The Precariousness of Immaterial Labor: Self-Taylorization in the Brazilian Software Industry

• Author: Henrique Amorim,Mauricio Reis Grazia
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20988720
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20988720

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 246, Vol. 49 No. 5, September 2022, 217–233

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20988720

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

217

The Precariousness of Immaterial Labor

Self-Taylorization in the Brazilian Software Industry

by

Henrique Amorim and Mauricio Reis Grazia

Translated by

Patricia Fierro

Contrary to theses that present the emergence of immaterial and digital labor as a

paradigmatic break with industrial production, analysis of the “agile methodologies”

employed in software production suggests that the “new” features of these forms of labor

organization in the twenty-first century are configured as adaptations of Taylor-Fordism

and Toyotism to a new productive frontier unexplored or explored to a limited extent by

capital in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in that the self-Taylorization

of labor is one of the bases of software production in Brazil.

Contrariamente as teses que apresentam a emergência do trabalho imaterial e digital

como um momento paradigmático de ruptura com a produção industrial, uma análise das

metodologias“ágeis”presentes na produção de software sugere queo “novo” presente nes-

sas formas de organização do trabalho no século XXI se configurariam como adaptações

do taylor-fordismo e do toyotismo a uma nova fronteira produtiva poucoou nada explora-

dapelo capital nosséculos XIX e XX, sobretudo no sentido em que a auto-taylorização do

trabalho se fundamenta como um dos pilares da produção de software no Brasil.

Keywords: Precariousness of immaterial labor, Agile methodologies, Software industry,

Self-Taylorization, Toyotism

Theories of postindustrial society seem to mark out the sociology of labor

that analyzes new forms of work and production such as those associated with

information technology. Starting from the thesis that we may be living in a

society that is structurally different from industrialism, new types of profes-

sions, jobs, and types of labor organization are said to provide the foundation

for such a contemporary society.1 Instead of these theories, we are guided by

two arguments: The first is that immaterial labor2 and, strictly speaking, imma-

terial production (production for which the raw materials are knowledge,

Henrique Amorim is professor of sociology in the Department of Social Sciences and the Graduate

Program in Social Sciences at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo and the coordinator of its

Work and Social Classes Research Group. He is the author of Trabalho imaterial: Marx eo debate

contemporâneo (2009). Mauricio Reis Grazia has a Master’s degree in social sciences from the same

university and is a member of the same research group. Patricia Fierro is a translator living in

Quito, Ecuador. This article is an in-depth version of a discussion begun in Siglo XXI (Amorim and

Grazia, 2018) and is the result of research funded by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento

Científico e Tecnológico and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo.

988720LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20988720Latin American PerspectivesAmorim and Grazia / Self-Taylorization in the Brazilian Software Industry

research-article2021

218 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

information, and communication) do not make a society postindustrial (or

even a knowledge, intelligence. or information society). The second is that,

even in the most precarious form of immaterial production and labor such as

the call center or in contexts in which the acquisition of information is assumed

as a necessary form of production such as programming and software develop-

ment, there is evidence of typical industrial organization. Instead of emphasiz-

ing the novelty of contemporary forms of organizing information production

and labor as disruptive of industrial organization, we will draw on an analysis

of the “agile methodologies” of software production to demonstrate the extent

to which immaterial production reproduces old ways of organizing labor.3

Focusing on what of Taylor-Fordism and Toyotism is reproduced and pre-

served in labor organization,4 we discuss the conditions that govern informa-

tion technology work groups with regard to, for example, the creative and

intelligent participation of workers in the most varied aspects of production.

We are influenced in this by discussions of the autonomy of labor and auton-

omy at work. The Marxist literature, especially that concerned with the devel-

opment of the forces of production (material and/or immaterial) as an engine

of social transformation (see, e.g., Radovan Richta, André Gorz, and Serge

Mallet),5 has identified in the rise of the polytechnic worker at the end of the

1960s a recoveryof political autonomy with regard to labor and production

(see, e.g., Amorim, 2006; 2009). The essence of this line of thought is techno-

logical determinism of a liberating social transformation. Castells (1999; 2004)

in another way and at a more modern stage, has observed clear differences in

the information society that foster, at least for some workers, a certain auton-

omy attributable primarily to the need for a high degree of formal education

and to the fact that this type of cognitive work forces workers to learn and

relearn on a daily basis. In contrast to Castells, we consider education, formal

and technical, as training, as Gramsci (2004) and then Braverman (1980) and

subsequently Dias (1997)6 have described it. Thus, it is essential to specify the

nature of the knowledge and information used in work and production. From

the point of view of capital, knowledge and information, the raw materials for

the production of immaterial goods, must be constantly interpreted and rein-

terpreted, created and recreated, in the production process, the aim of which is

to increase productivity. However, from the point of view of labor, one must

first question the nature of such knowledge, information, and learning. What

are the qualifications for the job? Are they based on working conditions and the

lives of working groups, or are there professional qualifications such as train-

ing—control to achieve efficiency and efficacy aimed at reducing the autonomy

of these groups so as to increase productivity? Secondly, one must examine

what the new types of labor organization mean in terms of the requirement of

increasing technical, scientific, and even emotional knowledge. This, in par-

ticular, is the aim of our article.

What is at the core of the work of programmers and software developers is

that, in addition to their being workers with productive autonomy due to their

high level of education, scientific training, intelligence, and creativity, their

work is not characterized by routine tasks. Gorz (2003: 18), for example, argues

that this type of work cannot be routine primarily because the means of pro-

duction involve“discernment,” the “ability to face the unforeseen,” and “the