Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory

Marx and the Political Economy of the Media, 2000

Communication is examined in the realm of Marxist theory not as an autonomous social field, but as a component in the total social structure. It is argued that there was a shift from the initial Marxist idea of forms of communication as relations of production to communication as part of the superstructure, and that this view has prevailed in Marxist theory for a long period of time. In the work of later Marxists, we can spot a re-connection of communication with the capitalist mode of production, but not with the process of structuration and changing of relations of production. In my view, first we must connect these modifications in Marxist theory with the changes in the capitalist mode of production itself and secondly we must seek the role of communication primarily in the production process. We stress that at the end of the 19 th century there was a shift from extensive to intensive forms of surplus value which was tightly interconnected with the mass (enlarged) consumption of symbolic commodities and commodities -symbols as stimulus for the intensive production. In this way capitalism was transformed to symbolic capitalism. In the '60s, the symbolic logic of enlarged consumption led to the need for diverse and flexible production and therefore to the deep information -symbolic changes in technology and social organization of the labour. Thus the logic of consumption became the logic of production. This made possible on one hand the shrinkage of the enlarged consumption and on the other the high productivity of the economic systems. This was the rise of a new, deep symbolic capitalism, which made possible the social change without seizing the power. Therefore, the recent developments in the capitalist mode of production takes us back to the primary Marxist notion of communication forms as relations of production and make possible to change the laters by changing the first.

TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 2018

New communication technologies strengthen existing power relations, helping to maintain class inequalities and alienating people. In the new communication age, human sub-jectivity itself has become a commodity. This paper analyses the role of Marxist studies in the academic field of communication studies. It focuses on the relevance of Marx's views for understanding communication in the digital era, Marxist communication studies after the expansion of digital media, and new dimensions of communication that have been incorporated into Marxist literature. Topics that matter in this context include the intersection of play and work, media economics in the age of digital communication, digital labour, the online games industry, targeted advertising, newly emerging social inequalities, and surveillance and privacy issues. Also an outlook for potential future Marxist studies of communication is given.

Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism (eds. Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco), 2015

This is a book chapter published in the volume entitled "Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism", edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco. Abstract: The commodity-form played an important, if often overlooked, role in the studies of capitalism. Processes of transforming literally anything into a privatized form of (fictitious) commodity produced for market exchange are of fundamental importance for the rise and reproduction of capitalism. At the same time, the commodity, as the “cell-form of capitalism”, has played a crucial role throughout Marx’s oeuvre. This chapter aims to contribute to a large body of academic work dealing with commodification and commodity-form by directing focus on the field of communication in the widest sense of this word. Commodity-form and commodification are analysed from a theoretical, conceptual and historical point of view. Main consequences for society and social relations that emanate from the global universalisation of the commodity-form are emphasized. In the conceptual and theoretic part this chapter analyses how the commodity-form was analysed by Marx throughout his oeuvre, how this corresponds to the wider constitution of capitalist society, and how critical authors analysed these processes. It is claimed there is now an enduring global commodification of everything, including culture, creativity, information, and diverging types of communication; these social categories are becoming fundamental in what could also be called capitalist informational societies. Historical dialectical approach is used in the historical part of the chapter to make sense of this on-going contradictory social transformation, which manifests itself simultaneously as continuity of capitalist social relations and discontinuity of the means of production (because of the strengthened influence of information in the present historical epoch). Commodification of communication and information is analysed in deeply historical manner by looking at how these resources have been subjugated to capitalist market relations since the capitalist economic system first emerged several centuries ago. It is claimed, however, that especially political incentives and interventions led to the increasing social, economic and political significance of the information and communication systems and resources we have been witnessing in the last few decades. A seeping commodification as a historically novel type of commodification, which trickles throughout society, is conceptualized in the final part of the chapter. This is done by referring to the long historical transformations and to two strands of thought that offer several converging points between them: a) to critical communication studies, more specifically to political economy of communication (through a reappraisal of the “blind spot debate” initiated by Dallas W. Smythe and his audience commodity thesis); and b) to some neo-Marxist approaches, especially to the findings of the authors basing their research in the autonomist (post-operaist) movement (that defined the present transformations through concepts such as communicative, bio-linguistic capitalism, and social factory). The concept of a seeping commodification indicates we are witnessing a qualitative transformation in the commodification processes that is, in part, owed to an overwhelming capitalist enclosure of the wider communicative field, which accompanied its increased economic importance. Keywords: Commodity-form, Commodification, Abstraction, Political economy of communication, Critique of political economy, Social factory, Audience commodity, The Internet, Communication capitalism, Capitalism, Critical communication studies, Information Society, Enclosures, Intellectual Property Rights, Critical Media and Communications History.

Irish Journal of Sociology, 2011

The essay attempts to re-contextualise the normative import of capitalism in the light of modern social theoretical developments. It firstly explores the significance in this regard of the procedural turn in both social theory and political philosophy. While important, this turn has come at the price of a loss of focus on the substantive plane of how unjust social relations – such as those often arising from capitalist structures – diminish the moral capacities of democratic institutions to shape social change. The essay goes on to show in the second section how Axel Honneth (2004, 2007), offering a partial corrective, combines a procedural emphasis on communication with a substantive account of embedded normative structures, opening the way to a differentiated sociological approach that remains normative but not one-sidedly transcendent and deontological. Taking a lead from these reflections, the third section presents a social theoretical architecture concerned both with social st...

Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism, 2015

2014

We have entered the first phase of the revolt of the knowledge class. The protests associated with the Occupy movement, Chilean student protests, the Montreal protests, European anti-austerity protests, some components of the protests of the Arab spring, as well as multiple ongoing and intermittent strikes of teachers, civil servants, and medical workers all over the world, are protests of those proletarianized under communicative capitalism. These are not struggles of the multitude, struggles for democracy, or struggles specific to local contexts. Nor are they merely the defensive struggles of a middle class facing cuts to social services, wage stagnation, unemployment, and declining home values. They are fronts in a class war under the conditions of global communicative capitalism. Mainstream media babble about Facebook and Twitter revolutions was right, but for the wrong reasons. It was right to draw our attention to networked media, to suggest a link between the protests and ubiquitous communication networks. But it was wrong to think that protests are occurring because people can easily coordinate with social media, that they are primarily struggles for democracy, or that they are indications of a push for freedom on the part of networked individuals. 1 These revolts make sense as class struggle, as the political struggle of a knowledge class whose work is exploited and lives are expropriated by communicative capitalism. 2 I am using the term knowledge class very broadly to designate those whose communicative activities generate value that is expropriated from them. 3 I have in mind both the wide field of knowledge labor and the voluntary, unpaid, everyday activities of media use that are traced,

2017

Throughout my studies it usually went without contestation when professors in their seminars and lectures on media and communication asserted that "Critical Theory was discussed in 1970s but they've run around this garden long enough by the end of the 70s"-how can students do more but shrug their shoulders if they never hear the opposite from their teachers? It is of great value that with Christian Fuchs Communication and Media Studies have a young, committed and strongly engaged scholar and teacher who pushes Critical Theory including Karl Marx, the Frankfurt School and Herbert Marcuse (back) into the discipline. It is to be hoped that his commitment will encourage other critical scholars and Marxian thinkers in the field to come out of the wood confidently. As German native and fluent English speaker Fuchs has the valuable ability to comfortably swim in the waters of both the Anglo-American Marxian debates and in the by far more vast and differentiated sea of German Marxian and Marxist traditions. With this great asset, however comes a liability to also bridge gaps by raising awareness within the English-only Marxian debates for relevant currents that are hitherto very little received. It is thus a great misfortune that the author com

In his book, Capitalist realism, the late cultural theorist, Mark Fisher, describes the difference between Fordism and post-Fordism. The Fordist factory, he writes, was crudely divided into blue and white collar work, with the different types of labor physically delimited by the structure of the building itself. Laboring in noisy environments, watched over by managers and supervisors, workers had access to language only in their breaks, in the toilet, at the end of the working day, or when they were engaged in sabotage, because communication interrupted production. But in post-Fordism, when the assembly line becomes a 'flux of information', people work by communicating. (Fisher, 2009, pp. 33-34)

Robert McChesney (2007) said that the notion of communication and media in Marx’s political economy has not been systematically teased out in its various manifestations. Although there are several of Marxist media theories, they are, as Nicholas Garnham (1990) and Christian Fuchs (2010) argue fragmented, production centric or dominated by the base-superstructure problematic. Dallas Smythe’s’ contributions notwithstanding, media and communication is still a blindspot in Marxism. Indeed, Marx and subsequent Marxist have largely neglected media. There is no Marxist definition of what media are and what their function(s) in the capitalist mode of production. When Marx and Marxists discuss media they typically define media as the means of communication and transport or mass media. Garnham and Fuchs have called for a systematic treatment of communication in Marx's political economy and argue that the circuit of capital that Marx (1973) discusses in Capital Vol. 2 as a starting point. During circulation capital metamorphoses from money into commodities and back into more money, and in this circulatory process capital proceeds in time and space. Using the circuit of capital as the core analytical concept, the purpose of this paper is to give media the attention it deserves in the Marxist canon by proposing a working definition of media and typology with which to categorize various media in the capitalist mode of production. I will argue that media are, to borrow a concept from McLuhan, the extensions of the functions of capital's three particular forms (money-, productive- and commodity-capital). Using this definition, phenomena such as ideology, advertising, planned obsolescence and credit are media. I will argue that the general function of media in capitalism is logistical because it enables or accelerates capital’s movement through the circuit of capital. Bibliography Fuchs, C. (2010). Grounding Critical Communication Studies: An Inquiry Into the Communication Theory of Karl Marx. Journal of Communication Inquiry 34(1):15-41. Garnham, N. (1990). Capitalism and Communication: Global Culture and the Economics of Information. London: Sage. Marx, K. (1978). Capital Volume 2. London: Penguin Classics. Mosco, V. (2007). Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media. New York: The New Press.

We have en­t­e­red the first pha­se of the re­volt of the know­ledge class. The pro­tests as­so­cia­ted with the Oc­cu­py mo­ve­ment, Chi­le­an stu­dent pro­tests, the Mon­tre­al pro­tests, Eu­ro­pean anti-aus­te­ri­ty pro­tests, some com­po­n­ents of the pro­tests of the Arab spring, as well as mul­ti­ple on­go­ing and in­ter­mit­tent strikes of teachers, ci­vil ser­vants, and me­di­cal workers all over the world, are pro­tests of tho­se pro­le­ta­ria­ni­zed un­der com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ve ca­pi­ta­lism. The­se are not strugg­les of the multi­tu­de, strugg­les for de­mo­cra­cy, or strugg­les spe­ci­fic to lo­cal con­texts. Nor are they me­rely the de­fen­si­ve strugg­les of a midd­le class fa­c­ing cuts to so­ci­al ser­vices, wage sta­gna­ti­on, un­em­ploy­ment, and de­cli­ning home va­lues. They are fronts in a class war un­der the con­di­ti­ons of glo­bal com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ve ca­pi­ta­lism. Main­stream me­dia bab­b­le about Face­book and Twit­ter re­vo­lu­ti­ons was right, but for the wrong re­a­sons. It was right to draw our at­ten­ti­on to net­wor­ked me­dia, to sug­gest a link bet­ween the pro­tests and ubi­qui­tous com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on net­works. But it was wrong to think that pro­tests are oc­cur­ring be­cau­se peop­le can ea­si­ly co­or­di­na­te with so­ci­al me­dia, that they are pri­ma­ri­ly strugg­les for de­mo­cra­cy, or that they are in­di­ca­ti­ons of a push for free­dom on the part of net­wor­ked in­di­vi­du­als. The­se re­volts make sen­se as class strugg­le, as the po­li­ti­cal strugg­le of a know­ledge class who­se work is ex­ploi­ted and li­ves are ex­pro­pria­ted by com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ve ca­pi­ta­lism.