Contingency and Satisfaction Under Digital Capitalism

Explorations into today’s labour context reveal a wide schism between those workers who live under conditions of precarity and contingency and those who seem to be living the dream – and not only in terms of wages. The standardized work day and Taylorized division of labour that characterized most of the industrial era has transitioned, at least in large part, into a regime of flexibility and insecurity that reconstitutes not only working but lifestyle conditions. This paper is intended as an initial conceptual investigation of a dual trend in the conditions of labour under digital capitalism: the rise of contractual contingency and insecurity and the introduction of fun and hipness into the office environment as a means of work intensification.