The Social Factory in the Digital Economy

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Bhat: The idea of a social factory is really thinking about how it's not just the work place or the factory as the arena in which people are being exploited. And i think you can use some of the same ideas and metaphors, but you need to look at it from a different lens. So many of the platforms exist in order to extract value from communities, but the communities are also their main source of profit. We could connect through other systems that we have with each other. Bhat: I think this perspective is really dant because even though the these companies have huge market valuations, they've got this huge political power.

Paris Marx is joined by James Muldoon to discuss his vision for platform socialism and the different ways we could reorganize platforms to serve the public good over corporate profit.

James Muldoon is the author of Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim our Digital Future from Big Tech. He’s also a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter and the Head of Digital Research at Autonomy. Follow James on Twitter at @james_muldoon_.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

James wrote about why web3 won’t save the internet.
Paris wrote about what’s wrong with discourses about decentralization and why we should nationalize Amazon.
Francesca Bria was interviewed by Crypto Syllabus about web3, decentralization, and her experience with municipal tech projects.
Facebook’s Project Amplify ensured users saw positive stories about the company.
Antonio Negri and Dalla Costa were among the Italian Autonomist Marxists thinking about the social factory. Karl Marx wrote about the concept of surplus value.
G.D.H. Cole wrote about guild socialism. James also mentions the work of Otto Neurath.