
technologyApr 24, 20218:19pending
63. Prime Labor, Living and Dead (patreon teaser)
About this episode
In part two of our analysis of Amazon, we focus on the labor processes and managerial practices within Amazon warehouses. “Factory work exhausts the nervous system to the uttermost,” Marx wrote in Capital Vol. 1, and through the despotic discipline of dead labour used to dominate living labour, capital “does away with the many-sided play of the muscles and confiscates every atom of freedom [from workers], both in bodily and intellectual activity.”
Some stuff we reference:
• Machinic dispossession and augmented despotism: Digital work in an Amazon warehouse | Alessandro Delfanti | New Media & Society: sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1177/1461444819891613
• Surviving Amazon | Sam Adler Bell | Logic Magazine: logicmag.io/bodies/surviving-amazon/
• Seasonal Associates | Heike Geissler | Semiotext(e): mitpress.mit.edu/books/seasonal-associate
• Chapter 15: Machinery and Modern Industry | Karl Marx | Capital Vol. 1: marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm
Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills
TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)
Get every episode summarized
Each time This Machine Kills publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
No transcript yet
This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.
More episodes
More from This Machine Kills

Patreon Preview – 454. The Shocks Keep Coming
This Machine Kills
Apr 23, 20268:47failed

453. Super “Intelligent” Industrial Policy
This Machine Kills
Apr 15, 20261:40:38failed

Patreon Preview – 452. Lady Luck is the World Spirit
This Machine Kills
Apr 8, 20267:09failed

451. Do Not Become Addicted to Electrons (ft. Tim Sahay, Kate Mackenzie)
This Machine Kills
Apr 1, 20261:18:51failed