By RICARDO ANTUNES*
Author's introduction to the newly released edition of the book
1.
The senses of work It was originally released in 1999. Since then, there has been an expanded and updated edition (2009) and 15 reprints. Abroad, it was published in Argentina (Herramienta, 2005); in Italy (Jaca, 2006 and Punto Rosso, 2017); in the Netherlands and England (Brill, 2012); in the United States (Haymarket, 2013); in India (2015) and in Portugal (Almedina, 2013).
While this is not a brief summary of what is largely developed in the book, it is worth pointing out that the indispensability of work in the contemporary world is evident, at least in two crucial dimensions:
(i) When work is understood as a vital activity (Marx), that is, as an intrinsic and constitutive dimension of human history, present at all moments of life, since the genesis of the social being. Without this decisive ontological, historical and concrete dimension, present in work, which produces and reproduces social life, humanity could not even exist.
(ii) Without labor, capital ultimately cannot reproduce itself. Without surplus value, the financial world, which seems to have an autonomous life, evaporates and loses its essential material ballast.
This is precisely why the world of financialized and platformized capital reinvents, in the 21st century, like a digital Frankenstein, past and perverse forms of exploitation, expropriation and plunder that were in force in the early stages of industrial capitalism and that are now being “reinvented” by the antisocial reproduction system of capital, operating a terrifying and horrifying symbiosis, in which the “new” – the world of digital artifacts, algorithms and artificial intelligence – coexists peacefully with the unlimited devastation of labor (not to mention nature and the human race) in every corner of the world, changing only the intensity of the vilification. Just look at the most global of all jobs, that performed by immigrants.
2.
In this special 25th anniversary edition, the cover texts have been updated and the splendid contribution by István Mészáros has become the preface, as was, in fact, the initial proposal when it was published in 1999.
Aiming to point out elements of the current relevance of the central theses of The senses of work, we added an appendix, “Uberization of Work and Platform Capitalism: A New Era of Deanthropomorphization of Work”, which explores, empirically and analytically, some of the mutations taking place as a result of the expansion of digital platforms and uberized work.
We demonstrate that the monumental expansion of large digital platforms, in addition to not dispensing with human labor, has been practicing a harmful symbiosis between digital advancement and precarious work, recovering past forms of exploitation, expropriation and plunder that were in force in the period that we can call the proto-form of capitalism.
Furthermore, the intensity of these “new” forms of work, now under the digital machine universe, suggests that we are entering an era of deanthropomorphization of work (a formulation, it is worth mentioning, that we presented for the first time in the original 1999 edition), caused by the elimination of large contingents of living labor that are replaced by dead labor (algorithms, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, etc.), expanding and exacerbating the forms of extraction of surplus value in almost all spheres invaded by capital.
Thus, the main conclusion originally presented when the first edition of this book was published remains relevant: the work that structures capital destructures humanity. In contrast, the work that destructures capital can effectively reorganize and emancipate humanity.
Together with the vital struggle for the preservation of nature and the radical destruction of class, gender, race and ethnic exploitation/oppression, the struggle of the class-that-lives-from-work brings with it the effective possibility and potential to overcome the antisocial reproduction system of capital.
Finally, I would like to give a very special thanks to Ivana Jinkings and the entire Boitempo team, responsible for meticulous editorial care, once again present in this new edition.
*Ricardo Antunes is a full professor of sociology at Unicamp. Author, among other books, of Pandemic capitalism (boitempo).
Reference
Richard Antunes. The meanings of work: essay on the affirmation and denial of work. Special edition for 25 years. New York, New York, 2025, 312 pages.https://amzn.to/42FzTE5]
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