230609


Labor that produces a commodity's informational and cultural content can be defined as 'immaterial labor'. The concept of 'immaterial labor' refers to two different aspects of labor. The activity that produces the commodity's "informational content" refers directly to the changes in workers' labor processes in big companies in the industrial and tertiary sectors, where the skills involved in direct labor increasingly involve cybernetics and computer control (and horizontal and vertical communication). The activity that produces the "cultural content" of the commodity, immaterial labor involves a series of activities that are not normally recognized as "work" — in other words, the kinds of activities involved in defining and fixing cultural and artistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer norms, and, more strategically, public opinion. (Maurizio Lazzarato)