ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Zhao Wei and Michael A. Peters explore the latest political economic developments from a global view related to intelligent capitalism and the disappearance of labour. First, the chapter explores the importance of human labour to capitalism in the history of market economics. As the authors note, while Marx viewed labour as fundamental to the human sense of self-worth, wage labourers became alienated from the products of their labour during industrialization. At the same time, human capital became less important, with moves towards Taylorist and Fordist standardized production. More recently, with the increased automation of labour and the increased value of information and data in the neoliberal economy, in which knowledge becomes most vital, human labour has become even less valuable. As the authors note, the implications of this for human society, culture and well-being have hardly been grappled with. They conclude that the data economy must be critically reassessed, while the age of digitization of knowledge requires that societies rethink education, work and the relationship between them. This future-oriented piece draws on significant philosophical roots while integrating recent trends and transformations in the global political economy as they shape and reshape education.
