Law, Code and Exploitation

How Corporations Regulate the Working Conditions of the Digital Proletariat

Bibliographic Data

ID2370830
AuthorsAitor Jiménez González (0000-0001-6818-8968, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume48
Issue2
Pages361-373
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/08969205211028964
OpenAlexW3175087019
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited21

Contrary to what orthodox Marxism claims, the article defends that the legal field has been a fundamental aspect of the capitalist social ordering, and an unavoidable feature to understand how dominated subjectivities are produced and exploited. Expanding Lessig's concept of 'code as law' with Marxist scholarly insight, the article argues that digital capitalists are reorganising work and the labour force through a form of algorithmic regulation. The article states that algorithms - that is, digital machines - have become not only part of the means of production of the era of automation, but also the code by which capitalists are writing the conditions of existence and exploitation of the digital proletariat. The article bridges recent contributions on labour law, AI and algorithmic regulation with the latest Marxist sociological contributions analysing the relation of work and digital exploitation, opening with it new ways to understand how sociotechnical systems owned by corporations regulate the behaviour not only of the working class but of the wider citizenry

Economics · Law and economics · Management · Marxist philosophy · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Politics · Proletariat · Sociology · Sociotechnical system · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Law · Political Economy and Marxism

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