Marx Hated Technology?

[rylasasin]

In an argument I had/am having with someone online, I ran across this little arguement:


Also Marx hiself railed against modern tech as it deprived poeple of work. Therefore under Marxist-socialism black people would still be tolling in the fields as cotton pickers and combines would be forbidden. That is right, Lincoln did not free the black man, Cyrus Mcormick and John Deere did.

Thing is, I know this is pretty much bullshit (otherwise we'd all be primativists) but could someone give me a quote, source, etc, to refute it with?

[Rafiq]

Instead why don't you ask this dumb fuck to source his claim, being he's the only person to ever assert such a stupid fucking argument, which obviously isn't true. He asserted it, so you need to demand a source from him.

[Black_Rose]

By that logic, Eli Whitney should have freed the black man due to his invention of some agricultural labor saving device. I forgot the name of the invention.

[piet11111]

Like rafiq said ask for a source.

And how that guy thinks this is even remotely compatible with Marx's argument that capitalism is only progressive because it develops the means of production creating the foundation on which socialism can be build.


I think his confusion comes from the luddites that where destroying machinery because they feared it would lead to massive unemployment.

[The Douche]

The luddites destroyed machines because they hated factory conditions and living in the squalor of cities in the industrial revolution, not cause they thought it would put them out of a job. (Though machining did put many artisans out of a job, which was a reason for some luddite activity)

[Red Noob]

OP I'm sorry you have to deal with such an idiot. I'll give you what I can to the best of my knowledge, correct me if anything I say is inaccurate.


Also Marx hiself railed against modern tech as it deprived poeple of work.

Not true. Marx despised the utopian ideas of his time that promised people a plan for society based on modern inventions (similar to modern technocracy). Marx simply despised utopian ideas promising the end of all labor, period. Not the eradication of better working conditions and a lighter work load.


Therefore under Marxist-socialism black people would still be tolling in the fields as cotton pickers and combines would be forbidden. That is right, Lincoln did not free the black man, Cyrus Mcormick and John Deere did.

Lincoln tried to offer the same liberties (property and voting rights) to black as whites, of course to a lesser degree, but none the less he ended slavery in its purest form. When blacks were considered property, they were still given modern tools for plowing and farming, but they were still considered property and were subject to brutal working conditions.


Don't be afraid to point out how little this person knows about Marxist theory. Or tell him straight up how ignorant he is. It keeps 'em going. Makes for a more entertaining argument.

[CommunityBeliever]

People who cling to capitalism today hate or at least neglect technology.

[rylasasin]

LOL and now that tard just made the most retarded arguement I've ever heard:


So do you put yourself in the prolitariat or the ruling elite? Most that I meet see themselves running things never as the poor bastards laboring in the fields to provide you with your wants while all that you do is provide them with their meager needs. socialisim is for the workers, not those that control the workers.

[The Douche]

LOL and now that tard just made the most retarded arguement I've ever heard:

First, please don't use ableist language like "retard".


2nd, what he said makes perfect sense/is correct. Socialism makes no sense if you're not a worker, and its not in your interests if you're not a worker. Class interest informs the politics of socialism.

[rylasasin]

well, yeah that second part makes sense and is perfectly true (Why would anyone be a socialist if they were a stockholder? Or a CEO of a company? or anything?). It's not that part that's silly, it's the first part.

"Most that I meet see themselves running things never as the poor bastards laboring in the fields to provide you with your wants while all that you do is provide them with their meager needs."

Told him to try talking to actual socialists/communists, and not fake "progressives" or worse, Tea Partiers with self-delusions of grandeur.

[Black_Rose]

Could you ask in what makes the combine and the tractor different from the cotton gin?

It seems like he believes that technology alone will emancipate the workers, or at least grant them more humane conditions. Of course, that assumption is false.

[rylasasin]

And now i've gotten another few replies from other people who... quite frankly, pissed me off.


So we are suppose to limit ourselves to the dark ages with antiquated obsolete and inefficient technology for the sake of keeping people employed? All this ever does to any Country is turn them into a third world shit hole. The Future isn't in keeping old useless jobs in circulation it's about keeping yourself EMPLOYABLE. GO TO SCHOOL LEARN NEW SKILLS AND STOP TAKING BULLSHIT MAJORS IN COLLEGE. There is no place in today's Workforce for art degrees.

(1st of all, he's referring to a post I made there about how technological advancement/unemployment is bad for a capitalist society. He obviously didn't bother reading my posts on how this would actually BENEFIT a socialist society.)

Ugh the ignorance of some people.


"..having to work for shit wages or starve is not an incentive.." Quit your whining mate. Don't work for wages, just start your own business, pay good wages to those you employ. There are lots business paying good wages to good workers. They do so because they value their contribution.
Capitalism is not a perfect system. There is no such thing as a perfect economic system, but China figured it out and adopted aspects of capitalism, Russia fell apart because it didn't.

(unhealthy dose of sarcasm)
Uh huh. because everyone can just afford to start a business, sure. Yep, of course! that's the answer to all of today's unemployment problems! just start your own business, pay a decent wage, pay great benefits, and then (/sarcasm)Then get run completely out of business because of a competing major company that pays minimum wage or less, has no benefits, has a high turnover rate, offshores labor to foreign sweatshops where they can get their commodities for next to nothing, and get all but the most die hard of your customers because they can afford to sell their product for a few cents cheaper than yours and because they have better advertising than you do and because their a big brand name and you're not.

Yeah, somehow I get the idea that "just make your own business" isn't exactly the best advice to give. AMIRITE?

And then he goes and says this:


Yes of course anyone can start a business. Yahoo began with almost zero capital on campus. A communications giant began with 2 modems and a pc in a garage. Anyone can setup a website and drop-ship goods. No further outlay required.
People, not intellectuals are better left to decide what system works for them.
Almost all the great disasters in the world are caused by intellectuals trying to reorganize society.

At this point i'm about ready to just give up here. Seriously, people like these are part of the reason I try to avoid as much human interaction as often as possible.

[La Comédie Noire]

There is a reading of Marx that sees his writings on machinery and capitalist cooperation as anti technological. In fact Marx describes the machine as robbing the worker of his skill and forcing him into mind numbing repetitive drudgery. (see Das Kapital Volume I)

However, he made it pretty clear that going backwards, as the Luddites did, would be reactionary and machinery could be a force for liberation under socialism. Under capitalism and private property it is merely a creator of unemployment.



Also Marx hiself railed against modern tech as it deprived poeple of work. Therefore under Marxist-socialism black people would still be tolling in the fields as cotton pickers and combines would be forbidden. That is right, Lincoln did not free the black man, Cyrus Mcormick and John Deere did.

This is vulgar evolutionism that ignores the great political and social revolution that had to take place in order to end slavery. Slave owners were perfectly content to have slaves work the machinery that was supposed to have liberated them.

Oh and this:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/

[CommunityBeliever]

So we are suppose to limit ourselves to the dark ages with antiquated obsolete and inefficient technology for the sake of keeping people employed?


Speaking of antiquated, obsolete, and inefficient technology, I would say that pretty well describes most of the technology in use today. For example, our computers are pretty much obsolete in comparison to what the AI industry produced before the tragic AI winter of the late 80s.


Yes of course anyone can start a business. Yahoo began with almost zero capital on campus. A communications giant began with 2 modems and a pc in a garage. Anyone can setup a website and drop-ship goods.

Jerry Yang and David Filo were right there at the beginning of the world wide web, which is the only reason they were able to easily make Yahoo. Now that the web is an integral part of everybody's life, nobody has such an opportunity. Unfortunately for them, they weren't smart enough to realize that you should model the web as a graph rather the hierarchy, so google eventually replaced yahoo as the main portal to the web.

[Franz Fanonipants]

2nd, what he said makes perfect sense/is correct. Socialism makes no sense if you're not a worker, and its not in your interests if you're not a worker. Class interest informs the politics of socialism.

you know this isn't the point of the thread but i've always wondered: who doesn't work?

like i understand the bourgeoise have a different relationship to their labor than proles but i am often curious about this. marx sez that humans are basically defined by their capacity to labor, so like, if labor is human nature then like who doesn't work?

[Misanthrope]

No he didn't. Industrialization makes mass production easier therefore it makes the mass exploitation of workers easier.

This doesn't mean technology is bad. You can't label that broad of a concept with such a basic word. The internet is probably the greatest thing ever, free information, free communication. Technology/Industrialization isn't "bad", capitalism is what makes it "bad".

[The Douche]

you know this isn't the point of the thread but i've always wondered: who doesn't work?

like i understand the bourgeoise have a different relationship to their labor than proles but i am often curious about this. marx sez that humans are basically defined by their capacity to labor, so like, if labor is human nature then like who doesn't work?

It would be more accurate, instead of saying "worker" or "working class" to say "member of the class who have no options in order to survive but to sell their labor power to those who own/control the means of production or engage in a life of crime/black market enterprise", but thats kind of a mouthful.

Obviously, bosses and managers do "work", but they are not selling their labor power.

[Ocean Seal]

No Marx saw technology as a neutral force. As technology advances it allows the capitalist to kill off labor which leads to an accelerated aggregation of wealth by the capitalist class. This leads to the contradiction, which, with the victory of the working class leads to socialism.

[The Douche]

No Marx saw technology as a neutral force. As technology advances it allows the capitalist to kill off labor which leads to an accelerated aggregation of wealth by the capitalist class. This leads to the contradiction, which, with the victory of the working class leads to socialism.

I don't think Marx saw technology as a neutral force (but I could be wrong).

And if he did, he was wrong/immature, nothing is neutral under capitalism.

[Dean]

In an argument I had/am having with someone online, I ran across this little arguement:



Thing is, I know this is pretty much bullshit (otherwise we'd all be primativists) but could someone give me a quote, source, etc, to refute it with?

Marx described technology in terms of its ability to make work more productive. The consequence is that the rate of profit falls.

Marx felt that technology was necessary to produce enough that we can provide for everyone, with fewer net work hours being necessary per person.

The fact that workers routinely rebelled against technology may be why the person you are debating with is misinformed. But workers rebelled against it because the fruits of mechanized labor were held by a minority, not necessarily the workers. The predecessors to the cotton gin in Europe are fine examples of this.

[Ocean Seal]

I don't think Marx saw technology as a neutral force (but I could be wrong).

And if he did, he was wrong/immature, nothing is neutral under capitalism.
This is what I believed that Marx thought, but I could be wrong as well.

It can have implications but it is still neutral. It is something which the bourgeoisie use to their advantage but ultimately digs their graves. Technology cannot be stopped really, and it is used by both sides to their advantage. The capitalists have GM seeds which allows them to control food product, cameras to watch us, and television to broadcast their message. But none of those things are the products of technology, but rather those of capitalism. In a similar fashion technology has given us the internet, illegal downloading, 3-d printing, and pool masks to avoid tear gas.

Technology is just a force which transcends the mode of production.

[Rebid]

From wikipedia (google wikipedia karl marx, i can't add the link) - 4th paragraph on Economy, history and society):

"Marx's view of capitalism was two sided.[3][91] On one hand, Marx, in the 19th century's deepest critique of the dehumanising aspects of this system, noted that defining features of capitalism include alienation, exploitation and recurring, cyclical depressions leading to mass unemployment; on the other hand capitalism is also characterised by "revolutionizing, industrializing and universalizing qualities of development, growth and progressivity" (by which Marx meant industrialisation, urbanisation, technological progress, increased productivity and growth, rationality and scientific revolution), that are responsible for progress.[3][91][114] Marx considered the capitalist class to be one of the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly improved the means of production, more so than any other class in history, and was responsible for the overthrow of feudalism and its transition to capitalism.[117][137] Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment.[127]"

There you can see that Marx saw technology as a positively progressive force, as it increases productivity and welfare. It's not the technology in itself, as technology in itself is capable of creating the communist utopia, but the way technology is used under capitalism (creating alienation, misery, enslavement and failing to produce all the welfare technology in itself would be able to; think eg. devices planned to break up so to increase consumption or massive dumpings of coffee in the ocean to avoid falling of prizes).

"It took both time and experience before the workpeople learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and to direct their attacks, not against the material instruments of production, but against the mode in which they are used. " Karl Marx (1954, 404): Capital volume 1. (chapter 15, section 5, para 5. google capital volume 1.)

Also notice though that he had his critical views on ecological degradation too (sorry don't have references for this now).

[NoMasters]

Instead why don't you ask this dumb fuck to source his claim, being he's the only person to ever assert such a stupid fucking argument, which obviously isn't true. He asserted it, so you need to demand a source from him.

Actually agree with you for once.

Marx loved technology in theory. Technology was a major force for bringing the revolution for increased communication between communities. A massive component for starting the unification for the upcoming revolution.

I think the Arab Spring might represent how technology could incite revolution. However it isn't really where it needs to be. They aren't fighting for communism, at least not directly. Who knows what the outcome will be in 50-100 years.

[blake 3:17]

If anything Marx was too optimistic about technological/industrial progress.

[Ostrinski]

Technology itself is neutral under capitalism just as it is under all modes of production. It's its relationship to the productive process that gives it its class characterization.

[blake 3:17]

Technology itself is neutral under capitalism


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[NoMasters]

Technology itself is neutral under capitalism just as it is under all modes of production. It's its relationship to the productive process that gives it its class characterization.

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The first sentence is completely untrue

[The Douche]

I don't even feel comfortable with "technology" as a term.

Technology includes everything from the cotton gin to unmanned spy drones.

How can I say "technology" is neutral? There is nothing neutral about spy drones, atomic bombs, and CCTV cameras.

[Bostana]

It's funny because who ever sent you this is a total dumbass