From Immaterial Labor To Biopolitical Labor

After capitalism entered the era of machine industry,the organic components of capital have been increasing and it shows a trend of preferring techniques to physical strength.While the significance of science and technology takes more and more dominant place in capitalist production,the physical labor of workers become more and more subordinative.In Economics Manuscript From 1857 to 1858,Marx called the trend above “the production of general intellect”,which has been more significant since the development of the Third Scientific and Technological Revolution.Maurizio Lazzarato first came up with the concept of “immaterial labor” on the basis of general intellect.However,this concept focused too much on the appearance of intellect and immaterial that it ignored the physical productive forces and the value of emotions.Thus,Negri and Hardt further enriched the implication of the concept of “immaterial labor”.In their opinion,the immaterial labor represents the creation of immaterial products,for example,knowledge,information,interpersonal relationship or emotional responds and other forms of labor.And these forms of labor has dominated social production recently.However,with the development of theoretical articulation,Negri and Hardt gradually realized that the concept of immaterial labor has its disadvantages.On the one hand,it makes people focus too much on the immateriality of labor that it ignores the immateriality of products.On the other hand,it also fails to uncover the biopolitical dimension of labor.Therefore,with the help of Foucault’s biopolitical theory,they substituted “immaterial labor” with “biopolitical labor”.This procedure aimed to point out that the capitalist production then is not only a form of economic production,but also a form of production of life and society.Whereas,under the condition of capitalism,capital has taken control over the production of life and has totally despoiled human of their subjectivity.Thus,the concept of biopolitical labor further reveals modern capitalism’s full control of human life and provides a new framework for us to understand labor.From the perspective of biopolitical labor,capital’s exploitation manifests itself in a new form as the exploitation of biopolitics rather than as the exploitation of surplus value.While the latter emphasizes a quantifiable exploitation,the former emphasizes the present capitalist society’s overall non-quantifiable exploitation of life.Correspondingly,capital’s full charge over biopolitical subjects has included the subject’s fierce resistance against the control.Accordingly,Negri and Hardt rebuilt a subject of revolution,the multitude,and took exodus as a way of emancipation.Nevertheless,as they focus too much on the subject of biopolitics that they ignore the internal conflicts of capitalism,this theory manifested itself as a regression of theory,a deviation from historical materialism and eventually construed as an abstract humanism.