Commentary on Marx’s Fragment on Machines: A Critique of Post-Operaismo

Abstract

Marx’s Fragment of Machines in his Grundrisse has been the subject of continuing debate among Marxist scholars. My aim in this paper will be twofold: (1) a short exposition of Marx’s argument in the fragment, and (2) critical engagement with its post-operaismo interpretations advanced by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Post-operaismo is important because of its significant influence on other Marxist and neo/post-Marxist theorists and their work (e.g., Paul Mason’s Post-Capitalism and Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism). I will argue that the main thesis of the fragment is the following: in the process of capitalist development, fixed capital as the means of labour expands to the extent that living labour becomes subsumed into the process of production guided not by the virtuosity of the worker but by the integrated system of machinery and science. To put it bluntly, it means that capital moves towards the autonomous system of automated production where living labour will increasingly become redundant. Consequently, the question then is how we are to understand what Marx meant by his claim that capital “thus works towards its own dissolution as the form dominating production” (Marx, Grundrisse, 1993: 700). Post-operaismo theorists and their followers interpreted this claim (and the fragment) as a possible crack in the capitalist system with a utopian potential for an emancipated post-capitalist society. I will then explain why we should be cautious regarding these post-operaismo claims.