Excerpts from Marx Readings in the Philosophy of Technology Class
I looked up The German Ideology on my own in order to verify Marx’s understanding of the concept of the human being and of human freedom. The remaining materials all come from the electronic file distributed by Wu-laoshi.
What follows is only a transcription of the original text; I am not commenting for the time being. The underlines and boldface are all my additions.
“The German Ideology (Selected Excerpts),” People’s Publishing House, 2003:
The constraint of the level of development of productive forces on freedom (Chinese first edition of the Complete Works, Vol. 3, pp. 506–508)
The problem as Sancho himself understands it is, in the final analysis, sheer nonsense. He thinks that up to now people have always first set up for themselves a concept of the human being, and then achieved freedom within the limits required for realizing this concept in themselves; that the degree of freedom each time achieved by people is determined by each person’s view of the ideal of the human being; and that in each individual there must necessarily remain some residue that does not accord with this ideal, so that this residue, as something “inhuman,” has not yet achieved freedom, or has achieved it only malgreeux [against their will]. In reality, of course, the matter is naturally this: people always achieve freedom, not within the limits prescribed and permitted by their ideal of the human being, but within the limits prescribed and permitted by the existing productive forces. ………… (p. 96)
This so-called “inhuman” thing, just like the “human” one, is also a product of modern relations; this “inhuman” thing is the negative side of modern relations. It is resistance to the dominant relations built on the basis of existing productive forces and to the ways of satisfying needs corresponding to them, without the basis of new revolutionary productive forces. The positive designation “human” corresponds to certain dominant relations at a certain stage in the development of production, and to the ways of satisfying needs determined by those relations; just as, conversely, the negative designation “inhuman” corresponds to those intentions that seek to negate the now dominant relations within the existing mode of production and the ways of satisfying needs dominant within those relations, and this intention is daily reproduced by this stage of development of production. (p. 97)
Communism and the free development of the human being (Chinese first edition of the Complete Works, Vol. 3, pp. 513–516)
The transformation of personal relations into their opposite, into purely material relations; the individual’s own separation of individuality from contingency—this, as we have already pointed out, is a historical process, which at different stages of development takes different, increasingly sharp and universal forms. In modern times, the domination of material relations over individuals, and the suppression of contingency by individuality, has assumed its sharpest and most universal form, and thus presents the existing individuals with a very definite task. This situation presents them with the task of replacing the domination of relations and contingency over the individual with the domination of the individual over contingency and relations. This situation does not, as Sancho imagines, demand that “I develop myself” (every individual has always done so, without Sancho’s advice), but rather prescribes that one must get rid of a completely definite mode of development. This task, determined by modern relations, is identical with the task of organizing society according to the communist principle. (p. 99)
The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, People’s Publishing House, 1985 edition, pp. 46–60 (below, page numbers refer to the People’s Publishing House third edition)
[Alienated Labor]
[XXII]
……
The more wealth the worker produces, the greater his product’s power and extent, the poorer he himself becomes. The more products the worker creates, the more he becomes a cheap commodity. The increase in the world of things is directly proportional to the decline in the human world. Labor not only produces commodities; it also produces itself and the worker as a commodity, and does so in the same proportion in which it produces commodities in general. (p. 51)
This fact only shows that the object which labor produces, its product, confronts it as an alien being, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labor is labor fixed in an object, made objective, materialized; this is the objectification of labor. The realization of labor is its objectification. In the state presupposed by political economy, this realization of labor appears as the worker’s un-realization, objectification appears as the loss of the object and as bondage to the object; appropriation appears as alienation, as externalization. (p. 52)
…… even labor itself becomes an object which the worker can only appropriate through the most intense exertion and through highly irregular intervals of rest. The appropriation of the object appears so much as alienation that the more objects the worker produces, the fewer can he possess, and the more he is dominated by his product, by capital.
All these consequences are contained in one determination: the worker’s relation to the product of his labor is as to an alien object. For on the basis of this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself in labor, the more powerful becomes the alien, objective world that he creates over against himself, the poorer he himself—his inner world—becomes, and the less belongs to him. It is the same in religion. The more man puts into God, the less he retains in himself. The worker puts his life into the object; but now this life no longer belongs to him but to the object. Therefore, the greater this activity, the more the worker loses the object. Whatever becomes the product of his labor no longer belongs to him. Therefore, the more product there is, the less there is of his own. The worker’s externalization in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, becomes external existence, but that it exists outside him, independent of him, as something alien, and becomes a power independent of him, confronting him: it means that the life he has bestowed upon the object confronts him as hostile and alien. (p. 53)
[XXIII]
Without nature, without the sensible external world, the worker can create nothing. It is the material on which his labor is realized, in which it is active, from which and by means of which it produces its products.
But nature provides the means of life for labor in this way, in the broader sense, in that labor cannot exist without objects to work on; and in a still narrower sense, nature also provides the means of life, namely the material required for the bodily existence of the worker himself.
Thus, the more the worker appropriates the external world, the sensible nature, through his labor, the more he loses means of life in two respects: first, the sensible external world increasingly ceases to be an object belonging to his labor, a means of life for his labor; second, this external world increasingly fails to provide him with means of life in the immediate sense, that is, with the material needed for the bodily existence of the laborer.
Thus in both respects the worker becomes the slave of his own object. First, he obtains the object of labor—that is, he obtains work; second, he obtains the means of subsistence. Accordingly, he can exist first as a worker and second as a bodily subject. The summit of this slave condition is that he can maintain the bodily subject’s existence only as a worker, and can be a worker only as a bodily subject.
(According to the laws of political economy, the worker’s alienation in his object is expressed in this: the more the worker produces, the less he can consume; the more value he creates, the more valueless, the more base he becomes; the more perfect the worker’s product, the more deformed the worker himself; the more civilized the object the worker creates, the more barbaric the worker himself; the more powerful labor is, the more powerless the worker; the more skillful labor is, the more dull-witted the worker, the more he becomes a slave of nature.) (p. 53)
Political economy conceals the alienation of labor’s essence by not considering the direct relation of the worker (that is, labor) to the product. Of course, labor produces marvelous things for the rich, but for the worker it produces utter poverty. Labor creates palaces, but for the worker it creates slums. Labor creates beauty, but makes the worker deformed. Labor replaces handwork with machinery, but makes some people return to barbaric labor and turns some workers into machines. Labor produces intelligence, but for the worker it produces dullness and stupidity. (p. 54)
So where does the externalization of labor appear?
First, labor is external to the worker, that is, it does not belong to his essence; therefore, he does not affirm himself in his work, but denies himself, does not feel happy, but unhappy, does not freely develop his physical and mental energies, but mortifies his body and ruins his spirit. Therefore, the worker feels at home only outside labor, and feels out of sorts in labor; he feels comfortable when not working, and uncomfortable when working. Thus his labor is not voluntary, but forced labor, labor of compulsion. Accordingly, it is not the satisfaction of a need for labor, but merely a means to satisfy needs outside labor. The alien character of labor is plainly shown by the fact that, as soon as physical compulsion or some other compulsion ceases, people flee labor as though escaping the plague. External labor, labor in which man externalizes himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice and self-torment. Finally, for the worker, the external character of labor lies in the fact that this labor is not his own but someone else’s: labor does not belong to him; in labor he does not belong to himself, but to another. Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of the human imagination, the human brain and the human heart, acts upon the individual not as his own activity but as something alien—divine or diabolical activity—so too the worker’s activity is not his spontaneous activity. His activity belongs to another; it is the loss of himself.
The result is that man (the worker) feels himself to be freely active only in the exercise of his animal functions—eating, drinking, sexual activity, at most also dwelling, adornment, and so on—while in his human functions he feels himself to be nothing but an animal. What is animal becomes human, and what is human becomes animal.
Eating, drinking, sexual activity, and the like are indeed genuinely human functions. But if these functions are separated from the rest of human activity and made the final and sole end, then in this abstraction they are animal functions. (p. 55)
[XXIV]
Man is a species-being, not only because in practice and in theory he makes the species—both his own species and that of other things—into his object; but also because—this is only another way of saying the same thing—he treats himself as the actual, living species, as a universal and therefore also free being.
Alienated labor, by (1) alienating nature, and (2) alienating man from himself, from his own activity and life activity, also alienates the species from man: it turns species-life into a means of maintaining individual life. First, it alienates species-life from the individual; second, it turns abstract individual life into the purpose of a likewise abstract and alienated form of species-life.
For first of all, labor, this life activity, this productive life itself, is for man merely a means to satisfy a need—namely, the need to maintain bodily existence. Yet productive life itself is species-life. It is life-engendering activity. The whole character of a species, its species-character, lies in the nature of its life activity, and the free conscious activity is precisely the human species-character. But life itself becomes merely a means to life.
Animal and its life activity are immediately identical. The animal does not distinguish itself from its life activity. It is that activity. Man, however, makes his life activity itself the object of his will and consciousness. His life activity is conscious. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity. It is precisely by this that man is a species-being. Or rather, it is because man is a species-being that he is a conscious being, that is, that his own life is an object for him. Only because of this is his activity free activity. Alienated labor reverses this relation, so that it is precisely because man is a conscious being that he turns his life activity, his essence, into merely a means for maintaining his existence. (p. 57)
Through practical creation of the world of objects, the transformation of inorganic nature, man proves himself to be a conscious species-being, that is, a being who takes the species as his essence, or rather who takes himself as a species-being. True, animals also produce. They too build nests or dwellings for themselves, such as bees, beavers, ants, and so on. But animals produce only what they or their young immediately need: animal production is one-sided, whereas human production is universal; animals produce only under the domination of immediate bodily need, whereas man produces even when he is not under the domination of bodily need, and truly produces only when he is not under such need’s domination; animals produce only themselves, whereas man reproduces the whole of nature; the product of animals is immediately bound to their bodies, whereas man relates freely to his product. Animals can only build according to the measure and needs of the species to which they belong, whereas man knows how to produce according to the measure of any species and knows how to apply the inherent measure everywhere to the object: thus man also builds according to the laws of beauty. (p. 58)
Thus it is in the transformation of the objective world that man truly proves himself to be a species-being. This production is his active species-life. Through this production, nature appears as his work and his reality. Therefore, the object of labor is the objectification of the human species-life: man doubles himself not only intellectually, as in consciousness, but actively, really, and thereby contemplates himself in the world he has created. Thus alienated labor takes from man his object of production, and thereby also takes from man his species-life, that is, his real, species-objectivity, turning man’s advantage over the animal into a disadvantage, because it takes away from man his inorganic body, nature.
In this way, alienated labor brings about the following result:
(3) The human species-being—whether nature, or the species-capacities of the human spirit—becomes an alien essence for man, a means for maintaining his individual existence. Alienated labor alienates man’s own body, as well as nature outside him, his spiritual essence, his human essence, from man.
(4) The direct consequence of the fact that man is alienated from his labor product, from his life activity, from his species-being, is the alienation of man from man. When man stands opposed to himself, he also stands opposed to other men. Whatever applies to the relation of man to his own labor, to his labor product, and to himself, also applies to the relation of man to other men, to their labor and to the objects of labor.
In short, the proposition that man is alienated from his species-being means that one man is alienated from another, and that each of them is alienated from the human essence.
The alienation of man, the relation of man to himself in general, is realized and expressed only through his relation to other men.
Thus, under conditions of alienated labor, each person observes other people according to the relation and measure in which he himself stands as a worker. (p. 59)
[XXV]
If my activity does not belong to me, but is an alien activity, a forced activity, then to whom does it belong?
……
……not God and not nature; only man himself can become the alien power that dominates man.
In short, through alienated, externalized labor, the worker produces a relation of a person who stands apart from labor, who is outside labor, to this labor. The worker’s relation to labor produces the capitalist (or whatever other name one may give to the employer)’s relation to this labor. Thus, private property is the product, the result, and the necessary consequence of externalized labor, that is, of the worker’s external relation to nature and to himself.
……Rather than saying that private property appears as the ground and cause of externalized labor, it would be more accurate to say that it is the result of externalized labor, just as God was originally not the cause of humanity’s delusions of reason, but the result of those delusions of reason. Later, this relation becomes one of reciprocal action.
Only when private property has developed to its final, highest stage does this secret become revealed again: on the one hand private property is the product of externalized labor, on the other hand it is the means by which labor externalizes itself, the realization of this externalization.
“The Labor Process,” Section 1 of Chapter 5 of Volume 1 of Capital, translation excerpted from Marx and Engels Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 201–211
The distinction between various economic eras lies not in what is produced, but in how it is produced, and with what means of labor it is produced.
“The Development of Machinery,” Section 1 of Chapter 13 of Volume 1 of Capital, translation excerpted from Marx and Engels Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 408–423
All developed machines consist of three essentially different parts: the engine, the transmission mechanism, and the tool machine or working machine. The engine is the driving force of the whole mechanism. It either generates its own power, like the steam engine, caloric engine, electromagnetic engine, and so on; or it receives propulsion from some ready-made natural force outside itself, such as a waterwheel driven by falling water, a windmill driven by the wind, and so forth. The transmission mechanism is made up of flywheels, shafts, gears, worm gears, rods, ropes, belts, coupling devices, and all kinds of accessories. It regulates motion, changes the form of motion when necessary (for example, turning vertical motion into circular motion), and distributes and transmits the motion to the tool machine. The function of these two parts of the mechanism is simply to pass motion on to the tool machine, through which the tool machine then seizes the labor object and alters it according to a certain purpose. This part of the machine—the tool machine—is the starting point of the eighteenth-century Industrial Revolution. Today, whenever production in handicraft or manufactory industry passes over to machine production, the tool machine is still the starting point.
The distinction between man as a mere source of power and man as a genuine operating worker is especially striking in many hand tools. For example, on the spinning wheel, the foot serves only as a source of power, whereas on the spindle the hand, which works at drawing out and twisting the yarn, is engaged in the real spinning operation. It was precisely this latter part of the hand tool that first came under the assault of the Industrial Revolution. At first, apart from setting human beings to the new labor of watching over machines with their eyes and correcting machines’ mistakes with their hands, the Industrial Revolution also made human beings perform the purely mechanical function of power. By contrast, those tools that had originally used human beings merely as simple sources of power—such as pushmills, pumps, bellows, pestles, and so on—were the first to adopt horses, water, and wind as their driving forces. These tools had partly, during the period of manufactory industry and in isolated cases even earlier, already developed into machines, but without bringing about a revolution in the mode of production. In the period of large-scale industry, one can see that these tools were already machines even in their handicraft forms. For example, the water pump used by the Dutch in 1836–1837 to drain Haarlem Lake was designed according to the principle of the ordinary syringe; the only difference was that its piston was not driven by a human hand, but by a huge steam engine. In England, the handle of the very imperfect ordinary bellows used by blacksmiths is still sometimes connected to a steam engine and turned into a mechanical bellows. The steam engine invented during the period of manufactory industry at the end of the seventeenth century, and in existence until the early 1780s, did not bring about the Industrial Revolution. On the contrary, it was precisely the creation of the tool machine that made the revolution in the steam engine necessary.
A machine, as the starting point of the Industrial Revolution, is the replacement of a worker who uses only one tool by a mechanism that works with many identical or similar tools together, driven by a single source of power, regardless of what form that power may take. Here we already have the machine, but only as a simple element of machine production.
As early as the seventeenth century, people had tried using one waterwheel to drive two grinding stones, that is, two sets of millstones. But at this point, the expansion in scale of the transmission mechanism ran up against the insufficiency of water power; this was also one of the reasons that prompted people to study the laws of friction more precisely.
Only after the tool had changed from being a tool of the human organism into a tool of the mechanical apparatus, that is, a tool machine, did the engine acquire an independent form completely freed from the limits of human labor power. Thus, the single tool machine we examined above was reduced to a simple element of machine production. Now, one engine can drive many working machines at the same time. As the number of working machines driven simultaneously increases, the engine grows larger too, and the transmission mechanism expands accordingly into a vast apparatus.
When the working machine can complete all the motions necessary for processing raw materials without human assistance, and only requires human supervision from the side, we have an automatic system of machines, …
An organized system of working machines driven by a central automaton through transmission machinery is the most developed form of machine production. Here, what replaces the single machine is a gigantic mechanical monster whose body fills entire factory buildings, whose magic power is first concealed by the solemn, rhythmic movement of its huge limbs, and then bursts forth in the frenzied whirling of its countless true working organs.
March 12, 2007, 8:12 p.m.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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