“The perpetual motion was to produce work inexhaustibly without corresponding consumption, that is to say, out of nothing. Work, however is money.”- Hermann von Helmhotlz
During Mostafa and I’s presentation last week on Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism
and Social Revolution, edited by Jim Davis, Thomas Hirschl and Michael
Stack, I posed a question to the class in hopes to eliciting a conversation about
how technology fits within the capitalist structure. The full outline of our
presentation can be found at eng654.blogspot.com. In the entry for “Chapter 3:
Why Machines Cannot Create Value; or, Marx’s Theory of Machines” by C. George
Caffentzis, we posted a video published
by RSAnimate titled the “Crises of Capitalism” which is a remediation, of
sorts, of a lecture given by economist David Harvey.
In the video, from 7:30 to 9:05, Harvey seems to suggest that it is “financial
ingenuity” that has driven the course of capitalism. I presented this video in
class, with specific attention given to that minute and a half, because Harvey says that the “the
whole history of capitalism has been about financial innovation.” I saw this
standing in a little bit of a contrast to some of the previous texts we’ve read
in class, namely of such theorists like Daniel Bell and Manuel Castells, as
read via the Theories of the Information
Society by Frank Webster. Bell and Castells argue that the vast quantity of
bits of information form together to create a new society, as compared to such
previous eras like the Agricultural or Industrial Ages.
In an attempt to blend Caffentzis and Harvey with Bell and Castells, I asked in class whether it was
significant that Harvey
fails to mention technological and informational shifts in society in his
critique of capitalism. If we notice the gaps in his critique, then is it
possible to say that for Harvey,
technological innovation – such as robots, automation, etc. – is just another
form of the “financial innovation” that has shaped capitalism, instead of it
being a separate component? Unfortunately, I don’t think I posed the question
as correctly as I could, nor did I follow up by trying to tease out the
underlying reasons for my questioning.
So I thought I’d do that here, after this neat comic I found, of course:
In my thinking, this relates to
the debate between what Webster deems as those “proclaim[ing] a new sort of
society that has emerged from the old” versus “writers who place emphasis on continuities”
(7). It would seem to me that Harvey
fails to mention how he sees technology as shaping capitalism because he does
not see technology as anything that is worth standing by itself. As such, all the
components of technology that Tessa Morris-Suzuki and Caffentzis see as not
adding any value to the production process – specifically, robots and
automation – are, in Harvey’s view, just another factor in how the capitalists
have altered the economic structure(s) of the world. In the video, Harvey only takes issue
specifically with how “financial innovation” has “the effect of empowering the
financiers.” I see Harvey
as including technological innovation as just another category or element that
the capitalist employs in order to keep atop of the hierarchical relationship
between him and the working masses (or as Marx saw them, the proletariats).
Additionally, I see Harvey’s line
of thinking as relating to Caffentzis argument that despite the notion that “the
working day would be so reduced by mechanization that our existential problem
would be… how to fill our leisure time” (29), automation, robots and “mechanization has lead to an increase, not a decrease, of work” [author’s
emphasis] (31). An increase in work means an increase in the exploitation of
worker from the capitalist’s viewpoint, which ultimately leads to an increase
in value, ostensibly in a perfect application of the process. Replacement of
workers by robots does nothing to add value to commodities despite the application of automation allowing the capitalist to
manufacture commodities faster, cheaper and in greater numbers. According to
Marx, the real source of value lies in the exploitation of the worker’s
labor-power, and because robots have no labor-power to exploit, they cannot
create value. This whole argument seems to fall in line with Morris-Suzuki’s use
of Ernest Mandel’s theory that “total automation of all productive activity
(including services) is incompatible with capitalism. We cannot even be certain
that it would be compatible with human society of any kind” (15).
Of course, this brings us back to Harvey’s idea of “financial
innovation.” If the increasing use of automation and technology in the capitalist
structure is not the defining feature
in contemporary economic circles (like it might initially be perceived as
being), does this mean that robots are just another instrument in the capitalist’s toolbox, rather than a complete and separate
workspace? This would mean, of course, that every innovation, be it
technological or industrial, a new machine, robotic being or way of operating,
are only parts of the grand scheme of the capitalist to own and control the
vast economic spheres.
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Caffentzis, C. George. “Why
Machines Cannot Create Value; or Marx’s Theory of Machines.” Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism
and Social Revolution. Eds. Jim Davis, Thomas Hirschl and Michael Stack. New York: Verso, 1997.
29-56. Print.
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. “Robots and
Capitalism.” Cutting Edge: Technology,
Information, Capitalism and Social Revolution. Eds. Jim Davis, Thomas
Hirschl and Michael Stack. New York:
Verso, 1997. 13-27. Print.
theRSAorg. “RSA Animate - Crises
of Capitalism.” YouTube. 28 June
2010. Web. 15 October 2012.
Webster, Frank. Introduction. Theories of the Information Age 3rd Edition. New York. Routledge, 2006. 1-7. Print.
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