For some years now, scholarly work produced in the Global South has been breaking through the barrier of invisibility and making an impact at the heart of capitalism, especially among academics and activists. This movement appears to have been driven, at least in part, by a wave of works critical of Eurocentrism as an absolute model of knowledge production—a concept that Aníbal Quijano has termed the “coloniality of power” and knowledge. Paying special attention to Latin America, we observe that works on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, platformized labor, and other similar topics have become an increasingly significant portion of the works circulating in the English language, with authors such as the Argentine Cecília Rikap and the Brazilian Rafael Grohmann, to name just a few examples.

Paying special attention to Latin America, we observe that works on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, platformized labor, and other similar topics have become an increasingly significant portion of the works circulating in the English language, with authors such as the Argentine Cecília Rikap and the Brazilian Rafael Grohmann, to name just a few examples.

Analyses originating from these regions appear to hold significant potential to contribute to international discussions on decent work in the platform economy — one of the main topics of discussion at the 114th session of the International Labour Conference, scheduled to take place in 2026 — particularly regarding the health and safety of platform workers. In this regard, organizations such as the ILO and WHO point out, in a joint report, that characteristics of precarious work, including the Gig Economy, are risk factors for mental health, which may be contributing to alarming statistics, such as the more than 700,000 deaths by suicide in 2019 and the 280 million cases of depression and 301 million cases of anxiety during the same period.

However, a focus on particularities — in this case, those of Latin America and Brazil — can only offer useful contributions to workers, activists, and intellectuals in other regions (and frankly, can only offer truly useful insights to those within Brazil and Latin America) if understood in a dialectical relationship with the broader determinants of the capitalist mode of production. In this context, we consider the contributions of Marxist Dependency Theory to be of great value.

A history of dependence and exploitation

Beginning in the 1970s, numerous researchers in Latin America and Africa devoted themselves to studying the political and economic causes of underdevelopment on these continents. One of the most prominent schools of thought is Dependency Theory, which understands that the long period of colonial domination created a clear disadvantage in industrial development, a situation that was reinforced and perpetuated after the independence of Latin American countries, with the complicity of national elites who prioritized the preservation of their economic and political capital at the expense of developing an autonomous industrial capitalism. Therefore, the pressure exerted by the imperialist powers (or, if we prefer, by the nations at the center of capitalism in the 19th century) received the support or complicity of most of the dominant sectors of these countries’ economies, resulting in a new subordinate insertion into world capitalism: formally independent, but economically subordinate.

The compensatory mechanism used by the peripheral bourgeoisie to increase value extraction is the ‘super-exploitation of labor’, which results in the psychophysical exhaustion of the worker.

Ruy Mauro Marini, one of the most important authors of Marxist Dependency Theory, explains that this subordination is brought about by the role these countries play in the primary production of food and raw materials to supply industrial centers, as well as by a process of low-density industrialization that depends on technologies from developed nations. This relationship produces unequal exchanges that restrict autonomous national development. The compensatory mechanism used by the peripheral bourgeoisie to increase value extraction is the ‘super-exploitation of labor’, which results in the psychophysical exhaustion of the worker. There are three procedures of super-exploitation: ‘intensification of labor’, which implies greater physical and psychological effort to increase production within a given time frame; the extension of the workday, which seeks to increase absolute surplus value; and the ‘remuneration of workers below their real value’, transforming part of their consumption fund (wages) into a fund for capital accumulation.

Digital dependence as a new phase of subordination

Although dependency theories—including the Marxist strand described above—were developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it seems highly valuable to revisit them in order to analyze the present day, the current dynamics of labor exploitation, and their consequences for workers’ health. First, because digital dependency updates the dynamics already described, intensifying the precariousness of work in regions that are already structurally precarious, as is the case in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Second, because as the characteristics of precarious work spread to other parts of the globe, including the core capitalist countries, important lessons can be learned from those who have been examining this reality for longer.

We have argued that, although it exhibits certain distinctive features, digital dependency has, for nations such as Brazil, represented an updated version of the dependent capitalism to which they were historically subjected.

We have argued that, although it exhibits certain distinctive features, digital dependency has, for nations such as Brazil, represented an updated version of the dependent capitalism to which they were historically subjected. Although the technological development of these countries is undeniable, their current subordination stems from their dependence on digital-information infrastructures concentrated in the hands of U.S. Big Tech companies — especially their dependence on cloud infrastructure controlled by companies such as AWS and Google Cloud. This situation assigns peripheral countries contradictory roles, yet ones that are always complementary to the needs of central capitalism, now represented by Big Tech. First, in the extraction and export of minerals necessary for the production of microchips, reproducing the historical occupation of the lowest positions in the value chain; second, through the massive production of raw data, while the monetization through the processing and analysis of this data using artificial intelligence remains restricted to a minority of corporations.

The third role that can be identified is not uniform across nations with dependent capitalism, but pertains to certain local digital platforms operating at the cutting edge of technology. It cannot be said that Latin American giants — such as the Argentine e-commerce/marketplace platform, Mercado Libre, and the Brazilian food delivery platform, iFood — are technologically backward. The former is the largest company in the industry in Latin America, surpassing competitors like Amazon and Shopee, while the Brazilian company has overtaken Uber Eats in the Brazilian market. However, although these companies may be considered success stories in Latin American digital capitalism, they still occupy the position of dependent platforms, as conceptualized by Brazilian researchers Helena Martins and Cesar Bolaño. This is because they depend on central infrastructures provided by Big Tech companies. It is worth noting that various government agencies in Latin American countries also use these cloud infrastructures, transferring strategic population data to the “black box” of these corporations.

Based on what we have discussed so far, it is not difficult to see how major Latin American platforms remain competitive with international giants despite transferring part of the value to the platforms that occupy the “trunk” of the digital tree through infrastructure rental fees. They resort to intensifying the overexploitation of labor. In other words, the three mechanisms described by Marini — namely, the intensification of labor, the extension of the workday, and remuneration below the real value of labor—which are already present within or on the fringes of Latin America’s fragile labor regulations, are further intensified in the digital precariat.

In other words, the three mechanisms described by Marini — namely, the intensification of labor, the extension of the workday, and remuneration below the real value of labor—which are already present within or on the fringes of Latin America’s fragile labor regulations, are further intensified in the digital precariat.

Guy Standing’s ideas about the precariat as a new class — distinguished from the proletariat by the absence of a social contract and job security — are well known. However, Marxist authors such as the Brazilians Ricardo Antunes and Rui Braga adopt a different understanding, situating the precariat as the most precarious stratum of the working class. These forms of work have expanded significantly through digital platforms, shaping what authors from the Global North have come to call the gig economy. Regarding the recent growth of precariousness in the core capitalist countries, Seto notes that “if Mbembe speaks of a ‘becoming black’ of humanity as a generalization of racialized violence and necropolitics, we could, in an essayistic vein, treat the global emergence of the ‘gig economy’ as a ‘becoming South American’ of labor.”

The report also warns of the underreporting of work-related illnesses in the Global South, which masks the true scale of the mental health crisis among the digital precariat.

In the 1970s, Marxist Dependency Theory accurately identified that the overexploitation of labor led to the premature deterioration of the workforce and workers’ health. In a joint publication by the ILO and WHO, the report Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury, 2000–2016 highlights significant disparities among global regions, both in the burden of workplace accidents and in exposure to occupational hazards. The report also warns of the underreporting of work-related illnesses in the Global South, which masks the true scale of the mental health crisis among the digital precariat. It further highlights long working hours (exceeding 55 hours per week) as a major occupational risk factor. These two concerns are particularly important in the current phase of capitalist development, as the digital precariat tends, at the same time, toward greater underreporting — given the absence of formal employment relationships — and toward longer working hours due to the pay-per-task system.

Decent work, life, and health for the working class

The unchecked expansion of the digital precariat around the globe must also be analyzed from the perspective of its impact on workers’ lives and health. While precarious work has been expanding at the heart of capitalism, it has intensified in the peripheries, perpetuating regional disparities — at least when it comes to platform-based work. This is demonstrated by data collected by the Fairwork project, for example. At the same time, various characteristics of precarious work have been expanding and tend to produce negative effects such as financial insecurity and longer working hours. The intensification of work that increases the volume of manual and intellectual tasks also leads to physical and mental exhaustion.

The intensification of work that increases the volume of manual and intellectual tasks also leads to physical and mental exhaustion.

The reversal of the trajectory that work has been taking, especially with the expansion of the digital precariat, must be considered from the perspective of defending the lives and health of the working class.