The Potentiality of the Commons: A Materialist Critique of Cognitive Capitalism from the Cyberbracer@s to the Ley Sinde

This essay is a critique of immaterial and affective labor, cognitive capitalism and other terms that have been theorized by post-autonomous thinkers such as Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, Maurizzio Lazzarato, and others. According to these thinkers, under the new wave of financial capitalism, labor has become immaterial and capitalism has become more dependent on cognitive processes in order to enclose external labor and material and symbolic commons. In order to test the validity of these ideas, this essay analyzes the science fiction film Sleep Dealer (2008) by Alex Rivera and the debates triggered by the passing of the so-called Ley Sinde in Spain. The analysis of these seemingly disparate critical terrains reveals a more nuanced picture, one that points to the interdependence of material and immaterial labor, and the need of a less abstract and more intersectional theorization of the commons.