Digital Working Lives: Worker Autonomy and the Gig Economy (Off the Fence: Morality, Politics and Society)

Christiaens, Tim

ISBN 10: 1538173808 / ISBN 13: 9781538173800

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2024

About this Item

170 pages. 8.94x5.97x0.50 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # x-1538173808

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Digital Working Lives: Worker Autonomy and the Gig Economy (Off the Fence: Morality, Politics and Society)
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1538173808
• ISBN 13: 9781538173800
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.27 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

Recent innovations in digital technologies are fundamentally transforming the world of work. A digital gig economy is emerging that threatens to displace traditional labour relations based on legally regulated labour contracts. Companies like Uber, Deliveroo, or Amazon Mechanical Turk rely increasingly on ‘independent contractors’ who earn piece-rate wages by completing tasks sent to them via their smartphones. This development understandably pushes workers to desire more autonomy, but what would workers’ autonomy mean in the digital age?

This book argues that the digital gig economy undermines workers’ autonomy by putting digital technology in charge of workers’ surveillance, leading to exploitation, alienation, and exhaustion. To secure a more sustainable future of work, digital technologies should instead be transformed into tools that support human development instead of subordinating it to algorithmic control. The best guarantee for human autonomy is a politics that transforms digital platforms into convivial tools that obey the rhythm of human life.

About the Author

Tim Christiaens is Assistant Professor of economic ethics at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He is the author of Digital Working Lives (2022) on the gig economy and worker autonomy, and has published on topics like Italian thought, philosophy of technology, neoliberalism, and biopolitical theory in journals like European Journal of Social Theory, Italian Studies, Big Data & Society, and Foucault Studies.