> In any case, I agree with much of your description of class that followed.
> I'm working on an article that touches on the concept of immaterial labor
> in the Italian autonomist tradition. This idea seems really flawed if it is
> meant to describe an actual transformation of capitalism as a world system.
> It might work to signal a change in work done at one point in the value
> chain, but this work is (usually) only valuable because it is adding value
> to some material work done somewhere else. So it is less a complete
> transformation of all labor processes than a recognition that the division
> of labor is more transnational and the distribution for its rewards is
> unequal.
Yeah I agree with you... A lot of the problem I have with the concept is that it's supposed to be something new. When I first read Hardt and Negri when Empire was making its big splash, I happened to be reading David Copperfield at the same time, and its cast of characters is full of 'immaterial labourers' from David the proctor to Uriah Heep the clerk - capitalism's always had them.
A friend of mine has written some good criticism of 'immaterial labour', and he's sympathetic to the autonomists in general:
Mike Beggs