Time to stop the exploitation of free academic labour

Abstract

Commercial publishing houses continue to make unbounded profits while exploiting the free labour of researchers through peer review. If publishers are to be compensated financially for the value that they add within a capitalist system, then so should all others who add value, including reviewers. I propose that peer review should be included as a professional service by research institutes in their contracts with commercial publishers. This would help to recognize the value of peer review, and begin to shape it into a functional form of quality control.