The paradigm of immaterial production

The central aspect of the paradigm of immaterial production we have to grasp here is its intimate relation with cooperation, collaboration, and communication - in short, its foundation in the common. Marx insists that one of the great progressive elements of capital historically is to organize armies of workers in cooperative productive relationships. The capitalist calls workers to the factory. for example, directing them to collaborate and communicate in production and giving them the means to do so. In the paradigm of immaterial production, in contrast, labor itself tends to produce the means of interaction, communication, and cooperation for production directly. Affective labor always directly constructs a relationship. The production of ideas, images, and knowledges is not only conducted in common - no one really thinks alone, all thoughts is produced in collaboration with the past and present thought of others - but also each new idea and image invites and opens new collaborations. The production of languages, finally, both natural languages and artificial languages, such a computer languages and various kinds of code, is always collaborative and always creates new means of collaboration. In all these ways, in immaterial production the creation of cooperation has become internal to labor and thus external to capital.
-- Negri & Hardt, Multitude, 147