The commodity form in cognitive capitalism

Abstract

We revisit the Marxist debate on the commodity form. By following the thought of Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Slavoj Žižek, we attempt to understand the commodity form through the Kantian categories a priori. Sohn-Rethel explores the proposition that there can be no cognition independent of its historical and social conditions and puts forward the daring conclusion of an ontological unity between knowledge and commodity exchange. We suggest that Sohn-Rethel’s thought finds new relevance nowadays, under the prevalence of a cognitive capitalism. We discuss the reformulation of relations of production and consumption under cognitive capitalism and show how knowledge-led immaterial and affective labour adds a higher value to the commodities into which it is embodied. Above all, the commodity form in cognitive capitalism becomes biopolitical

Subjectivity and its crisis

“…Sohn-Rethel takes an intermediate position between Lukács’ emphatic-revolutionary and Adorno’s pessimistic-negative interpretation of the commodity-form. His critique turns on the idea of ‘real abstraction’ which, according to him, must be practically executed in exchange so that things are identifiable as abstract objects and are made commensurable as pure values (Sohn-Rethel, 1978: 18–34; Sohn-Rethel, 1990: 16–17; Toscano, 2014: 1226–9; Tsogas, 2012: 380–3).The view that abstraction was not the exclusive property of the mind, but arises in commodity exchange was first expressed by Marx in the beginning of Capital and earlier in the Critique of Political Economy of 1859. (Sohn-Rethel, 1978: 19)Sohn-Rethel here refers to the same two works as Lukács did in the first sentence of his reification essay (as quoted above).…”

Neoliberalism, the Knowledge Economy, and the Learner: Challenging the Inevitability of the Commodified Self as an Outcome of Education

“…Peters [25] believes that we have now entered a phase of knowledge capitalism. This shift has also been characterised as cognitive (bio)capitalism [26] in that the knowledge economy is based on constructs of immaterial (intellectual and affective) labour rather than physical labour as the basis of production [27]. The key aspect to this latest phase is an extension of the importance of intellectual and symbolic goods in the economy [27].…”

“…This shift has also been characterised as cognitive (bio)capitalism [26] in that the knowledge economy is based on constructs of immaterial (intellectual and affective) labour rather than physical labour as the basis of production [27]. The key aspect to this latest phase is an extension of the importance of intellectual and symbolic goods in the economy [27]. Within both neoliberalism and the idea of the knowledge economy rests a concept of each individual as being economically responsible and "economically self-interested" [2, page 314].…”

Augmenting autonomy: ‘New Collar’ labor and the future of tech work

“…As previously noted, IBM stresses the practicality of New Collar work, citing ‘cognitive’ outcomes produced for the exchange of economic value in contemporary markets. In this way, understood as commodities in cognitive capitalism, cognitive outcomes retain cognitive energies, and esteem of New Collar workers ‘transposed and enshrined into the body of a commodity’ (Tsogas, 2012: 389). P-TECH is not a precursor to this transposition and enshrining but, instead, its initial phase.…”

“…P-TECH is not a precursor to this transposition and enshrining but, instead, its initial phase. Where, in cognitive capitalism, ‘values are embedded in commodities as they travel rough their production processes’ (Tsogas, 2012: 391), IBM’s economy of learning incorporates cognitive qualities and values of New Collar work from the first contact with P-TECH trainees to the daily machinations of formal employment. When circulating as commodities, cognitive outcomes embody the ‘social corporeality of cognitive labor’ (Berardi, 2009: 105) wherein this labor is a corpus of productive energies put to work by a nexus of institutions and arrangements undergirding IBM’s prowess in cognitive capitalist markets.…”