P2P as the theory of the new class of knowledge workers

A sub-group of the ‘information proletariat’ are sometimes called ‘knowledge workers’, that is, those who jobs require high level of knowledge input obtained from advanced schooling. They are now about one third of the workforce in the US, more than twice as numerous as the manual factory proletariat. *

I have long harboured the intution that the emergence of the inter-related p2p paradigms (openness, participation, commons, sharing, mutualism, etc..) is related to the emergence of knowledge workers as a new section of the wealth producing classes (as opposed to the managerial classes), and that the old language of social democracy and socialism no longer appeals to their experience of life.

I find this idea expressed quite well, in the following contribution by Gerry Hassan, which also mentions that 42% of UK workers fall in that category:

“Today, the next technological and productive wave offers the chance of what might be called an artisan class to develop: hugely productive, not marginal, and very widespread, with an interest in creating a market society that is not dominated by capital. ‘Self-determinations’ would fit well with its interests. One hint of it is in what Carlotta Perez describes as the switch from closed hierarchies to open networks, from employees as resources to “employees as creative capital”.

The Sloanist period of capitalism, still expanding of course in the developing world, gave wealth (and debts) to its employees. From cars to labour saving devices such as washing machines (incredibly important for women), this transformed their lives. But they remained objects of consumption and the fruits of equal citizenship were primarily experienced in consumer ownership.

The question now is whether the micro-chip and computers are bringing about the public’s ownership and control of the instruments of production. For sure digital technology is dissolving the massed industrial labour force of the Sloanist period. While we are seeing the huge growth of ‘knowledge workers’ of all kinds (Research from the Work Foundation claims that such workers now comprise 42 per cent of the total and are rising).

Are we witnessing the transformation of the workforce into the shared owners and controllers of capital? If so, can we through the organisation of our productive power create a networked market society, which is capable of displacing the privatised rule of capital on the basis of the self-determinations you set out?

There are two sets of evidence pointing in this direction. The increasing rise of what can be seen as an artisan class of producers, of all kinds, enabled by digital technology. Often running small, interconnected businesses with high skills and a vested interest in openness rather than oligopoly. The current fashion for and interest in 18th century enlightenment issues and republicanism is associated with this shift, I feel. Second, there is the increasing interest in mutualism, cooperatives and other forms of self-governing businesses. There is a rapidly growing body of research and advocacy about this too (see, for example, Robin Murray of NESTA and the Young Foundation on “the new social economy” or the work of the New Economics Foundation).”

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