Chris Benner: Work in the New Economy: Flexible Labor Markets in Silicon Valley (2002)

This book contributes to our understanding of the transformation of work in the information economy, through a detailed examination of labor markets in Silicon Valley. It provides an original and insightful analysis of flexible labor including growing volatility in work demands and increasingly tenuous employment relations.
* Contributes to our understanding of the transformation of work in the information economy, through a detailed examination of labor markets in Silicon Valley.
* Provides an original and insightful analysis of flexible labor including growing volatility in work demands and increasingly tenuous employment relations.
* Examines the increasingly important role of labor market intermediaries.
* Shows that some workers clearly thrive in this vibrant context, but many face high levels of insecurity admist growing inquality.

Publisher Wiley-Blackwell, 2002
ISBN 0631232508, 9780631232506
293 pages

Keywords and phrases
Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County, flexible labor markets, information technology, electronic manufacturing services, systems administrators, professional employer organizations, social networks, communities of practice, stock options, information economy, Hewlett Packard, Graphic Artists Guild, Mike Curran, USENIX, outsourcing, World Wide Web, AFL-CIO, JTPA, Solectron

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2013-2-4)

Fred Turner: Burning Man at Google: A Cultural Infrastructure for New Media Production (2009)

Every August for more than a decade, thousands of information technologists and other knowledge workers have trekked out into a barren stretch of alkali desert and built a temporary city devoted to art, technology and communal living: Burning Man. Drawing on extensive archival research, participant observation, and interviews, this paper explores the ways that Burning Man’s bohemian ethos supports new forms of production emerging in Silicon Valley and especially at Google. It shows how elements of the Burning Man world – including the building of a socio-technical commons, participation in project-based artistic labor, and the fusion of social and professional interaction – help shape and legitimate the collaborative manufacturing processes driving the growth of Google and other firms. The paper thus develops the notion that Burning Man serves as a key cultural infrastructure for the Bay area’s new media industries. (Abstract)

Key Words: peer production, counterculture, cultural economy, art and technology, cultural infrastructure, free labor.

Published in New Media & Society 11, 2009

PDF

The Myth of the Machine, 2 Vols: Technics and Human Development & The Pentagon of Power (1967/1970–) [DE, YU, RU, ES]

Mumford explains the forces that have shaped technology since prehistoric times and shaped the modern world. He shows how tools developed because of significant parallel inventions in ritual, language, and social organization.

Publisher Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1967 and 1970
342 and 496 pages

Wikipedia (EN)

Mythos der Maschine. Kultur, Technik und Macht (German, trans. Liesl Nürenberger and Arpad Hälbig, both volumes, 1977, updated on 2014-3-19)
Pentagon moći: Mit o mašini 2 (Serbo-Croatian, trans. Nikica Petrak, 1986/2009, added on 2014-3-19)
Mif mashiny: tekhnika i razvitie chelovechestva (Russian, trans. T. Azarkovich and B. Skuratov, 2001, DJVU, added on 2014-3-19)
El mito de la máquina. Técnica y evolucion humana (Spanish, trans. Arcadio Rigodón, 2010, added on 2014-3-19)
El mito de la máquina. El pentágono del poder (Spanish, trans. Javier Rodríguez Hidalgo, 2011, added on 2014-3-19)