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That's a very interesting remark. There is criticism against both communism and capitalism for exactly this notion: that history progresses only with material

That's a very interesting remark. There is criticism against both communism and capitalism for exactly this notion: that history progresses only with material advancement [1]. For example, one is by Cornelius Castoriadis [2] (fan of communism until he assigned this very notion of endless material growth as core of its shortcomings) and another by Erich Fromm, where in "To Have or to Be" [3] he talks about similar ideas. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis#The_imaginary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis#The_imag... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Have_or_to_Be%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Have_or_to_Be%3F

claudiawerner 6y ago
On the other hand, and I think more recently, Sean Sayers has gone against this conception of Marx that he proposed a 'productivist' ideology or conception of communist society[0], for which Marx is still (mistakenly, in my opinion) criticized, especially by environmentalists and eco-socialists. The special focus on a narrow, technical meaning of the 'forces of production' used in describing hi torical materialism has also been called into question. Marx may have been an 'economic determinist' (this is less controversial but still worth discussing) but he certainly wasn't a 'technological determinist'. [0] https://philpapers.org/rec/SAYTCO https://philpapers.org/rec/SAYTCO