Theorizing Labor in the Platform Economy: Labor Restructuring in Historical Perspective

The rise of the platform economy is one of the most widely debated issues in contemporary studies of work and labor relations. Scholarly work on platform labor has been permeated by claims of radical restructuring, either caused or exacerbated by the disruptive properties of algorithms, networks and data‐driven systems of control. However, a growing body of literature has drawn attention to the weaknesses of such claims, highlighting several continuities in the organization of work between the pre‐platform and platform economy, including in labor processes and in the regulation of labor‐capital relations. This article reviews key theoretical interventions within these areas of the literature, arguing that they eventually point toward the lack of historical distinctiveness of platform labor. It then suggests that a more nuanced and critical understanding of labor restructuring and platformization as part of a process of systemic social change would benefit from engagement with the theory of Uneven and Combined Development (U&CD). This engagement would build on two lines of inquiry: workforce diversity and spatial differentiation in the platform economy. The article concludes that U&CD is a useful meta‐theoretical framework to understand change within continuity, accounting for the variegated experiences of platform workers in interconnected spaces of capitalist accumulation.