Labour Regime Theory and the Problem of Platform Capitalism

This chapter situates platform capitalism within the broader transformation of labor regimes, showing how digital platforms restructure capital accumulation and labor control. Far from being neutral intermediaries, platforms like Uber, Gojek, and Grab represent a new mode of capitalist organization that extracts value through digital infrastructures, algorithmic governance, and the externalization of risks. Drawing on the notion of flexible accumulation, the chapter argues that platform capitalism operationalizes flexibility by replacing stable employment with contingent, on-demand labor contracts, thereby reducing labor costs while intensifying managerial control. This flexible labor regime is closely linked to processes of super-exploitation, where wages often fall below the cost of social reproduction, particularly in the Global South. Through mechanisms such as algorithmic wage suppression, dynamic pricing, performance monitoring, and the erosion of labor protections, platforms systematically deepen precarity and extend working hours while shifting operational risks onto workers. Moreover, platform capitalism’s labor regime incorporates both paid gig labor and unpaid digital labor, expanding surplus extraction beyond traditional wage relations. At the global scale, this regime exploits structural inequalities between North and South, leveraging cheap labor markets to sustain profitability across transnational digital infrastructures. By integrating concepts of platform capitalism, flexible accumulation, labor regime theory, and super-exploitation, this chapter provides a theoretical framework for understanding how platform economies institutionalize a new cheap labor regime that intensifies inequality and embeds precarity into the fabric of global digital capitalism.