Is the Concept of Rent Relevant to a Discussion of Surplus Value in the Digital World?

  • Olivier Frayssé
Chapter
Part of the Dynamics of Virtual Work Series book series (DVW)

Abstract

Confronted with the spectacular changes in the economy brought about by and concomitant with the generalization of the internet in recent years, people trying to make sense of the new phenomena have been coining a variety of new concepts, or have given new life to old ones. The concept of rent is an example of the second path.

Keywords

Global Supply Chain Industrial Capital PageRank Algorithm Advertising Spending Labour Theory 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  1. Bailey, Samuel. 1825. A Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measures and Causes of Value: Chiefly in Reference to the Writings of Mr. Ricardo and His Followers. R. Hunter, London.Google Scholar
  2. Cantillon, Richard. 2009 [1755]. Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Essai_sur_la_nature_du_commerce_en_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral, downloaded December 9, 2014.
  3. Caraway, Brett. 2011. Audience Labor in the New Media Environment: A Marxian Revisiting of the Audience Commodity. Media, Culture & Society 33 (5): 693–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Carr, Nicholas. 2008. The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
  5. Elkin, Noah, ed., 2014, Key Digital Trends for 2015, emarketer, downloaded 01/12/2014, now available at https://www.academia.edu/9903454/KEY_DIGITAL_TRENDS_F0R_2015_Whats_in_Store_and_Not_in_Store_for_the_Coming_Year_DECEMBER_2014_C0NTENTS.Google Scholar
  6. Fong-Torres, Ben. 2010. Diary of a “Portable People Meter” Person. San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, 2010, http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Diary-of-a-portable-people-meter-person-3256625.php
  7. Foucault, Michel. 2012. «Il faut défendre la société», Cours au Collège de France, (1975–1976) Édition établie, dans le cadre de l’Association pour le Centre Michel Foucault, sous la direction de François Ewald et Alessandro Fontana, par Mauro Bertani et Alessandro Fontana, http://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact= 8&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmonoskop.org%2Fimages%2F9% 2F99%2FFoucault_Michel_Il_faut_defendre_la_societe.pdf&ei=77HXVMXsCY SvaZGwgLAE&usg=AFQjCNFE69Y3PH-b5aa-qaaFkUG-UumiQQ&sig2=kxPn1mM0qpWUgxnI1fgGbg&bvm=bv.85464276,d.d2s, downloaded March 13, 2013.
  8. Frayssé, Olivier. 2014. Work and Labour as Metonymy and Metaphor. tripleC 12 (2): 468–485.Google Scholar
  9. Fuchs, Christian. 2012. Dallas Smythe Today — The Audience Commodity, the Digital Labour Debate, Marxist Political Economy and Critical Theory, Prolegomena to a Digital Labour Theory of Value. tripleC 10 (2): 692–740.Google Scholar
  10. Graeber, David. 2011. Debt, the first 5 000 Years, Brooklyn, London: Melville.Google Scholar
  11. Keynes, John Maynard. 1936. General Theory, New York: Harcourt, Brace and C°.Google Scholar
  12. Lakoff, George and Mark L. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  13. Lenin, Vladimir I. 1963, [1917]. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin’s Selected Works, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1: 667–766.Google Scholar
  14. Les associés d’EIM. 2004. Les dirigeants face au changement: baromètre 2004, Paris: Huitième Jour, 92–93.Google Scholar
  15. Lichtenstein, Nelson. 2010. The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. New York: Picador.Google Scholar
  16. Lichtenstein, Nelson. 2014. “Two Cheers for Vertical Integration: Corporate Governance in a World of Global Supply Chains”, http://f.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/989/files/2014/03/Lichtenstein-2.pdf, downloaded May 2, 2014.Google Scholar
  17. Lichtenstein, Nelson, ed., 2006, Walmart, the Face of XXIth Century Capitalism. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
  18. Locke, John. 1988, [1689]. Two Treatises of Government. Peter Laslett ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Malthus, Thomas R. 2013 [1815]. An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent and the Principles by Which it is Regulated, London, available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4336/4336-h/4336-h.htm, accessed May 2, 2014.
  20. Marx, Karl. 1991, [1894]. Capital: Volume III, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
  21. Milavsky J. Ronald. 1992. How Good is the A.C. Nielsen People-Meter System? A Review of the Report by the Committee on Nationwide Television Audience Measurement. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 56. 1 (Spring, 1992), 102–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Negri, Antonio and Michael Hardt. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA & London, England: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  23. Negri, Antonio and Michael Hardt. 2009a, [2004]. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Penguin Book.Google Scholar
  24. Negri, Antonio and Michael Hardt. 2009b. Commonwealth. Cambridge: MA & London, England: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  25. Pasquinelli, Matteo. 2009. Google’s PageRank algorithm: A diagram of the cognitive capitalism and the rentier of the common intellect. In Deep Search: The Politics of Search Beyond Google, edited by Konrad Becker and Felix Stalder. London: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
  26. Petty, William. 1679. Tracts Chiefly Related to Ireland. London.Google Scholar
  27. Ricardo, David. 2001, [1817, 1821 edition]. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Kitchener. Ontario: Batoche Books.Google Scholar
  28. Ries, Al and Trout, Jack. 2001. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
  29. Say, Jean-Baptiste. 2003, [1803]. Traité d’Économie Politique, ou, Simple exposition de la manière dont se forment, se distribuent, et se consomment les richesses.Google Scholar
  30. Paris, Institut Coppet, http://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2F http://www.institutcoppet.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F12%2FTraite-deconomie-politique-Jean-Baptiste-Say.pdf&ei=DsfYVJmaOYr4UMWKgLgP&usg= AFQjCNG0wFWh5NK7V9JBvcVU-Csf06p8ow&sig2=OY07DxwX_cPlhmU62z3jQQ&bvm=bv.85464276,d.d24, downloaded June 5, 200.
  31. Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1947), “The creative response in economic history”, Journal of Economic History, November: 149–159. Reprinted in in R.V. Clemence (ed.) Essays on Entrepreneurs, Innovations, Business Cycles and the Evolution of Capitalism, New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction Publishers, 1989.Google Scholar
  32. Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. Economic Doctrine and Method, an Historical Sketch, transl. R. Arts. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  33. Smith, Adam. 1976 [1776]. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by R.H. Campbell, A.S. Skinner, W.B. Todd, 2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  34. Smythe, Dallas W. 1981. Dependency Road. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
  35. Statista, Advertising spending share in the US by media 2014, http://www.statista.com/statistics/272316/advertising-spending-share-in-the-us-by-media/, downloaded January 15, 2015.
  36. Statista, Distribution of U.S. advertising spending by medium 2013, http://www.statista.com/statistics/183704/us-advertising-spend-by-medium-in-2009/, downloaded January 15, 2015.
  37. Veblen, Thorstein. 1994 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class (reprint of the original edition, New York: Macmillan, 1899), New York: Dover.Google Scholar
  38. Weber, Max, 1985 [1905]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons. New York: Routledge (Unwin Counterpoint Paperbacks).Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Olivier Frayssé 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Olivier Frayssé

There are no affiliations available

Personalised recommendations