Introduction to the Review Dossier on The Digital Factory: Continuing a Long-Standing Debate

TY - JOUR

T1 - Introduction to the Review Dossier on The Digital Factory

T2 - Continuing a Long-Standing Debate

AU - Akgöz, Görkem

AU - Blok, Aad

PY - 2024/9/18

Y1 - 2024/9/18

N2 - Theories about the impact of digital technology on society and the development of capitalism and debates about the influence of digital information technologies on the future of work have been abundant since the end of the twentieth century. Most of the academic debate has taken place outside labour history, leaving the actual effects of digital technologies on human work and labour relations often overlooked. Moritz Altenried's The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation focuses precisely on these effects, and as such provides a good opportunity to engage with these debates from a labour history perspective. This Review Dossier includes four comments on Altenried's book, by Bridget Kenny, Nico Pizzolato, Görkem Akgöz, and Greg Downey, to which the author responds. The contributors focus on different aspects of The Digital Factory depending on their own perspective on recent developments in the digital economy in the larger context of global capitalism.

AB - Theories about the impact of digital technology on society and the development of capitalism and debates about the influence of digital information technologies on the future of work have been abundant since the end of the twentieth century. Most of the academic debate has taken place outside labour history, leaving the actual effects of digital technologies on human work and labour relations often overlooked. Moritz Altenried's The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation focuses precisely on these effects, and as such provides a good opportunity to engage with these debates from a labour history perspective. This Review Dossier includes four comments on Altenried's book, by Bridget Kenny, Nico Pizzolato, Görkem Akgöz, and Greg Downey, to which the author responds. The contributors focus on different aspects of The Digital Factory depending on their own perspective on recent developments in the digital economy in the larger context of global capitalism.

KW - digital technologies

KW - labour

U2 - 10.1017/S0020859024000385

DO - 10.1017/S0020859024000385

M3 - Article

SN - 0020-8590

VL - 69

SP - 285

EP - 291

JO - International Review of Social History

JF - International Review of Social History

IS - 2

ER -