One of the subjects I have been researching as a sociologist is work in the current post-modern era and information technologies. Remote” work also imposes its own conditions, and we are witnessing a kind of new industrial revolution, where oppression – of depersonalised workers and compulsive consumers – is no longer exercised in factories but from the Internet, even appealing to sophisticated psychological techniques and neuromarketing.
We see forms of digital labour slavery, in the face of the absence or precariousness of a new “digital labour law”. Digital companies, and even states, are increasingly focused on seeking to digitalise all their processes and levels.
In this regard, the Peruvian Dr. Mirko Maldonado-Meléndez – a doctor in law from the University of the Basque Country and an expert in digital law – reflects on the need for the “digitisation of public administration”, warning that this requires “a dose of humanity in favour of the citizen and the need for public authorities to debate the possible creation of a charter of digital rights that would even ensure the right not to be digital”.
But the issue has been around for decades. The writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) proposed half a century ago: “The essence of psychological coercion is that those who act under its effect have the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mental manipulation does not know that he is a victim. The bars of his prison are invisible to him, and he believes that he is free. The fact that he is not free is only apparent to others. His enslavement is strictly objective”.
As I will be proposing, today with the advent of the so-called “frequency age”, the direct manipulation of brain processes through electromagnetic technology and the purposeful use of the frequency spectrum is being developed.
The perverse application of new technologies is engendering new forms of digital slavery, which are part of the economic machinery and generate new modes of production and increasingly virtual social adaptation mechanisms.
The decisive factor for the perpetuation of a system based on objective subjugation has been and continues to be subjective conditioning, i.e., mind control. Nothing is more effective for the labour system than its self-reproduction in the psyche and mind of those who sustain it with their labour force and “the sweat of their brow”, i.e., with the energy of their own lives.
In this sense, modern consumer workers, under the dictates of the labour market and digital consumerism, are driven in the totality of their lives by a kind of “remote control” and far from recognising and breaking their alien determination, they constitute without doubt and “hidden in plain sight”, the new slavery of the 21st century.
It seems that the enslavement of the mind and thus of human behaviour reaches irreversible levels, because of the mental and bodily doubling that acts mercilessly on its victims to prevent them from rebelling against an inherently inhuman and exploitative social order.
Those of us who challenge these forms of slavery will continue to struggle for the formation of a global consciousness to counteract and end all forms of economic exploitation, political oppression, social discrimination and human alienation.
Since the “industrial revolution” in the 19th century, we now have a picture of a new “machinism” through the digitalisation of production processes and virtualisation of work. From a sociological approach, we observe that most companies and public and private institutions are not adequately using people management systems, traditionally called “human resources”. Ever since scientific management was conceived, efforts have been made to optimise means (technology, economic resources, raw materials, information and people) in order to achieve economic ends.
Companies that want to consolidate over time do not only need economic capital, production systems, marketing and technology. The basis for the success of a company is the human person, i.e.: employees (first and foremost), employees, partners, as well as the immediate social environment and all people connected with the local government, suppliers and customers.
A comprehensive study of what “people management” really means and its concrete application in the development of human resources systems is required, detailing how it is applied, how the results are evaluated and which aspects are most significant: salary, compliance with contracts and state laws, training, work climate, interaction with families?
It is necessary that companies in Peru assimilate and develop modern parameters, establishing lines of personnel management in accordance with the current times in order to focus on developing the human capacities of workers to the maximum, motivating them to improve their talents.
According to modern approaches (Romero, 1998; Caicedo, 2000), “business management is assumed to be the form of regulating the behaviour of a social collectivity, which has limited resources, which must be used to achieve objectives that must be shared in their ultimate purpose”.
Management work must have a purpose. Management does not exist by itself, as it is the result of the interaction of multiple factors, which build a system of human relations, management, projection and vision of its daily life and its future. Objectives and decisions are obtained from business management; the former orient and guide collective action and the latter select the combinations and interactions that are necessary to fulfil these goals (Caicedo, 2000).
It is not only necessary for workers to have external motivation (salary, wages, monetary incentives) but they must have the opportunity to develop their skills and talents, they must be permanently trained, they must identify themselves with the institutional objectives of the companies where they work, because they are the basis of the organisation. And this will have an impact on the quality of the company’s performance.
