Re: [Marxism] Should IT workers unionize?

[Joonas Laine <jjonas@xxxxxx>]

Ismail Lagardien wrote:
> poor. Included among those affected by capitalist organisation of
> society are the workers in what I think Jeremy Rifkin in the End of
> World called that "Third Industrial Revolution" of "high-tech". He
> made specific reference to "unprecedented material abundance" which
> the so called dotcom sector produced and which, I argue, Marx foresaw
> as ânew-fangled sources of wealthâ .... i say they should
> organise!!!!

Could you expand on this? It sounds interesting, because it touches a
topic I've spent a while thinking about lately.

Some time ago a group of Finnish autonomists put forward a thesis in
their pamphlet that the kind of "timeless spaceless" work where you work
at projects, always with different people, here and there, even on your
free time, is the new *paradigmatic* type of work in the post-fordist
capitalist era (instead of the fordist "mass worker"). They also quote
Marx (Grundrisse and all) very approvingly, though I think they miss the
point somewhat, and understand only his revolutionary spirit (a good
thing in itself), though not so much the actual economic theory.. (not
that I would be a master, but anyway).

Anyone read any good books on the "high tech revolution", and what it
really means? Is it a paradigmatic shift in capitalism, or more or less
the same shit in a different package? The autonomists' material is heavy
on impressionistic philosophizing, but very lean on any numbers.
*Politically* though I think it's worth responding to, all the more so
because they do make very good critical points e.g. on the social
democratic left's orientation towards the "wellfare state".

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