Engels’s Theory of Social Murder and the Spectacle of Fascism: A Critical Enquiry into Digital Labour and its Alienation

Abstract

In this paper, I shall attempt to respond to the charge that the digital labour theory, as developed by Christian Fuchs, doesn’t faithfully stick to the Marxist schema of the Labour Theory of Value by arguing that Marx’s critique of capitalism was based on the social and material cost of exploitation and the impact of capitalist exploitation of the working class. Engels’s analysis of The Condition of The Working Class in England links the various forms of violence faced by the working class to the bourgeois rule that props their exploitation. I shall argue, within the framework of Critical Social Media Studies, that the rapid advance of fascist and authoritarian regimes represents a similar development of violence and dispossession, with digital capitalism being a major factor catalysing the rifts within societies. It shall be further argued that much like the exploitative nature of labour degrades social linkages and creates conditions of that exaggerates social contradictions, the “labour” performed by social media users degenerates social relations and promotes a hyper-violent spectacle that aids and abets fascist and authoritarian regimes.

Theorising Digital Dispossession: An Enquiry into the Datafication of Accumulation by Dispossession

“…We can broadly generalise therefore that recommender systems become increasingly 'accurate' or efficient in ensuring a user follows through with the recommended interaction. I have argued for closer attention to be paid to the process of 'recommendation' rather than the accumulated user data (Saha 2020). This approach leads us to the understanding of the Recommender Systems as a 'commodity' that is constructed through historically constituted user labour.…”