Trafigura, Marx and technology

Does the Trafigura/Carter-Ruck case vindicate Marx?
What I mean is that Marx argued that technical change was a powerful force behind social change, so technology influenced power relations between people:

Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist. (The Poverty of Philosophy, second observation)

Trafigura’s experience seems to support this view. In the pre-web age, they might well have gotten away with trying to suppress free speech. But thanks to technical change - the emergence of the web and twitter - their efforts backfired spectacularly and inadvertently led to one of the most effective viral marketing campaigns of recent years.
It seems, then, that “new productive forces” have indeed caused a radical change in “social relations”. Companies no longer have the power to silence their critics.
So, Marx was right.
Or was he? Here’s a puzzling thing. It’s hard to think of many other ways in which recent technological change has revolutionized social relations.
Of course, there are countless examples of how it’s changed economic relations - though as Phil points out, it would be wrong to read the Trafigura case as a triumph for new media over the dead trees.
But I’m struggling to think of many ways in which it has systematically changed everyday political-legal relationships; mySociety is a wholly good thing, but it is (so far?) a long way from being revolutionary. To take an older technology, how - except perhaps by contributing to the decline of deference - did television really fundamentally change the relationships between rulers and the ruled?
Put it this way. If (say) Lord Salisbury were to visit us today, he’d be astounded by pretty much every aspect of modern life. But although he’d be shocked by the size of government, he’d find its basic structure reassuringly familiar.
So, here’s my question. Was Marx wrong after all, and technology doesn’t transform political relationships, and the Trafigura case is just an exception? Or was Marx right, and it’s just that there’s a long time lag between technological and political change - and that Trafigura is a portent of changes to come? Should we not think more about the precise mechanisms whereby technology changes power relations?

Comments

[Pete]

There's a fallacy here. Marx was saying that society is revolutionised by particular technologies, not that all technologies necessarily revolutionise society. It's trivially true that not all technology revolutionises society - you can't use the fact that Twitter's been a bit over-sold as evidence against technologically determined social change.

[Nick]

I don't think Marx is right. Greater technological development was associated with some radical changes in Europe that didn't happen in China, because of different institutional and social frames. Sometimes the "fetters" holding back changes are simply strong enough to withstand them and can be maintained indefinitely. There is no single rock-bottom function driving social development.

[Rob Spear]

Well Marx *was* rabbitting on about meanses of production, whereas television and Twitter and so on are more means of bullshit.

[Luis Enrique]

assuming for the sake of argument there has been some sort of shift from a "manufactured goods" economy to some sort of service sector, "information" economy ... what does Marxism predict are the consequences of that?

The usefulness of knowing technology defines social relations is diminished, if you don't know in advance what technologies are likely to emerge nor what they will imply for social relations. Can Marxists to any better than supplying some narrative they find pleasing that relates information technology to social changes?

[chris]

@ Pete - it's not the fact that Twitter's oversold that evidence against Marx. My point is rather that the totality of technical change over the last 100-odd years hasn't (yet) had radical political effects. Is this because the "fetters" are strong, as Nick says? Is it because all these technical changes aren't the sort that revolutionizes society? (And if they aren't, what sort would be?) Or what?

[chris strange]

If it was the mass manufacturing revolution of the early twentieth century that helped to end the culture of deference it took some time to kick in. We have only had ubiquitous, cheap, personal communications tools for a couple of decades. Perhaps we aren't seeing much social change, yet, because they take more time? Or maybe because they are there but so taken for granted we don't notice them, and more time is needed to get some historical perspective before we can tell what has changed compared to the past? Likewise if Marx was correct then we would expect to see the emergence of a new, conflicting, social classes to go along with this technological changes, so maybe that limits the rate of change to the rate at which the people shaped by the old class conflicts die off?

[gordon]

On the contrary side, rotten boroughs (which allowed the great and the powerful to control many MPs) were over the course of the 19th century replaced by universal suffrage, representation according to population and latterly a rigid party system vulnerable to the need to raise campaign funds and find plums for ambitious representatives and party leaders. This system allows the great and the powerful to control many MPs. Progress?

[Paul Sagar]

"Or was he? Here’s a puzzling thing. It’s hard to think of many other ways in which recent technological change has revolutionized social relations.
Of course, there are countless examples of how it’s changed economic relations"

If we are being proper Marxist historical materialists, then the second sentence is certain to have a significant bearing upon the first. It may just take time for the technological change, which is a product of economic change, to become incompatible with the modes of social intercourse between classes, and for revolution to follow as per the tempo of history.

You're asking your question too soon. Look back from the other side of the revolution, when classes have been shuffled and social productive relations re-cast, and then you will see.

Except that, of course, by then it will be pointless to ask, for it will have come to pass.

[Paul Sagar]

Obviously, there is some pretty daft backwards logic in my last comment, re relationship between economic and technical change.

Re-jig as appropriate.

[Pete]

Chris,

Fair enough. Guess my point was just that the "social revolutions are technologically determined" argument is water-tight against any amount of technology. It really only works in hindsight.

The only way to prove it wrong would be to find a social revolution that wasn't technologically induced, or, as Nick does, find instances of a technology that was supposedly revolutionary in some contexts, but doesn't appear to be in others.

But that's pedantic and slightly off-topic from the "Is the information age over-sold?" question that you were actually getting at.

[Diversity]

A very uncharacteristic remark of Marx. He is usually right and perceptive about the details, and perceptively wrong about the implications.

This time Marx is wrong about the details. Wind and water mills gave power to feudal lords because they were so much more efficient than hand mills. Everyone could have a hand mill, but the feudal lord could exercise a monopoly of the wind or water mill, and so enrich himself.

T%he technical change that destroyed the local milling monopoly was not steam, but cheaper transport.

However, the great technological change in productive relations in the last century has been the move to a predominantly service economy. That has produced a real, bubbling ferment of social change. The routes to riches are far more varied than they were. The scope for independent economic activity without a boss is ever widening, and the fight to defend vested interests concentrates more and more on intellectual property rights.

[M.G. in Progress]

Marx was right in many respect, but it is taking us over 150 years to realize it. Is there a change to come?

[Tech Info]

The initiative taken for the concern is very serious and need an attention of every one. This is the concern which exists in the society and needs to be eliminated from the society as soon as possible.

Tech Info
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justin