Post-Wage Politics and the Rise of Community Capitalism

Abstract

This article discusses new patterns of precariarization and informalization beyond waged labour. Against a backdrop of multiple social changes, there is a new era of social reproduction based on the interplay between a politics of post-waged work and a politics of community, involving activities outside the realms of market, state and family. Whereas the implications of familybased care work have long been highlighted, the community-based political economy of the 'postwage regime' has yet to be analysed. Taking Germany as an example, the article describes how the state is actively involved in promoting and exploiting post-waged work. At the same time, community projects and grassroots activities contribute to the social reproduction of livelihoods, often becoming an active part of the precarious post-wage regime. The question is raised whether or not these interweaving developments herald a new era of community capitalism.

In, Against and Beyond Precarity: Work in Insecure Times

“…Sociologists have generally been slower to consider moving ‘beyond precarity’ in this way. Van Dyk’s (2018) paper is thus an important and timely intervention; allowing us to examine forms of work that might be produced in such post-waged contexts. It is painfully apparent that while the politics of post-wage societies have the potential to move beyond labour as the source of protection, there are dangers in the fact that the state, as a representative of capital, tends to incorporate elements of social life into its valorization systems.…”

“…It is painfully apparent that while the politics of post-wage societies have the potential to move beyond labour as the source of protection, there are dangers in the fact that the state, as a representative of capital, tends to incorporate elements of social life into its valorization systems. Emphases on non-commodified or non-wage labour, might, as Van Dyk (2018) demonstrates, provide a way out of neo-liberalism, towards a new manifestation of capitalism – ‘community capitalism’ – based on the promotion and exploitation of ‘post-waged work’. Here, the state again plays an active role in ‘harnessing the social’ (Dowling and Harvie, 2014), producing value through the unwaged work carried out by communities of care and the so-called ‘sharing economy’.…”

Between a Promise and a Salary: Student-Migrant-Workers’ Experiences of Precarious Labour Markets

“…There has been an increase in unremunerated work (Simonet, 2018) simultaneously as work increasingly is split into blocks and short shifts spread over the working day interspersed with hours of unpaid waiting, and into piecework paid by the completed task, often demanding additional unpaid labour (Baines, 2004). Furthermore, forms of voluntary work and sharing economy, as well as open-source projects, constitute the basis of a new post-waged work regime in which unpaid work is a source of value extraction (Van Dyk, 2018). As Dowling and Harvie (2014: 883) argue, ‘capital’s lifeblood is unpaid work’, resulting in the construction of areas of labour and resources that are external to the market in the form of unpaid housework, for instance (Federici, 2012).…”

Environmentalism put to work: Ideologies of green recruitment in Toronto

“…Indeed unpaid internships have become a defining feature of a variety of industries operating in Toronto's labour market, ranging from journalism and digital work (DePeuter et al, 2015) to organic farming (Ekers, 2018). Work that, despite not being compensated through a wage, is exchanged and performed within market relations has been captured by concepts such as "decommodified labour" (La Berge, 2018), "post-wage work" (Alberti et al, 2018;Van Dyk, 2018), "hope labour" (Kuehn and Corrigan, 2013) or "aspirational work" (Duffy, 2017). These concepts emphasize the detachment of employment from access to economic benefits.…”