Jakob Rigi
1.
Which are the main innovations you observe in terms of forms of work organisation: Conflicts and cultures being born within and around these forms?
To Start with, I think that the internet, programming and microbiology all evolving around information constitute the basis of a new industrial revolution, that following Castells we may call Informational Revolution. In term of organization internet has offered a new rhizomatic form of organization for the production and circulation of knowledge. However, I do not agree with post-fordist thesis that this has undermined the Fordist forms of organization and discipline in the realm of production of hard commodities and services, which are the realms of the production of surplus value . If anything, Fordism has been strengthened.
As regards conflict these forms have created new social and economic contradictions which have been translated into political conflicts. As I will deal with the political conflicts in my answers to next questions, here I focus on new economic and social conflicts. In the heart of these contradictions are two inter-related problems. The first is the nature of the exploitation of knowledge workers. The second, is the articulation of this exploitation with that of non knowledge workers. Knowledge has use value but no exchange value. Therefore, Knowledge workers do not produce surplus value. They produce commons. Capitalists by fencing these commons off extract rent from outside knowledge economy that is a part of surplus value which is produced by non-knowledge workers. Hence, knowledge capitalists exploit the knowledge worker by enclosing her commons and exploits none knowledge worker by extracting surplus value (rent) from her. In this sense knowledge and non-knowledge worker have a common enemy in the capitalist. However, there is a certain contradiction between these two type of workers. The knowledge workers` wages are part of the rent that are extracted from nonknowledge workers, and capitalists tend to pay high wages to the elite knowledge workers. This contradiction might be translated into political differences which are territorial, as the knowledge intensive economy is concentrated in the advanced capitalist societies.
2.
Which are the main innovations you observe in terms of political protest and organisation:
Content, conflicts and cultures being born within and around these forms?
The contradiction between knowledge and capitalism has resulted in the emergence of peer production. Peer production is a social movement which is advanced by knowledge workers against the enclosure of knowledge and the alienation it inflicts upon the knowledge worker. PP is also essentially a communist mode of production. It also constitutes the material basis for the formation of a new collectivist culture.
3. What are the links you would draw between the new forms of work organisation and political organisation, as well as between the new content, conflict and cultures emerging around these forms?
The current social movements have adopted the Rhizomatic form of the organization and peer production. These movements produce themselves, their organization and culture in a peer to peer manner. Although the participants are both knowledge and non-knowledge workers, and other protesters, the internet has offered the model of organization. This is not surprising, because, communication is the core element of any organization. The internet model of

organization is not at all West-centric, because, it is used everywhere. However, in Movements such as OWS and Indignados, there is a certain knowledge-centrism which can be also approximately considered as West Centrism. This relates to the lack of immediate and long term economic and political concrete goals and making the process itself the central piece of the struggle. As knowledge worker does not produce surplus value this make sense from her point of view, but from the point of view of the non-knowledge worker the reformist demand for reduction of the rate of surplus value, which is also the rate of exploitation is essential. Again, the revolutionary goal of expropriating the capitalist from the means of production is essential from the point of view of non-knowledge worker. This may require a measure of violence which goes against the pacifist ethos of OWS and indignados. To sum up the lack of precise short term and long term goals in indignados and OWS and their pacifism, though appealing , might be due to common interests between Western capitalists and Western knowledge workers in extracting surplus value from the workers of the third world. Knowledge worker has invented the peer production, yet she may not be ready to take the decisive measures against capitalism. The reduction of surplus value and abolishing of capitalism will abolish her privileged position in the topology of labor.
Critical engagement and cooperation between these two type of workers the key to advancement of both peer production and the social struggle.