Silicon Valley’s celebrated culture structurally depends on exploited undocumented labor

Evidence

Summarizing in a way that is applicable to the whole sharing economy, Melissa Gregg puts it well when she says that “liberation [from employee contracts] frees up Uber from the traditional responsibilities of being an employer. It is ingenious to make employment less predictable, and thus less costly, in the name of independence and choice.” As such, regardless of its size or long-term success, Uber remains an important exemplar of a projected direction for global capitalism: it represents the potential to create new forms of exploitative work, to substantially increase the levels of exploitation within established forms of work, and to circumvent human labor altogether (the company is currently investing heavily in driverless cars and trucks). Data-gathering and data tracking are essential to all these functions, the fact of which makes exploitation seem like the “natural” outcome of algorithmic processes. Gone are the narratives of a benign form of capitalism in which institutions still acknowledged a social responsibility. Instead, we have institutions that merely engineer “processes” or “interfaces,” and society has to live with the results. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 225 (#expands, via linked claim)

Thus, the male transnational worker from Pakistan is understood as inhabiting a particular kind of racialized masculinity from the viewpoint of so-called liberaldemocratic publics and a simultaneous transnational class formation from the viewpoint of neoliberal capitalism that requires a service economy. Although complex in their formation, race and class for these workers are often subsumed in the characterization of migrant illegality. As a trait of the global economy, such a construction is tied to the legal apparatuses mandated by states and by the realities of complex global markets that cannot be regulated. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 50 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Gig-economy liberation rhetoric masks new and deeper labor exploitation — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 225; Migrant illegality subsumes and obscures distinct race and class dynamics — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 50; Silicon Valley’s celebrated culture conceals its dependence on exploited undocumented labor and structural inequality. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 119

Related

• Migrant illegality subsumes and obscures distinct race and class dynamics (similarity 0.83)
• Gig-economy liberation rhetoric masks new and deeper labor exploitation (similarity 0.82)
• Silicon Valley’s celebrated culture conceals its dependence on exploited undocumented labor and structural inequality. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Gig-economy liberation rhetoric masks new and deeper labor exploitation #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 225
• Migrant illegality subsumes and obscures distinct race and class dynamics #expands (0.75) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 50