The ‘subsumption’ of reproduction and rent

This commentary examines Arvidsson and Bonini's comparison of digital platforms with early modern workhouses. Their focus on capitalist power and the transformation of subjectivity yields a valuable insight. But their analysis of social form determination is insufficient. They argue that platforms may prepare the way for capital to internalise reproduction, just as workhouses prepared the way for the internalisation of production. This commentary argues that the internalisation of reproduction is impossible in principle. It also argues that the authors use the concept of rent carelessly. Rent is the surplus profit obtained through the monopoly of means of production or commerce that capital cannot produce. Today's platforms capture the networks of communication and cooperation – the common – and convert them into such means. What lies ahead is therefore not a new capitalism but a deepening destruction of the common by rentier capitalism.