The Attention Economy

Labour, Time and Power in Cognitive Capitalism

Claudio Celis Bueno

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield International
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783488254
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Critical Theory

The attention economy is a notion that explains the growing value of human attention in societies characterised by post-industrial modes of production. In a world in which information and knowledge become central to the valorisation process of capital, human attention becomes a scarce and hence increasingly valuable commodity. To what degree is the attention economy a specific form of capitalist production? How does the attention economy differ from the industrial mode of production in which Marx developed his critique of capitalism? How can Marx’s theory be used today despite the historical differences that separate industrial from post-industrial capitalism? The Attention Economy argues that human attention is a new form of labour that can only be understood through a systematic reinterpretation of Marx. It argues that the attention economy belongs to a general shift in capitalism in which subjectivity itself becomes the territory of production and exploitation of value as well as the territory of the reproduction of capitalist power relations.

Chapter One

Labour

The traditional definition of the attention economy (Simon 1969) presents attention as one commodity among others, something to be exchanged in the market and hence regulated by laws of supply and demand. As mentioned in the introduction, the concept of the attention economy was forged as a theoretical response to the growing informatization of the processes involved in the production of commodities. Hence, in post-industrial capitalism, human attention appears as a scarce commodity whose value is determined by an abundance of information. Methodologically, this definition of the attention economy mimics that of political economy, focusing on the sphere of distribution (i.e. the market) in an attempt to unveil the laws of supply and demand that determine the value of a given commodity (e.g. human attention). As will be shown shortly, the problem with this perspective is that it conceals the relation between value and labour that lies at the heart of the attention economy. This means that by defining attention as a scarce commodity, political economy cannot examine how attention becomes a value-producing activity in the first place.

Following Marx’s critique of political economy, this chapter argues that for an adequate understanding of the attention economy, a methodological reinterpretation must take place. To unveil the relation between value and labour in the attention economy, it is necessary to substitute the conceptualization of attention as labour for that of attention as a commodity, which at the same time requires shifting the critique from the spheres of distribution and consumption to that of production.

THE ATTENTION ECONOMY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR

One of the main differences between Marx’s treatment of labour and that of political economy is Marx’s conceptual distinction between labour power and labour process.¹ In Capital, Marx defines labour power as ‘labour-capacity’, that is, as ‘the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in the physical form, the living personality, of a human being, capabilities which he sets in motion whenever he produces a use-value of any kind’ (C, p. 270). In this sense, labour power refers to the capacity (or potentiality) of a human being to perform an activity capable of producing use-values. Labour process, on the other hand, is the materialization of labour power. In the labour process, what was pure potentiality is actualized as value-producing activity. For Marx, labour is

a process between man and nature, a process by which man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature. He confronts the materials of nature as a force of nature. He sets in motion the natural forces which belong to his own body, his arms, legs, head, and hands in order to appropriate the materials of nature in a form adapted to his own needs. (C, p. 283)

As will be shown below, this particular definition of the labour process can be quite problematic as well, since it may be interpreted as repeating the ahistorical understanding of labour that is characteristic of political economy. Nevertheless, the distinction between labour power and labour process plays a crucial role when approaching the question of labour in the attention economy. This is so mainly because it facilitates uncovering the notion of surplus value that remains hidden for political economy. While the latter conceives the value of attention as the ‘natural’ effect of the law of supply and demand, a critical approach to the attention economy must examine the way in which attention as labour process, that is, as valorization activity, generates a surplus value that is then monetized and turned into profit.

According to Marx, the lack of a conceptual distinction between labour power and labour process inevitably creates the confusion between the value of labour (as a commodity bought by the capitalist in the job market) and the value created by labour and objectified in the commodity.² Consequently, political economy treats both as one and the same thing, concealing the fact that there is a difference (a surplus) between the value of the labour power bought by the capitalist and the value of the commodity produced by the labour process. For Marx, political economy places labour alongside other commodities, and hence explains its value through laws and tendencies belonging to the sphere of distribution. In doing so, political economy defines the relation between labour and value to be the result of a ‘natural’ law of supply and demand. Contrary to this, Marx argues that only a critique of capitalism, which focuses on the sphere of production, will be able to denaturalize the relation between labour and value and to identify the exploitative nature of capitalist production. In other words, it is necessary to shift the analysis of labour from the sphere of distribution (where the value of labour power is thought of as being the ‘natural’ result of supply and demand) to the sphere of production (where labour appears as a valorization process). This shift makes it possible to conceptualize the category of surplus value and hence to identify the key characteristics of capitalist exploitation.

In chapter six of Capital, Marx argues that classic political economy is based on the ideological, liberal presupposition that all economic exchange takes place between two proprietors of commodities who enter freely into an exchange relationship in the pursuit of their self-interest. When these conditions are ensured, we have a free market that operates smoothly and regulates itself by the law of supply and demand (a view exemplified by Adam Smith’s notion of the ‘invisible hand’ and by Friedrich Hayek’s ‘price system’). In a well-known passage from this chapter, Marx refers sarcastically to the market as the ‘very Eden of the innate rights of man’ (C, p. 280). Only in the market, as understood by political economy, do ‘Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham’ rule (C, p. 280). Marx explains this as follows:

Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them together and puts them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private interests of each. (C, p. 280)

In the first line, Marx uses labour power as example of a commodity that is sold and bought in the market. This is no mere example, however. Marx is precisely trying to show the methodological inconsistency of political economy, which equates labour power with all other commodities, thus concealing the distinction between labour power and labour process. Furthermore, Marx points out that by focusing on the sphere of distribution, the asymmetric power relation that defines the sphere of production and which serves as the basis for the exploitation of surplus value becomes veiled by the notions of freedom, equality, property and self-interest that characterize the ideal relation between subjects in the market.

In the specific case of the attention economy, political economy seems to reproduce the same ideological principles that Marx denounces. A good example of this can be found in Seth Goldstein’s attempt to form an ‘Attention Trust’ that would fight for the attention rights of Internet users. In a 2005 declaration, Goldstein defines four basic rights necessary for establishing an open and transparent market for the attention economy:

1) Property: I own my attention and I can store it securely in private; 2) Mobility: I can move my attention wherever I want whenever I want to; 3) Economy: I can pay attention to whomever I wish and be paid for it; 4) Transparency: I can see how my attention is being used. (Goldstein 2005)

These four basic rights, he claims, make it possible for individuals to participate in a ‘free, open market for exchanging their attention’ (Goldstein 2005). When seen from the perspective of the market, these rights play the same role as those identified by Marx’s critique of political economy: property, freedom, equality and self-interest appear as the basic requirements for a transparent and effective economy of attention. This means that in Goldstein’s view it is ‘presupposed that attention, like labour, belongs to a juridical subject, that is, a proprietor who has the right to bring it to the market’ (Beller 2006, pp. 304–5).³ The problem with this view is that it impedes grasping the category of surplus value that guides capitalist production, limiting the understanding of how the attention economy turns human attention into economic profit. This is so, mainly because the production and extortion of surplus value occur ‘outside the limits of the market or of the sphere of circulation’ (C, p. 279).

In his critique of political economy, Marx concludes that in order to develop an adequate understanding of the relationship between value and labour under capitalist conditions of production, it is necessary to move from the sphere of distribution to the sphere of production (C, p. 280). This shift allows Marx to introduce the conceptual distinction between labour power and labour process. With it, Marx shows that although the capitalist is buying labour power at the price set by the laws of supply and demand dictated by the labour market, at the level of production the capitalist is in fact not paying the worker for the total value generated by his or her labour process. The capitalist is basically extorting part of the value produced by the worker during the working day. And he or she can do so only because of the asymmetric power relation that situates him or her as the owner and possessor of the means of production as opposed to the worker, who owns nothing but his or her labour power. This, Marx shows, is the source of surplus value, which can be conceptualized only when the analysis has moved from the sphere of distribution (where labour power is sold and purchased) to the sphere of production (where the labour process generates value).

A critique of the attention economy must shift from an understanding of attention as a scarce commodity to one where attention appears as a form of labour through which surplus value is generated and extorted. From the perspective of political economy, attention is not seen as a valorization process but as a commodity governed by a law of supply and demand (a law intrinsic to the sphere of distribution, not production). In other words, political economy reproduces an unproblematic understanding of the attention economy, which conceals the asymmetric relation between labour and capital that grounds the extortion of surplus value. Rather, it is necessary to understand attention as a new form of labour and to unveil the concrete mechanisms of production and extraction of surplus value that make of the attention economy a strictly capitalist phenomenon.

WATCHING AS WORKING

An important contribution to the critique of the attention economy from the standpoint of labour can be found in Sut Jhally and Bill Livant’s 1986 article ‘Watching as Working: The Valorisation of Audience Consciousness’. In this article, Jhally and Livant use the conceptual apparatus of Marx’s critique of political economy in order to examine how allegedly ‘free-media’, like television, generate profit (1986, p. 125). Despite the fact that this article was written and published before the massification of the Internet, its methodological approach to television provides important lessons for the current debate on the attention economy and digital technologies.

Jhally and Livant begin their article by referring to the importance of adopting a materialist approach to media and communication studies.⁴ They argue that

most studies of the media (both in the mainstream and critical traditions) have focused on messages as their central unit of analysis. Despite the many differences within the field, there is a broad unstated agreement that the discipline of media communications is about the production, distribution, reception, interpretation, and effects of messages [...] More specifically, the concentration has been on how these messages are used, on what meanings are generated in the interaction between messages and people. The history of communication, then, has been a study of the use-values of messages, their meaning. (1986, p. 128)

The authors suggest that it is necessary ‘to break with message-based analysis and the study of use-values’ (1986, p. 129) and to move towards a strictly economic analysis of mass-media. Accordingly, these authors contend that the commodity produced and exchanged by the culture industry is neither the medium nor the message, but the audience itself (p. 126).⁵ This means that mass-media networks make a profit not by selling content to an audience but by selling a manufactured audience to advertising agencies. More precisely, they add, the commodity being sold is not just an ‘audience’, but an audience’s ‘watching-time’ (p. 130).⁶ In order to understand how media networks produce surplus value, Jhally and Livant claim that the production of messages must be distinguished from the production of audiences, that is, the production of content to be consumed by spectators (e.g. a television show) has to be differentiated from the production of audience attention-time that is sold to advertisers (1986, p. 129). In this regard, while media content is often produced by media-industry professionals, ‘the commodity audience-time is produced by both the networks and the audience’ (p. 131). This means that the commodity that the media industry sells to advertisers (i.e. attention-time) involves the labour of the audience. Therefore, watching appears as a new form of working, that is, as valorization activity. As such, it implies the potential for generating something new in the form of a surplus that was not there before the act of watching. Jhally and Livant explicitly refer to Marx’s notion of labour in order to define their notion of watching as working.⁷ Following Marx, they claim that attention is not simply a thing carrying a ‘congealed value’, but a valorization activity (p. 126). In this sense, watching has the potential to generate surplus value, which can then be alienated and exploited by capital. The distinction between labour power and labour process referred to above allows understanding the concrete m...