Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

Marx & Proudhon in the Digital Age

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relates more to his later work, Das Kapital . 13 Here Marx further developed the economic

concepts that continued to refute Proudhon’s theories and elaborate on how capitalism is an

exploitative system, driven by the separation of the worker from his products. Marx’s theorised

that the ultimate evolution of a society driven by machinery is a return to the agrarian ideal of a

socialist society.

Marx’s argument that machinery is an extension of the worker no longer holds for the modern

era, as digital technologies are fundamentally different from physical machinery. Marx’s

argument has two fundamental components. The first is that machinery is not fundamentally

different from any other tool of labour. The second is that there is some fundamental difference

between occupations. On this second point, Marx dismisses Proudhon’s idea that “in principle, a porter differs less from a philosopher than a mastiff from a greyhound.” 14 The premise of machines being just a form of tools is changed by the fundamental nature of the computer, in that a computer near universal capability (which breaks down the tradition task-tool functionality). 15 For

instance, the same computer used for education can also be used for paying bills online, entertainment and

the production of goods and services for sale. The general purpose computer and the rise of entirely

digital economies indicates that the digital revolution is finally opening up the possibility of

machinery comprising a distinct economic category. The digitisation of society has fundamentally

changed the nature of these interactions, allowing not only for economic interactions completely

13 Marx et al., Capital . 14 Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy , Chapter 2 ‘The Metaphysics of Political Economy Division of labour and Machinery.’ 15 Cory Doctrow, ‘There is a war coming: Cory Doctorow on the future regulation of general purpose computation’. video. The Guardian , Febuary 2012, School of Law, University of Westminster, accessed September 5, 2017, https : / / www . theguardian . com / commentisfree / video / 2012 / apr / 19 / cory doctorow regulation computation video.

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