I was surprised and pleased to see that Bhaskar had decided to post Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex, as it’s one of my favorite pieces of Marxist-feminist writing. In spite of its occasional outlandishness, it does two things exceptionally well. The first is to extend Marxist analysis into the realm of sex and gender by simply taking Marx and Engels’ own framework to its logical conclusion, which they themselves were too blinded by the patriarchal assumptions of their time to recognize. The second is to see modern technology as an indispensable element of women’s liberation, going so far as to argue that “Until a certain level of evolution had been reached and technology had achieved its present sophistication, to question fundamental biological conditions was insanity.”

My recent writing has, I think, created an impression in some people’s minds that I’m reflexively pro-technology. I even jokingly refer to myself that way sometimes. It’s true that I will sometimes treat a certain kind of technical change as an unexamined premise, and that I tend to be skeptical of arguments that are centered on the criticism of technology and its effect on labor. But it isn’t so much that I think more technology is always good; I just think that arguments for or against certain technologies often begin by asking the wrong question.

Via Aaron Bady’s indispensable Sunday Reading, I found this post from Richard at the blog “The Existence Machine,” which I hadn’t previously known about. Richard quotes, and objects to, a passage from the journalist Paul Mason asserting — and attributing to Marx — the notion that a classless society “must be based on the most advanced technologies and organisational forms created by capitalism itself.” His objection is that this naturalizes technology and prevents us from being critical of its effects and its sustainability. But that’s not the only way to interpret that formulation, and I think it somewhat misconstrues what the argument is about. The question is not whether technology, or capitalist production methods, are good or bad. Technology mediates social relations, and it is those social relations that should be the object of critique.