It's surprising, and kind of disappointing, how many self-proclaimed "Marxists" say that Marx and his followers were economic determinists, when they were very clear that the development of the means of production, which is to say, the technology used for productive labor, was itself determine of economic development.
If anything, Marx and friends were technological determinists, but even then, it's a very undialectical way of thinking. Technology and economics in reality lead eachother in more or less equal parts, and are additionally affected by and affect other forces such as science and politics. But either way, the claim that Marx was an economic determinist is flatly false.
Semantics thread!!!!
We need those!!!!
>>2615355I'm talking about the entire basis for historical materialism you complete and utter retard.
Technological development is overdetermined by the relations of production, which is why we have appliances that stop working if you don't pay a subscription fee.
>>2615441My point is that it goes both ways. It's true that technological development is determined by the relations of production. But the most efficient relations of production in a given place in a given period are determined by technological development. We don't have blacksmiths anymore because modern day industrial technology rendered them obsolete. And, again, if we want to dig deeper into the dialectic, it gets even more hairy.
historical materialism is completely bollocks
where my anti hismat bros at
>>2615474The primary directionality of the determination is the relations of production dominating, however. A new technology that threatens the power of capital can be crushed, but you don't see it happening the other way around. Meanwhile, the technology as it develops is organized around production within that system, so the functions of the machines are limited to what the workers are supposed to be able to do. The restrictions of the system become physically embodied in the tools that are developed for it.