Title: Historical immaterialism: from immaterial labour to cognitive capitalism

Authors: Marco Boffo

Addresses: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Department of Economics, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK

Abstract: This paper reviews the debates on immaterial labour and cognitive capitalism, highlighting affinities and divergences between them, as well as their shortcomings. Taking the restructuring of capitalism since the 1970s, and Antonio Negri's reading of society and the Grundrisse as point of departure, these debates, and the work of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt in particular, derive systemic conclusions from a particular view of the implications of the role of knowledge and information within the labour process for the capital-labour relation, developing a paradigm seeking to recast analysis of contemporary capitalism in material and structural terms. The paper critically reviews the latest developments within Hardt and Negri's thought in light of the crisis, and their consequences for the paradigm as a whole.

Keywords: immaterial labour; cognitive capitalism; knowledge economy; post-workerism; historical immaterialism; labour process; capital-labour relations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2012.051453

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2012 Vol.6 No.4, pp.256 - 279

Published online: 17 Apr 2015 *

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