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> Well, I would ask, what about the labour of Marx’s day, the factory workers borne of the industrial revolution that he thought should overthrow the bourgeoisi

> Well, I would ask, what about the labour of Marx’s day, the factory workers borne of the industrial revolution that he thought should overthrow the bourgeoisie? From what I understand, Marx's contribution to political thought is his philosophy of history. it's not that the proletariat would overthrow the bourgeoisie in his day— but rather that it was simply an inevitability. History was marching towards it. I know Ben was using it as a way to tie-together political implications— I'm just clarifying.

throwawayjava 9y ago
The last section of this piece is funny because the first 3/4ths of the essay is fundamentally Marxist in its descriptive characterization of the role of technology in capitalist economies. In particular, this part of the last section is straight-up wrong: > Marx saw a world where capital subjugated labour for its own return; technologies like Amazon Go have increasingly no need for labor at all. First, because even the author's idealized view of Amazon Go does require labor (the author even discussed this at length; that labor takes the form of R&D). Second, because Marx did see this possible world, and even wrote about it extensively in chapter 15 of Capital. I find that happens a lot in articles like this one -- ideas that originated with Marx are parroted by an author who doesn't realize that Marx wrote extensively on the role of technology in capitalism. General advice on articles like this one: If you're going to write about labor and technology in capitalist economies, and don't want to unknowingly parrot lots of Marxist ideas, you should read capital. Capital certainly contains some prescriptions you may disagree with, but it also contains a lot of descriptions. If you're thinking about labor and technology, there are better than even odds that you're re-inventing one of Marx's descriptions. He was the first one to say a lot of the obvious stuff. Even more general advice: western stigmas aside, familiarity with Marx's writing is as indispensable to understanding modern economic thought as familiarity with Smith, Hayek, Keynes, et al.

throwawayjava 9y ago

The last section of this piece is funny because the first 3/4ths of the essay is fundamentally Marxist in its descriptive characterization of the role of technology in capitalist economies. In particular, this part of the last section is straight-up wrong: > Marx saw a world where capital subjugated labour for its own return; technologies like Amazon Go have increasingly no need for labor at all. First, because even the author's idealized view of Amazon Go does require labor (the author even discussed this at length; that labor takes the form of R&D). Second, because Marx did see this possible world, and even wrote about it extensively in chapter 15 of Capital. I find that happens a lot in articles like this one -- ideas that originated with Marx are parroted by an author who doesn't realize that Marx wrote extensively on the role of technology in capitalism. General advice on articles like this one: If you're going to write about labor and technology in capitalist economies, and don't want to unknowingly parrot lots of Marxist ideas, you should read capital. Capital certainly contains some prescriptions you may disagree with, but it also contains a lot of descriptions. If you're thinking about labor and technology, there are better than even odds that you're re-inventing one of Marx's descriptions. He was the first one to say a lot of the obvious stuff. Even more general advice: western stigmas aside, familiarity with Marx's writing is as indispensable to understanding modern economic thought as familiarity with Smith, Hayek, Keynes, et al.