Uberization of work and platform capitalism: a new era of deanthropomorphization of work?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present some of the characteristics of the so-called uberized labour, which is expanding on digital platforms, and to indicate its main consequences in relation to the world of labour. Given the expansion of this phenomenon on a global scale, we present two hypotheses. In the first, we indicate that platform capitalism has been recovering past forms of labour, which took place during the protoform of capitalism. In the second hypothesis, it is indicated the possibility that we are entering a new era of de-anthropomorphizing of work, since the elimination of large contingents of living labour is exponentially replaced by dead labour that expands in the new digital factory, under the command of the algorithms, internet of things, artificial intelligence etc., further increasing unemployment and bringing profound consequences, both quantitative and qualitative, in the world of labour.