Algorithmic management strips workers of any human authority to contest discipline

Evidence

Workers forced to work for these algorithms find themselves in a modernist nightmare: some non-corporeal entity that not only lacks but is actually incapable of human empathy allocates them work at a rate of its choosing before monitoring their response times…. The workers sacked by the algorithm are thrown into a Kafkaesque spiral, unable to speak to a human capable of explaining why they were fired. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 119

Categorization

• BMF: The Kafkaesque spiral of being disciplined by a non-corporeal entity you cannot address evokes the machine-court in Zamyatin’s We, where the Benefactor’s decrees come from an anonymous, unapproachable apex rather than any human interlocutor.
• XREF: connects to: Workers establish their own norms that blunt management speed-up tactics — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1478; Internalized discipline makes the human inspector functionally superfluous — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 59; Discipline operates through uninterpreted signals demanding automatic response — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 250 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Internalized discipline makes the human inspector functionally superfluous #corroborates (0.80) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 59
• Workers establish their own norms that blunt management speed-up tactics #contradicts (0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1478
• Discipline operates through uninterpreted signals demanding automatic response #corroborates (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 250