Marx's"Machine System":A Technological Criticism Path Based on Capital Logic
Marx proposed the concept of"machine system"as one of the three elements of capital pro-duction,using labor as the core element to interpret the logic of capital in the preparation stage of Capital and its manuscript.This concept embodies the transformation of machines,which are influ-enced by capitalist production relations,into a"system"that can influence the forms of human labor in its automated iterations.Laborers,on the one hand,become intelligent organs standing next to the machine system,but on the other hand,they also act as yeast to promote capital growth and influence the speed and direction of possible iterations of the machine system.The machine system is essentially still a product of humans.This determines that the birth of the machine system certainly depends on the capitalist mode of production,but as a product of human beings,it has the possibility of escaping from capital.In his Economic Manuscripts of 1857-1858,Marx proposed the transformation of the essential definition of human social wealth through the production of machine systems,proposing the increase of free time provided by machine systems for human liberation,as well as the disintegration of labor value theory,thereby dismantling all possibilities of capital logic.This provides a critical per-spective based on capital logic for today's radical iteration of technological criticism.