The article deals with André Gorz's formulations on immaterial labor. His analysis of contemporary capitalism is based on a model formed by the categories of knowledge, labor, and capital, being knowledge the main productive force. The article compares this model to a former one, which was made by the categories of labor, value, and capital, in which labor was the main productive force. It then stresses that the difference between them is the replacement of labor by knowledge. In a knowledge economy, as that of the first model, the productivity of activities cannot be measured by labor time as in classic capitalism; besides, most of these activities are dependent upon practical knowledge (savoir-faire) not prompted to be codified and appropriated privately. The thesis defended here is then that the main event behind this change from one model to the other is the dilution of labor time as a criterion to measure productivity; and it affects the value theory and therefore the base for calculating equivalences by capitalism. This is, according to Gorz, the main cause of the crisis of capitalism and of wage labor as the criterion for the attribution of rights; and this is also a sufficient motive for him to move in defense of unconditional income transfer to people.
André Gorz; knowledge; immaterial labor; labor time; value theory; crisis of capitalism