There have always been volunteers who provide labour without financial remuneration. For every tree-hugging activist, there are two YouTubers who have uploaded videos. Those who archive sites for others to discover using StumbleUpon do so for free – at least in the traditional sense of the word. Volunteers do not work for nothing. Instead of money, volunteers receive a different type of payment: satisfaction.
The exchange of labour for payment between an employee and his/her employer has changed, albeit slightly. This change is not sudden, nor all-consuming; rather, it has been with us for a long time. The difference now is in the proliferation of the number of people who work for personal satisfaction. The social web has provided opportunities for millions of users to volunteer their time towards an ultimate goal. The (professionally unpopular) online encyclopedia known as Wikipedia does not pay its contributors. Those who invest time and effort into the creation of Wikipedia entries do not receive any monetary gain from doing so. However, they do gain a sense of worth for contributing their valued input to the site.
“Valued input.”
How can a series of thoughts, expressed in words and reproduced (for free) on monitors worldwide be “valued input”? Because value is relative. In this week’s reading, Changing Notions of Labour – From Participation to Exploitation, Søren Mørk Petersen states that nothing has an inherent value. “Usually we would ascribe significance or value to objects and subjects as if it came from within.” Instead, we need to realize that value is assigned relative to the supply and demand for an object.
Real life example: A starving man would give his life savings for a piece of bread.
Digital Age example: Digital music is so abundant online that there is no (rational) point in paying for it. People do pay for it, but more out of pity and favouritism than anything else.
As we have seen in the past few decades, web technology is dynamic. As the technology changes, so does the value of communication, information, and entertainment. Stamps are far less commonly used now than when mail was the only communication option short of smoke signals. The value of stamps has decreased in general opinion because of the advent of new communication technology. There is less demand for stamps, therefore their value is diminished. The internet is going to change the notion of supply and demand, because it eliminates the first half of that equation. Once something is online, it can be reproduced ad infinitum.
Capitalism is also dynamic, Petersen points out. It reinvents itself in order to turn a profit. Those who profit from capitalism are already cashing in on the web. Corporations don’t have to worry about maintaining a supply of their online product. They just have to ensure that there is demand for it, and that someone is available to rake in the money. But pirates are here to break the mould. Since the corporations have their product online, ready to be reproduced and sold, pirates find a way around paying for it.
With pirates on the horizon, capitalists have a crisis on their hands. In order to battle it, they have created opportunities for internet users to “volunteer” their time, while taking the information they provide and selling it. This allows other corporations to advocate their product more effectively, ensuring their own profits. What concerns many is this system’s reliance on users to “volunteer”. Some worry that this is exploitation. By definition, exploitation is the unfair treatment of others for personal gain. In this case, corporations have been called exploitative for not paying users for their work maintaining and contributing to websites. However, if the site leads to personal satisfaction, then the users are being paid, just not in the traditional sense. But here’s the kicker. Many popular sites today allow users to connect in order to exchange information through linguistic communication in order to benefit general knowledge. In his article, Petersen references Paolo Virno, who in his 1996 work, Marxism Beyond Marxism states:
“Science, information, linguistic communication, and knowledge in general – rather than labor time – are now the central pillars on which production and wealth rest.”
Are those who work for “Science, information, linguistic communication, and knowledge in general” attaining wealth? I certainly think so.
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