Commons and Cooperatives

In the last decade, the commons has become a prevalent theme in discussions about collective but decentralized control over resources. This paper is a preliminary exploration of the potential linkages between commons and cooperatives through a discussion of the worker cooperative as one example of a labour commons. We view the worker coop as a response at once antagonistic and accommodative to capitalism. This perspective is amplified through a consideration of five aspects of an ideal-type worker cooperativism: associated labour, workplace democracy, surplus distribution, cooperation among cooperatives, and, controversially, links between worker cooperatives and socialist states. We conclude by suggesting that the radical potential of worker cooperatives might be extended, theoretically and practically, by elaborating connections with other commons struggles in a process we term the circulation of the common

Automating Content Analysis of Video Games

Content analysis of video games tends to be an extremely arduous task, involving the collection of a very large quantity of data and statistics detailing the experiences of gameplay. Nevertheless, it is an important process that supports many business, policy, social, and scholarly activities related to the games industry. Consequently, supports are clearly necessary to facilitate content analysis procedures for video games. This paper discusses an innovative approach to automating content analysis for video games through the use of software instrumentation. By properly instrumenting video game software to enable data collection and processing, content analysis procedures can be either partially or fully automated, depending on the game in question. This paper discusses our overall approach to automation, as well as our experiences to date with Epic’s Unreal Engine. Sample results from initial experiments conducted so far are also presented. These results have been quite positive, demonstrating great promise for continued work in this area

Playing Games with Tito:Designing Hybrid Museum Experiences for Critical Play

This article brings together two distinct, but related perspectives on playful museum experiences: Critical play and hybrid design. The article explores the challenges involved in combining these two perspectives, through the design of two hybrid museum experiences that aimed to facilitate critical play with/in the collections of the Museum of Yugoslavia and the highly contested heritage they represent. Based on reflections from the design process as well as feedback from test users, we describe a series of challenges: Challenging the norms of visitor behaviour, challenging the role of the artefact, and challenging the curatorial authority. In conclusion, we outline some possible design strategies to address these challenges

Cyber-Marx : cycles and circuits of struggle in high technology capitalism

In this highly readable and thought-provoking work, Nick Dyer-Witheford assesses the relevance of Marxism in our time and demonstrates how the information age, far from transcending the historic conflict between capital and its laboring subjects, constitutes the latest battleground in their encounter. Dyer-Witheford maps the dynamics of modern capitalism, showing how capital depends for its operations not just on exploitation in the immediate workplace but on the continuous integration of a whole series of social sites and activities, from public health and maternity to natural resource allocation and the geographical reorganization of labor power. He also shows how these sites and activities may become focal points of subversion and insurgency, as new means of communication vital for the smooth flow of capital also permit otherwise isolated and dispersed points of resistance to connect and combine with one another. Dyer-Witheford predicts the advent of a reinvented, "autonomist" Marxism that will rediscover the possibility of a collective, communist transformation of society. Refuting the utopian promises of the information revolution, he discloses the real potentialities for a new social order in the form of a twenty-first-century communism based on the common sharing of wealth

“EA Spouse” and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, Exodus

The blog postings of “EA Spouse,” partner of an exhausted video game programmer, have catalyzed discussion of epidemic overwork in the digital play industry. This paper analyzes the crisis of labour in this glamorous new medium. After a brief overview of the industry and its production process, we discuss its labour conditions under four headings. “Enjoyment” examines the real pleasures game workers find at their jobs. “Exclusion” discusses the gendering of game work. “Exploitation” investigates the corporate processes that drive toward a work culture of extreme hours and the consequences game workers suffer. “Exodus” looks at current attempts by workers to escape this predicament—attempts including legal action, educational efforts, entrepreneurial flight, and union organizing. </jats:p

Left Populism and Platform Capitalism

This paper contextualizes and analyses the policy proposals of new “left populisms” (Mouffe 2018) for the regulation and reform of the “platform capitalism” (Srnicek 2017) that increasingly organizes digital communication. The era of the 2008 crash and subsequent recession saw the emergence in North America and Europe of new left-wing electoral initiatives, either as new parties or fractions within older parties. These include, in the USA, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Democrats; in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party; in Spain, Podemos; in Germany, Die Linke; in France, La France Insoumise. While many of these groupings might be described as socialist, or democratic socialist, they often also distinguish themselves from older socialist or social democratic formations; so, for lack of a better term, we call them left populisms. Left populisms are connected in contradictory ways to the appearance of platform capitalism, a corporate model exemplified by Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Uber, deploying proprietorial software as a launch-point for user activities accessing commodified or advertising-driven goods and services. The rise of left populism correlates with the ascent of platform capitalists. Left populist parties emerged from the anti-austerity movements (Occupy in the USA, the Indignados in Spain, student campus occupations in the UK) organized with the help of social media platforms. However, it is also the failures and scandals of platform capitalism have been important to left populism. Edward Snowden’s revelations of ubiquitous surveillance and the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica-Russian hacker imbroglio around the 2016 US election have fuelled a “techlash” against giant digital corporations that is now an important component of left populist sentiment. Drawing on policy documents, manifestos, speeches, position paper, this paper analyses the policy platforms in which left populist parties confront platform capitalism around issues of content regulation; concentration of ownership; the rights of digital workers; alternative ownership models; and proposals for a high-tech driven transition to “postcapitalism” (Mason 2016). It considers the similarities and difference between and within left populist parties on these issues; the extent of their departure from neoliberal policies; and their differences, and occasional erratic similarities, with right-wing populisms, such as that of Trump. It then reviews critiques of left populism made from Marxist and ecological anti-capitalist positions, with particular reference to technological issues. The paper concludes with a summary of the opportunities and problems for a left wing “data populism” (Morozov 2016) in the current political conjuncture.</jats:p