Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy

Amazon and the Power of Organization

Sarrah Kassem (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

222 Seiten

2023
Bristol University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5292-2654-6 (ISBN)

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Drawing on interviews with Amazon workers and original empirical data, this book explores how different working conditions estrange and alienate workers, and how, despite these, workers find ways to organize and express their agency. This is an important analysis of work on the digital shop floor for the scholars of platform economy.

Once hidden behind the veils of entrepreneurship, it is now clear that platforms are reshaping the world of work, and Amazon has been a forerunner in setting the trend.

This book examines two key and contrasting Amazon platforms that differ in how they organize workers: its e-commerce platform and digital labor platform (Mechanical Turk). With access to the people who are working at the heart of these platforms, it explores how different working conditions alienate workers, and how, despite these conditions, workers organize within their political-economic contexts to express their agency in traditional and alternative ways.

Written for social scientists studying and researching the platform economy, this is a timely and important analysis of work and workers on the (digital) shop floor.

Sarrah Kassem is Lecturer and Research Associate in Political Economy at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen.

1. Introduction

Part 1: Examining The World of Work and Workers

2. How to Study Alienation: Marx’s Four Relations

3. How to Grasp Agency: The Power Resources Approach

Part 2: The Birth and Growth of Platforms

4. Historicizing Three Generations of Platforms

5. Contextualizing Amazon’s Growing Empire

Part 3: Workers on the (Digital) Amazon Shop Floor

6. Cog in the Machine: Working the Amazon Circulation Line

7. “I Am Not a Robot”: (Trans)national Labour Organization at the Warehouses

8. “Artificial Artificial Intelligence”: Gigging on Amazon Mechanical Turk

9. Instrumentalizing Technology: Digital Solidarity with and among MTurk Workers

10. Alienation Across Amazon and the Platform Economy

11. The Power of Amazon Workers and Platform Workers

12. Conclusion

Erscheinungsdatum	28.02.2023
Zusatzinfo	9 Tables, black and white; 4 Illustrations, black and white
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
	Technik
	Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management
	Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Wirtschaftspolitik
ISBN-10	1-5292-2654-6 / 1529226546
ISBN-13	978-1-5292-2654-6 / 9781529226546
Zustand	Neuware