>The changes that Hardt and Negri's unfortunate terminology imperfectly captures...
Let's be clear about a couple of things: 1. In the current context I don't believe the terminology is exclusively or perhaps even originally H&N's, it is a general feature of Italian post-Fordist theory.
2. The issue that this "unfortunate" immateriality address is one raised earlier by Marx and that goes back at least to the physiocrats -- as far as I know probably to Aristotle -- about the distinction between "productive" and "unproductive" labour. Many people have argued that the old distinction is odious. Even if we're talking technically about production of surplus value, even supposedly unproductive labour plays a role in legitimating the capitalist's expropriation of surplus value, so what's the difference?
BUT, and I believe this is key, part of the traditional distinction also plays upon the accident of "productive" labour leaving behind a "material" (in the vulgar sense of physical) product... What physical product does transportation of a commodity leave behind? Well, the commodity's location in space, if you want to get technical about it. But, then what is the "material" residue of an advertisement? Is it the piece of paper it's printed on or the arrangement of electrons on the screen or is it the sense impression in the eye of the beholder? Are these things waves or are they particles?
For my own part, I think the distinctions between productive and unproductive labour and between material and immaterial labour can perform a useful heuristic function so long as one doesn't mistake them for qualities that unambiguously characterize the differences between actual objects in the world. Yeats asked, pertinently, how can we know the dancer from the dance?
The Sandwichman