Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

Marx & Proudhon in the Digital Age

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valid. 10 Marx’s critique of Proudhon’s understanding of mechanisation is based on the idea that

machines are not in fact considered a separate category to the pre-industrial workshop, in the

sameway as the bullock is not considered separate from the farmer performing mechanical labour.

From this fundamental axiom, Marx argues that machinery will serve simply to build upon existing

labour, and as such serve only to reinforce the division of labour, and not serve as antithetical to

it, as Proudhon contends.

Marx argued that the division of labour will survive through the mechanisation of society allows

him to massively downplay the extent to which the structure of society will be usurped in an

industrialised world. By Marx’s reckoning, it is incorrect to claim that “the division of labour reduces the worker to a degrading function”. 11 Instead, Marx emphasises that the division of

labour is not necessarily degrading to the workers but rather the oppression comes from the

controls applied to labour by a centralised government. A government that seeks to maximise the division of labour to maximise profit. 12 The core limitation in Marx’s argument is that it relies

on his fundamental premises being true, which he avoids properly supporting at several points.

One of these weak premises is that machinery is simply an extension of the existing workshop

structure. Marx assumes this to be self-explanatory, and as such his arguments are able to be

undermined through the disproving of this initial claim.

The majority of possible criticisms of Marx’s understanding of the role of automation in society

10 Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy . Chapter 2 ‘The Metaphysics of Political Economy. The Method’. 11 Proudhon, “The Philosophy of Poverty,” Chapter Four: Second Period. Machinery. 1. Of the function of machinery in its relations to liberty. 12 Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy , Chapter 2 ‘The Metaphysics of Political Economy Division of labour and Machinery’.

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