Cognitive Capitalism, Education and the Question of Digital Labour

Cognitive capitalism—sometimes referred to as ‘third capitalism,’ after mercantilism and industrial capitalism— is an increasingly significant theory, given its focus on the socio-economic changes caused by Internet and Web 2.0 technologies that have transformed the mode of production and the nature of labor. The theory of cognitive capitalism has its origins in French and Italian thinkers, particularly Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Michel Foucault’s work on the birth of biopower and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth as well as the Italian Autonomist Marxist movement that had its origins in the Italian operaismo (work- erism) of the 1960s. In this presentation, we explore the significance of cognitive capitalism for education, especially focusing on the question of digital or immaterial labor