Re: fragment on machines (was Re: [PEN-L] query)

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Devine, James" wrote:
>
> > So for the autonomists, the "fetters" and crisis are
> > manifestations of the working class struggle and it is
> > capital's effort to overcome this resistence by
> > workers that leads to new forms of the labor process.
>
> Right. But the fetters also reflect capitalists' attempts to maintain
> power.
> JD

O.K. It as a general law of history that "fettering" becomes (or can
become) a technological determinism. But if it is seen as specific to
the capitalist mode of production, then the objection doesn't apply. I
presume that there can still be debate, but this perspective does answer
my initial phrasing of the objection.

If it is made a general law of history it can't explain why still in the
18th century textile productivity in non-capitalist India was so much
greater than in capitalist England.

Carrol