But that is not possi- In scholarly journal publishing ble. The chief reason is that copyright exclusively serves as the system of academic reputa- a mechanism of transfer of tion and ranking based on economic power from the pro- publish-or-perish principles has ducer to the publisher, giving become fully entangled with publishers an instrument of ce- the business of commercial aca- menting their strangle-hold demic publishers. Anyone on the output of academia. How- who does not want to put their ever, it’s not only copyright academic career at risk is ad- that sustains their control. They vised to steer away from being have also devised forms of perceived as renegading on control over citation and metrics that not-so-tacit deal. While this to keep close tabs on the system is patently clear to many in aca- of allocation of academic re- demia, the alternative of open putation. As a group of resear- access means not playing by the chers in their paper on oli- rules and not playing by the gopoly of academic publishing rules has real-life consequences, write: “unfortunately, research- particularly for younger aca- ers are still dependent on one demics. They have to publish in essentially symbolic function of prestigious journals if they publishers, which is to allocate want to advance in the highly academic capital. […] Young competitive and exclusive researchers need to publish in system of academia. prestigious journals to gain tenure, while older researchers 74 Owning the abstraction need to do the same in order companies is argued as the be- to keep their grants, and, in this nefit of the authors. Which it environment, publishing in a is. But only marginally. The high impact Elsevier or Spring- producers of creative works – er journal is what ʻcounts’”.35 and the public – are held ho- Copyright and reputation are stage to this arrangement. Just extortive instruments that as the wage workers, these publishers can wield against the creators, scientists and inven- authors and the public to pre- tors have to sell the products of vent the alternative from becom- their labor or directly their ing a norm. labor power in order to secure commodities for subsistence. Copyright is a powerful abstrac- Thus, their work is trans- tion. All creative work is cap- formed into commodity-form. tured under its commodifying thrall. As soon as something By commodifying the products is published, it’s copyrighted. of intellectual labor, the intel- The copyright has a double lectual property rights control function – serving as a mostly and regulate the levels of ab- nominal economic right promi- straction upwards. The reified sing minimal protection to au- technoscience, operating as thors and serving as a mecha- an autonomous and objective nism of commodification and force enabling the abstract market power for copyright in- domination in the immediate dustries. The benefit of the Larivière, Stefanie Haustein, and 35_____Vincent Academic Publishers Philippe Mongeon, “The Oligopoly of in the Digital Era”, “PLoS ONE” 10, no. 6 (June e0127502, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127502. 2015): process of production, is thus 76 itself abstractly transformed into commodity-form and con- trolled by property-form. Real abstraction folds onto real abstraction. Forming a spiraling vortex of capitalist domination leaving human impoverishment and environmental destruction in its wake. Waiting for a tidal wave of history, swelled by the abolishing rise of the wretched of the Earth and the irreversi- ble disruption of the wretched- ness of the Earth, to sweep it away. 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