PECULIARITIES OF SUBORDINATION OF LABOUR TO CAPITAL IN THE ERA OF DIGITALIZATION
Abstract
The article raises the problem of the peculiarities of the subordination of labour to capital in the context of modern digitalization. Digitalization is recognized as a process that has a profound impact on the entire economy. Proliferation of digitalization is of great importance for the social production. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the scale of digitalization and determine its impact on the main agent of industrial relations – the workforce. The consequences of digitalization are closely linked to growing employment problems. There are many studies which assess the impact of digitalization on jobs, on the structure of the workforce. It is stressed that the workforce was pushed out of middle-income jobs, so these workers were either leaving the workforce or finding work among non-routine manual occupations with lower wages. New digital possibilities of subordination of labor to capital, forms of digital socialization, isolation and the impact of digitalization on the dynamics of labor productivity are explored. It is shown that the growth of labor productivity in the information sector did not lead to the expected growth of labor productivity in the traditional sectors of material production. In the financial sector of the economy, the development of information technology increases capital mobility, accelerates the time of its turnover, but at the same time it promotes the growth of financial bubbles and increases the instability of the financial system. Digitalization reveals two antagonistic tendencies: on the one hand – the global digital society blurs the boundaries between people of different countries, social strata, overcoming both spatial and linguistic barriers, on the other hand, there is an opposite tendency of the so-called digital isolation or loneliness, when a person is locked in the space of gadgets and at the same time existentially lonely, separated from direct interaction with other people. The development of digital technologies is not able to change the nature of capital, but on the contrary – creates new forms of subordination of hired labour to capital.
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