Power in the future of work: production, reproduction, and reconstruction

Abstract Labour studies have always been concerned with power, so how do concepts of power inform an understanding of the future of work today? Luke’s Three Dimensions of Power reveals how past contests over the normative outcomes and policy choices of future labour also present for platform capitalism. But while modern conceptions of power capture the realignment of productivist power relations under rentier capital, they fall short in explaining the legacy of colonial capital on the future of work. Drawing on a wide range of post-colonial and post human literatures, structural power is shown to forget the futures of many exploited, dispossessed and subaltern workers where productive alliances may be formed. Understanding power in these terms also shows how power relations can be confronted and challenged in a post-productivist agenda that could inform new ways of understanding the future of labour.