The Biopolitical production is constitutive of cognitive capitalism

Abstract

The last years of the 20th century have given a new design to the working society. Profound transformations happened which changed deeply the mode of production and disorganized the working world we used to know. Right in the core of this displacement it emerges the immaterial economy and the non-material work. These traits are modifying the mode of production and, even more, the relationship between the worker and his work. We are moving from the industrial society to the pos-industrial society, from the society of reproduction work to one of bio-production work. A transition from reproductive life to the production of life; from the society of bio-power to one of bio-politics. This transition implies a new signification for the concept of labour force. The industrial society, on the inspiration of Taylor and Ford, hired a massive amount of workers and pushed them into a technical division of labor, giving them simple and recurring tasks. The industrial society split the manual worker and  reduced him into a productive engine. Now it can be seen the significant transformation of the subject person of work in relashionship with production. Cognitive capitalism, in its post-industrial version, under the qualitative preeminence of the immaterial work, having its roots grounded in knowledge, communication and cooperation, gave birth to another subjectivity required by capital but which, at the same time, preserves the worker´s  autonomy and, hence, makes possible his emancipation.