Global Labor: Algocratic Modes of Organization

Abstract

This study investigates a practice that allows workers based in India to work online on projects for corporations in the United States, representing a new mode of labor integration. In the absence of direct bureaucratic control across continents, the question arises how this rapidly growing labor practice is organized. The riddle of organizational governance is solved through an analysis of software programming schemes, which are presented as the key to organizing globally dispersed labor through data servers. This labor integration through programming code is distinguished from two other systems of organization—bureaucracy and the market—while bringing out the salient features of each system in terms of its ruling principle: bureaucracy (legal-rational), the market (price), and algocracy (programming or algorithm). The logic of algocratic systems is explored methodically to analyze global work.