Andrea Fumagalli

Carlo Vercellone

Stefano Lucarelli

Alfonso Giuliani

The Commonfare Hypothesis

Cognitive Capitalism, Welfare and Labour

This book deals with the transformations of both accumulation process and labour in the transition from a Fordist to a cognitive capitalism paradigm, with specific regard to Western economies. It outlines the advent, after industrial capitalism, of a new phase of the capitalist system in which the value of cognitive labour becomes dominant. In this framework, the central stakes of capital valorisation and forms of property are directly based on the control and privatization of the production of collective knowledge. Here, the transformation of knowledge itself, into a commodity or a fictitious capital, is analyzed. Building on this foundation, the authors outline their concept of "commonfare." This idea of commonfare implies, as a prerequisite, the social re-appropriation of the gains arising from the exploitation of those social relations which are the basis of accumulation today. This re-appropriation does not necessarily lead to the transition from private to public ownership but it does make it necessary to distinguish between common goods and the commonwealth. This book explains this distinction and how common goods and the commonwealth require a different framework of analysis. This volume will be of great interest to all scholars and researchers, as well as a more general readership, who wish to develop a critical thinking of the mainstream analysis of this topic. Contributing to the "Marxism-heterodox" approach using rigorous theoretical analysis and empirical evidence, it is aimed at all those who act socially and aspire to a better understanding of the development and the contradictions of contemporary capitalism.

Sandro Mezzadra

Crisis in the Global Economy is the latest and most innovative collective reflectionon the state of global capitalism, developed in the mobile "multiversity" of the UniNomadenetwork of international researchers and activists during the months immediately following the firstsignals of the current financial and economic crisis. It constitutes the first organic andinterdisciplinary attempt to analyze a crisis that is not merely financial in nature but implicatesglobalization and neoliberal capitalism.Crisis in the Global Economy begins with the recognitionthat the current financial crisis is a systemic crisis of the entire capitalistic system as it hasbeen developing since the 1890s. Taking as its premise that today's financial markets are thepulsing heart of cognitive capitalism, financing the activity of accumulation, Crisis in the GlobalEconomy shows how the flow of capital rewards production that exploits knowledge and controls spacesbeyond traditional business. The ineffectiveness of the extraordinary economic measures taken bysingle nation-states over the past few months demonstrates that this crisis is of a completelydifferent order. A financial crisis that affects the "real economy" shows thatfinancialization is one of the most recent and perverse articulations of capitalism.Thecontributions to Crisis in the Global Economy invite us to consider exit strategies from the currentcrisis--strategies that may lead us toward a new horizon of constructing the common.

Andrea Fumagalli

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