Virtue Signaling: Problematizing Creative Labor Within Knowledge Socialism

Abstract

This article argues that current scholarship inappropriately utilizes ‘virtue signaling’ to elicit a subjectivist form of de-valorized creative labor within knowledge socialism as a philosophy of praxis. Moreover, it argues that within institutionalized higher education (HE) contexts, knowledge socialism should be reoriented toward the promotion of prosocial-entrepreneurial ‘transitional ecosystems’ of commons-based peer production (CBPP). This sociomaterialist repositioning will outline a path forward for knowledge socialism which better understands, elicits, and valorizes the inherently prosocial-entrepreneurial creative labor contributions of precariously positioned academics within contemporary HE. In order to accomplish this aim, this article first underlines several fundamental concepts (commons-based peer production, collective intelligence, creative labor) before moving on to a more pointed philosophical discussion and critique of these concepts as underlying assumptions within knowledge socialism. Lastly, this article provides an operaismo-based reflexive inquiry into the interplay between the theory of knowledge socialism as experienced in practice within the China HE context, contributing to the development of non-exploitative knowledge cultures within CBPP creative labor processes.