Digitisation – putting precarisation into context

Research Article
How to Cite
Herrmann P. Digitisation – putting precarisation into context. Living Standards of the Population in the Regions of Russia. 2020. Vol. 16. No. 4. P. 119-128. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19181/lsprr.2020.16.4.10

Abstract

Digitisation is widely – and justifiably criticised – for its detrimental impact on social developments (securitisation of employment and social insurances), commonly understood as point of reference for heterodox policies. However, too often two shortcomings are underlying this view: (a) the confusion of the technical dimension of digitisation and its use as definiendum of business models and (b) the assumption of the validity of a socio-economic normal that actually never really existed. In the following the main argument is developed along the line that a widely underdeveloped perspective on the process of capitalism is the acknowledgement of its socialising character – leaving aside its appearance and isolating the analysis on individual capitals. While this is in very broad terms accepted (as matter of the antagonistic relationship between social character of production and the private appropriation of its results), it is not sufficiently elaborated if and to which extent this private appropriation is in actual fact a matter of violence. Leaving the ultimate answer aside, it is worthwhile to consider that from both, the socio-economic angle as well as from the regulatory side we are witnessing a kind of natural push towards a more radical process of socialisation, going hand in hand with processes of digitisation
Keywords:
digitisation, precarity, superconsumption, capitalism, mode of production, social quality

Author Biography

Peter Herrmann, The Central South University, Changsha, PRC
Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center, Law School 

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Article

Received: 09.08.2020

Accepted: 10.11.2020

Citation Formats
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APA
Herrmann, P. (2020). Digitisation – putting precarisation into context. Living Standards of the Population in the Regions of Russia, 16(4), 119-128. https://doi.org/10.19181/lsprr.2020.16.4.10