week seven-Free labour

Free labour is an underrate force in capitalist society. Free labour on the internet includes building web sites, modifying software packages, reading and participating in mailing lists and building virtual spaces without wage, and voluntarily given. Cultural and technical work is the central of internet. Free labours change the relationship between work as ‘servitude’ to self-fashioning and communal liberation. (Terranova, 2003)

The voluntarily work like internship is based on the people who want get something they need except for salary. For example, the purpose of internship is to be found in a lifetime paid employment, it is practice for uncertain career paths, and they can enjoy the flexibility. Internship gives us a chance to experience the ‘real’ work. No one would like to do an unpaid work that has no meaning for them. In fact, the free labour earn something that is valuable to them not only money. For the organization that using free labour could save money for them.

With the developed world, the world would lay on the commoditization of information, money do not stay the first status. For the mostly user, net is somewhere to work, play and learn with each other that do not strict by the physical distance. The free labour is an important part of create value in the digital economic. Free labour come from the current capitalist focus on the knowledge adding. Free labor is the knowledgeable consumption of culture into productive activities.(Terranova, 2003) In the internet world, free labours contribute a lot of information.  

In both of the actual and virtual world, free labors have its own special value.

Terranova, T. (2003) Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy. Electronic book review. Retrieved from:

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/technocapitalism/voluntary