Immaterial-labor theory obscures the physical supply chains undergirding influencer work

Evidence

Understanding this class distinction, we will demonstrate, requires significantly rethinking, and perhaps even rejecting, many theorizations of labor and capital that stress the “immaterial” dimensions of production in a digital age. The concept of “immaterial labor,” as defined by Italian philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato, refers to activities such as creative thought and the maintenance of emotional relations, activities necessary for the reproduction of capital that have long been neglected because of their seeming lack of physical form. Lazzarato’s ideas have been widely taken up to describe technological transformations in capitalism after the 1970s, transformations that coincide with the rise of marketing, public relations, and the cultural industries. With digital, networked media, value regularly seemed to be less about the manufacturing of products than the crafting of brands, the interpretation of data, and the rise of “services” in a range of economic sectors, in which physical commodities were replaced with images, emotions, and information. “Immaterial” forms of labor regularly seem to be what’s at stake with the work of influencing. Yet, as we will show, an emphasis on immaterial labor today serves to obscure new forms of vertically integrated production that return us to the manufacturing and circulation of consumer goods. Even though the “elite” discussed in this book appear to be mostly invested in branding and communication, what we show, instead, is the centrality of manufacturing and supply chains undergirding what may otherwise seem to be the most “immaterial” forms of labor online. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 26

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines Lazzarato’s ‘immaterial labor’ and the book’s corrective: manufacturing and supply chains remain central beneath the seemingly immaterial surface.
• XREF: This reframing is directly relevant to the labor theory of value question — what commodity realizes surplus shifts from the self-image to the physical goods the conglomerate owns.

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