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Foreword

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Digitisation and Precarisation

Abstract

Currently it is fashionable to talk about digitisation, robotisation, industry 4.0, but also about the gig economy, the Millenials, precarisation and the like. However, too often the relevant issues are taken in isolation, very much caught in traditional terms. The present collection aims on providing some thoughts that allow going further, on the one hand by qualifying some of the aspects, and on the other hand by taking a view that approaches the topic from distinct perspectives in order to arrive at an assessment of emerging societal changes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Though it may well be contested to speak of a new ‘social class’.

  2. 2.

    This implies that we can speak of accumulation regimes on different levels as one of the enterprise, the economy and any “aggregate level” in between.

  3. 3.

    The relevant passage from the document reads as follows

    In the most general sense, precarious work is a means for employers to shift risks and responsibilities on to workers. It is work performed in the formal and informal economy and is characterized by variable levels and degrees of objective (legal status) and subjective (feeling) characteristics of uncertainty and insecurity. Although a precarious job can have many faces, it is usually defined by uncertainty as to the duration of employment, multiple possible employers or a disguised or ambiguous employment relationship, a lack of access to social protection and benefits usually associated with employment, low pay, and substantial legal and practical obstacles to joining a trade union and bargaining collectively.

    Workers on temporary contracts of various durations, be they directly employed or hired through an agency, may benefit from a job in the short term, but live with uncertainty as to whether their contract will be extended. Temporary contracts often also provide a lower wage, and do not always confer the same benefits, which often accrue with time and are directly linked to the length and status of the employment relationship. The result is a condition in which workers cannot plan for their future, and lack the security of certain forms of social protection.

    Another core aspect of precarious work is the lack of clarity as to the identity of the employer. Recent decades have seen the fragmentation of what was once the vertically-integrated enterprise into more horizontal arrangements involving other entities such as subcontractors, franchisers and agencies. Legislation in general has not kept pace with these organizational changes, failing to differentiate between these complex multilateral relationships and the traditional simple bilateral relationship between a worker and an employer. (ibid., para. 27; emphasis added, the authors).

  4. 4.

    Stating this links, of course, to Pierre Bourdieu’s work on the different forms of capital (see in particular Bourdieu, Pierre 1984, 2000).

  5. 5.

    Mind the distinction between work and labour, given by Frederick Engels in a footnote in the first volume of “Capital” writing “The English language has the advantage of possessing different words for the two aspects of labour here considered. The labour which creates Use Value, and counts qualitatively, is Work, as distinguished from Labour; that which creates Value and counts quantitatively, is Labour as distinguished from Work.” (Marx 1887, p. 57).

  6. 6.

    This would require some extensive further reflection as we are dealing with different averages: depending on departments and sectors and the differentiation between different “segments”, i.e. the differentiation between.

  7. 7.

    See in this context form example Rosa Luxemburg on the permanency of the “primitive accumulation” (see Luxemburg 1913) and the aggressive blast of fetters of capitalism within capitalism itself, e.g. in form of imperialism (see Lenin 1917) and financialisation (see Hilferding 1910).

  8. 8.

    Using the plural is due to the expectation of different possible developments—technological and economic factors play of course a core role, however the development is centrally influenced by political visions and power relationships.

  9. 9.

    The term show is consciously used as we witness in many cases more pretensions than really viable and sustainable structures.

  10. 10.

    It is worthwhile to note—also self-critically—that the effect on academic work is that some forms of short-termism and solutionism is becoming obvious, on the one hand books being published with fancy and catchy titles, though looking at the substance frequently boiling down to some forms of junk-food for the brain: sweet and recursive like a Doughnut, though not reinventing the wheel at least forgetting that the entrepreneurial state had been already analysed in much deeper, though surely less affirmative, much earlier, realistically highlighting the state-monopolist character of developments which had been—even from perhaps unexpected instances—critically named for instance as military-industrial complex.

  11. 11.

    As Ray Kurzweil states, “(m)y recent computer provides 2,000 MIPS of processing at a cost that is about 224 lower than that of the computer I used in 1967. That’s 24 doublings in 37 years, or about 18.5 months per doubling“ (Kurzweil 2005, p. 67).

  12. 12.

    It seems that Daum is quoted, suggesting “Längst jedoch sind ‘Algorithmen zum entscheidenden Produktionsmittel, Daten zum zentralen Rohstoff und Information zur Ware Nummer eins’ geworden.”.

  13. 13.

    See also the decreasing role of trade unions and the commitment to collective bargaining agreements (see for instance for a EU-comparison of the latter: German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB)/Hans Böckler Foundation (HBS); May 2018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univesity of Ersten Finland, Kuopio, Finland

    Peter Herrmann

  2. Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Vyacheslav Bobkov

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  1. Peter Herrmann
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  2. Vyacheslav Bobkov
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Correspondence to Peter Herrmann .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Moscow, Russia

    Vyacheslav Bobkov

  2. University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland

    Peter Herrmann

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Herrmann, P., Bobkov, V. (2020). Foreword. In: Bobkov, V., Herrmann, P. (eds) Digitisation and Precarisation. Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-26384-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-26384-3_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-26383-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-26384-3

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