Zhao Zelin: Machine Narrative and Its Conceptual Genealogy in the Marxist Context
The concept of the "machine" occupies a highly significant position in the classical texts of Marx. Existing research has primarily focused on interpretations of Marx’s discourses on machinery through the philosophy of science and technology, as well as the critique of political economy. These studies play a vital role in helping us delve into the profound connotations and contemporary value of Marx’s classical discourses on machinery, alienation, capital, and surplus value. However, they rarely reveal the internal connections and logical construction of the machine and its related concepts within the Marxian context. This deficiency hinders our ability to grasp the internal logic and contemporary value of Marx’s discourse on machinery from a holistic perspective. Taking the classical discourses on machinery in Marx’s texts as its fundamental basis, this article reveals a "machine narrative" that moves from traditional tools to working machines, machines, automata, and systems of machinery; from systems of machinery to the automated factory based on a system of automatic machinery; and from the automated factory to the factory system and factory acts. It clarifies that the machine in the Marxian context is not an isolated entity but possesses an inherent generative logic and a conceptual genealogy. The objective existence of this machine narrative and its conceptual genealogy provides an important theoretical reference and intellectual guide for our in-depth exploration of the optimal way for humanity to utilize machinery.
I. From Traditional Tools and Machines to Systems of Machinery
The machine in the Marxian context is related to tools in the traditional context. In Marx’s own literature and the foundational texts he studied, both machines and traditional tools initially refer to a material, objective reality within the productive practice of human society. The 19th-century British mathematician Babbage [1] argued that a machine is "the union of all these instruments [simple tools—Ed.] [2] put in motion by a motor," emphasizing the machine’s inherent continuity with traditional tools from a structural standpoint. For Babbage, the machine was a new type of instrument of productive labor with an improved structural mode—a product of technical innovation applied to traditional tools. Marx absorbed Babbage’s intuitive way of understanding machines and re-examined and described them from the perspectives of structure and function. Marx stated: "All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts: the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism, and finally the tool or working machine [3]." The motor mechanism provides the power for the machine; the transmitting mechanism conveys various mechanical movements to the working machine; and the working machine uses the power transmitted to it and "its own tools to perform the same operations as were formerly carried out by the workman with similar tools." When the traditional tools used in former productive labor are transferred to a new setup consisting of a motor, a transmission, and a working machine, "the machine takes the place of a mere tool."
Moving from an intuitive analysis of mechanical structure to the understanding and definition of the machine’s connotation, Marx achieved a transcendence of Babbage’s view of machinery. This transcendence is reflected in the fact that Marx not only emphasized the machine’s historical inheritance from traditional tools but also endowed the machine with modern significance. Marx noted, "If we examine the machines which constitute the basis of modern industry, we shall find, in most cases, the very same instruments and apparatus which were used by the handicraftsman or the worker in manufacture [4], but in a form which has been modified to fit the machine." However, "machinery does not arise everywhere out of manufacture... it arises from tools that presuppose handicraft production." Marx discovered that the development from traditional tools to machinery underwent two stages. The first stage was the development of machines that combined traditional tools, such as the spinning machine and the loom, from the oldest traditional tools. The second stage was the use of existing machines to manufacture new machines, which was a new stage developing out of manufacture. It was the emergence of this new stage that triggered the large-scale application of machinery and subsequently catalyzed the Industrial Revolution in its modern sense. Marx pointed out that the emergence of modern machinery "only alters the initial motion produced by the power, converting it into another form corresponding to a definite labor purpose and to the transmission of power to the working machine." As a single, material, objective entity in human social productive practice, the machine possesses the functions of traditional tools but also transcends them. (Continued in Part 2)
To distinguish machines from traditional tools, Marx, after tracing the history of mechanical development, pointed out: "Within manufacture, the two material foundations for the machine industry were prepared: the clock and the mill (originally the grain mill, and specifically the water mill), both of which were handed down from antiquity. (The water mill was introduced to Rome from Asia Minor in the era of Julius Caesar.) The clock was the first automaton applied to practical purposes; the whole theory of the production of uniform motion was developed on its basis." Mumford [5] believed that "Karl Marx was one of the first to understand the clock as the archetype for all later machines." The mill was an important tool for human productive labor in early history, while the clock was a crucial tool for describing the motion of matter. During the Middle Ages, people primarily used hand mills, animal-driven mills, and water mills. By the 12th century, windmills began to be applied. By the 16th century, the use of windmills was very common in places like the Netherlands. In the 17th and 18th centuries, people gradually began to apply the principle of uniform motion to tools in productive practice to solve the problem of human and animal power being difficult to maintain with uniformity and endurance. Consequently, Marx regarded the mill as the first instrument of productive labor to apply mechanical principles. Once a traditional tool was transformed into a mechanical apparatus—namely, a working machine—the motor mechanism driven by natural forces achieved an independent form, completely freed from the limitations of human power. At this point, the individual working machine was reduced to a simple element of the machine. It was not until the end of the 18th century, when the United States manufactured its first large batch of steam mills, that individual machines developed into a system of machinery (where several mills were driven by the same power source); this process was very slow. This continuous "revolution" in power for "primitive" machines broke through the limits of human and animal power on productive labor and promoted the emergence of automata and systems of machinery.
The appearance of the concept of the "automaton" [6] in Marx’s classical texts signifies both the basic completion of Marx’s task of endowing the machine with modern meaning and further reveals the fundamental difference between machines and traditional tools in the Marxian context. Babbage had "divided machines into (1) machines for producing power and (2) machines intended merely to transmit power and perform work." Differing from Babbage, Marx believed that the basic classification and modern understanding of machinery should not focus solely on improvements in power; to do so "would be to precisely overlook the very thing that was the turning point in history." The "turning point" mentioned here is precisely the "subjective part" of modern machinery that Babbage failed to see. Unlike traditional machines, an automaton is composed of many "mechanical organs" and "intellectual organs." The "mechanical organs" refer to the mechanical components constituting the machine, while the "intellectual organs" refer to the subjective elements participating in the work of the "mechanical organs." Marx discovered that humans had long possessed "living automata" [7]. It was not until the 18th century that humanity possessed automata in the modern sense and machinery driven by automata. "The clock provided the idea of the automaton and of the application of automatic motion to production." Such an automaton appears to be "automatic" and independent of "living labor" [8], but in reality, it remains the crystallization of the worker’s productive labor—the "solidification" of the worker’s past labor into an objective entity seemingly composed only of "mechanical organs." Based on this, it remains easy for people to equate modern machinery with traditional tools. To emphasize that the automaton, as modern machinery, differs from traditional tools and previous machines, Marx directly cited the name given to the self-acting mule [9] by the workers of that time and by Ure [10]—the "Iron Man."
When different machines are combined and applied to the same productive labor scenario, a system of machinery emerges. The "system of machinery" is another crucial concept in Marx’s discussion of the developmental stages of machinery; it serves as the logical bridge through which Marx’s discourse expands from the machine as an individual, general objective entity to the machine as a socialized, socio-historical element. Marx argued that the development of machinery went through a process from simple to complex and from lower to higher stages: "simple tools; accumulation of tools; composite tools; the driving of a composite tool by a single hand, i.e. by man; the driving of these instruments by natural forces; the machine; the system of machinery with one motor; the system of machinery with an automatic motor." For Marx, a "system of machinery" refers to a physical apparatus in which a series of machines or mechanical components are concentrated to engage in the production of a certain product. It is not a mere combination of individual machines or workers, but an organic integration of traditional tools, machines, and humans—a higher stage of mechanical development.
The emergence of the system of machinery is a vital historical node in the socialization of the machine itself. It relies both on the emergence of various specialized working machines and new, sustainable, concentrated power sources, and on the effective cooperation between humans and machines in the process of productive labor practice. The power source driving the machinery, the working machines with specialized functions, and the workers capable of operating the machinery are all organic components of the system of machinery. Marx pointed out: "In the organized system of machinery, the various partial machines are constantly passing the work to one another, and the number, size, and speed of these partial machines are brought into a definite proportion." "A system of machinery, whether it is based on the mere cooperation of similar working machines, as in weaving, or on a combination of different kinds of machines, as in spinning, as soon as it is driven by a self-acting motor, forms a single huge automaton." That is to say, the system of machinery is both a modern form of existence developed from traditional tools and machines, and a modern mode of combining various production elements—such as machines, traditional tools, and humans—within productive labor practice. The emergence of the system of machinery signifies the emergence of a new social mode of production—namely, machine-based production—and implies that human society has reached a new historical stage.
II. From Systems of Machinery and Automatic Systems of Machinery to the Automated Factory
Machine-based production is an important theoretical prerequisite for Marx’s critique of political economy. "Without a scientific theory of large-scale machine production, it would have been impossible for Marx to establish a scientific critique of political economy, let alone a mature critique of capitalism." This "machine-based production" has two layers of meaning. First, it refers to direct production using machinery. In this mode of production, the primary attributes displayed by the machine are the inherent attributes of traditional production tools—that is, the ability to produce new products of labor. Second, while producing new products of labor, the machine "produces" new human beings and a new social mode of production. The emergence of this new social mode of production gradually causes the old mode of production of manufacture to wither away.
Marx recorded the important historical process of the emergence of this new social mode of production. Marx pointed out: "With the development of machine production in the first decades of the 19th century, machinery gradually took possession of the fabrication of working machines. But it was only in the recent decades that the construction of railways and ocean steamers on a vast scale called into existence the cyclopean machines now employed in the construction of prime movers." That machines can manufacture new machines means that the object of labor may no longer have every stage of its production and processing completed by human hands, but rather by a series of different yet complementary working machines completing various interconnected stages. Thus, a true system of machinery is formed, which begins to replace individual independent machines in the fulfillment of social production within socialized productive labor practice.
Machine production gestated during the period of manufacture [11], yet it differs from the social production of that era. "Manufacture itself provided, on the whole, a natural basis for the division and organization of the production process by the system of machinery. But between manufacture and machine production, an essential difference emerged from the outset." This essential difference lies in the inversion of subject and object in the real relationship between the worker and the machine with which they interact. "In manufacture, single or grouped workers must complete every special partial process with their own manual tools. If the worker adapts to the process, then the process has also been adapted to the worker beforehand. In machine production, this subjective principle of division disappears. Here, the entire process is objectively decomposed into its constituent stages according to its own nature; the questions of how each partial process is completed and how the various partial processes are combined are solved by the technical application of mechanics, chemistry, and so forth." Prior to the birth of capitalist machine production, the machine was merely a part of the total labor process, and the human being occupied a clear subjective position within that process. In capitalist machine production, however, the machine possesses a subjective status similar to—or even transcending—that of the human being; both the machine and the human are merely components within machine production. In capitalist machine production, the machine intervenes in human productive labor practice in an unprecedented manner, while the human is gradually confined to a productive labor space where they perpetually operate the same tool. Work that previously had to be completed by humans is gradually replaced by machines, and the humans participating in machine production are gradually transformed into "living appendages" despoiled of their vital mechanisms. This inversion of the subject-object relationship in the human-machine dynamic has long been regarded as a key characteristic of capitalist machine production and has become a primary target of critique for many modern and contemporary philosophers.
Marx discovered that the loss of the subject status of the human (the worker) in the labor practice of capitalist machine production was brought about by capitalists exercising the dominant role of capital. This is because "Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules, etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified." In reality, humans are the producers of any machine and play a subjective role. Due to the prerequisite existence of the capitalist social system, people under capitalist social conditions underwent a new differentiation into workers and capitalists. The capitalists appropriated capital and the system of machinery, as well as the labor and surplus value of the working class. Therefore, the loss of human subject status in capitalist machine production is not the loss of human subject status in a general sense, but rather the deep appropriation of the subject status of one part of the population (the working class) by the subject status of another (the capitalists). This is a phenomenon unique to class society, particularly capitalist society.
The labor of the worker is divided into two types: "living labor" and "dead labor." In capitalist machine production, the worker’s productive labor maintains consistency with previous forms of labor in that it continues to create new value; hence it is called "living labor." The machine remains merely a product of the worker’s labor—it is labor-value that has been solidified. It cannot create value, but under certain conditions, it can transfer value; it is therefore called "dead labor." Because of the objective existence of private ownership of the means of production under capitalism, the worker’s dead labor and living labor are simultaneously absorbed by capital into the whole of capitalist machine production. The machine is merely the highest form of expression of the means of labor after they have undergone various morphological changes and joined the process of capital production. In handicraft production, the labor of a worker possessing certain productive skills played an almost entirely decisive role in the production of the product; in capitalist machine production, however, both the worker’s labor and the machine are merely constituent parts and different manifestations of capital. Therefore, the inversion of the subject-object relationship brought about by capitalist machine production is not a loss of the worker’s actual status as the productive subject in the overall labor process, but rather a social loss of the worker’s subject status and decisive power in the distribution of the product’s value throughout capitalist machine production.
To further elucidate the loss of the worker’s subject status in the distribution of product value, Marx introduced concepts such as "fixed capital" to continue unfolding his machine narrative. In capitalist machine production, as the product is completed, a portion of the means of production is transformed into the formative elements of the product and leaves the production process, moving as a commodity from the sphere of production to the sphere of circulation for consumption by the purchaser. However, certain means of labor, such as machines, "once they have entered the sphere of production, never leave it. Their function confines them there. A portion of the value of the advanced capital is fixed in this form, determined by the function of the means of labor in the process"—namely, fixed capital. Capital being "fixed" is not absolute but relative. This so-called relative fixation means that this particular means of labor, in terms of its form and the way its value is presented, must circulate just like any other portion of capital. "What determines that a portion of the capital value invested in means of production assumes the character of fixed capital is solely the unique mode of circulation of this value." As one of the physical forms of fixed capital, the machine transfers its value to the product, or its value is consumed in production, in a process that is always partial. The most prominent feature of this value transfer or disappearance is that it proceeds according to the average degree to which the machine loses its use-value. Under normal circumstances, the capitalist will always recover the value of the machine that has been transferred or consumed during the production process before or at the time the machine is scrapped. Some capitalists also use maintenance funds, insurance, and other methods to ensure that the original value of the machine is protected from unexpected loss.
In Marx’s context, machine production also points toward a new social state in an anticipatory manner—one that gestates new modes of governance. Marx envisioned this new social state as an era of the "automatic system of machinery." Marx pointed out that the "automatic system of machinery" is the most perfected and appropriate form of machine system. "It is moved by an automaton, by a self-operating moving power. This automaton consists of numerous mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages." In this "automatic system of machinery," the machine is transformed into a material existence compatible with fixed capital and capital in general, and the means of labor enter the productive labor process as direct means of production. Humans are increasingly forced into a state defined by and compatible with capital itself. In the automatic factory constituted by the automatic system of machinery, the power of individual labor-power to create value becomes smaller and smaller or even disappears. This disappearance is not necessarily a negative result; it may also be a new opportunity for human liberation. Marx noted: "Capital here—quite unintentionally—reduces human labor, the expenditure of energy, to a minimum. This will benefit emancipated labor and is the condition of its emancipation." However, the return of the machine to the service of human liberation cannot be a natural historical process; it requires the proactive action of the workers who are oppressed or forced to become part of machine production. This proactive action is not to destroy the machine, but to recognize and gradually change their own socio-historical status. This involves a series of social institutional issues such as the factory system and factory acts where the machine is present.
III. From the Automatic Factory and Factory System to the Social System
The worker becomes a part of the automatic system of machinery, and the machine—a product created by the worker—becomes an opposing force. "The point is not objectification [12], but alienation, estrangement, externalization; the fact that it does not belong to the worker, but to the personified conditions of production, i.e., to capital; that it belongs to a massive objectified power which confronts social labor as one of its own elements." In Marx's view, the machine is not inherently opposed to the worker; rather, it is the dominant power of capital that forces the worker to submit to the capitalized system of machinery. In the early stages of machine application in human society, machines derived from traditional general tools were, like previous tools of production, intended to liberate human labor and loosen the constraints of natural forces on human productive practice. In domestic labor or the small-peasant economy, people possessed subjectivity in the face of the tools and machines they owned. However, in the automatic system of capitalist machine production, workers do not own the machines and cannot autonomously decide how to use them or how to relate to them. "From the moment when the direct participation of man in production begins to consist merely in acting as a simple motive power, the principle of the work to be performed begins to be determined by the machine." This historical surrender of decision-making power and subjectivity stems both from the limitations natural forces place on humans and from the actual control exercised over workers by capital and its power. For a long time, people attempted to return the proprietary nature of the machine to the public ownership of tools. However, the gains in labor efficiency, the reduction in labor costs, and the more effective control over workers brought by machines all enabled the capitalists—who held capital in capitalist society—to rapidly acquire more social wealth and subsequently gain stronger social control, becoming the dominant class. "In 1159, Frederick I declared the mill his own prerogative," but in capitalist machine production, the machine becomes a weapon for the capitalist to control the worker. "This weapon is used partly to throw the worker onto the streets, making him redundant; partly to deprive the worker of his specialty and eliminate various demands based on that specialty; and partly to make the worker submit to the despotic system and military discipline of capital meticulously established in the factory." In these modern capitalist factories filled with machinery, "masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of sergeants and officers." During their contemporary factory investigations, figures such as Robert Owen and Lord Ashley discovered that "since the general adoption of expensive machinery, human endurance has been forced far beyond its average power" and that "the labor of the workers now employed in the manufacturing process is three times what it was when these operations began." Clearly, workers are unwilling to increase their labor time and intensity; a struggle between workers and capitalists is inevitable. It is precisely under these circumstances that the machine, the system of machinery, and the automatic system of machinery become antagonistic forces to the worker’s existence.
To mitigate the contradictions and conflicts between themselves and the workers, capitalists established the factory system to realize their will. The "factory system" is a foundational concept for understanding the institutional construction of machine production in Marx’s context. The "factory system" refers to the production management system based on machines and systems of machinery established by capitalists in capitalist machine production to obtain more surplus value. Marx pointed out that "the source of the surplus value obtained by the capitalist is not the labor replaced by the machine, but the labor employed on the basis of the machine." This labor is neither provided by the machine nor is it the dead labor of the past solidified in the machine; rather, it is the living labor of the worker participating in machine production within the automatic system of machinery. If capitalists wish to use machines to obtain more surplus value, they can only do so by strengthening the management of workers. Capitalists invented a "labor organization compatible with the developed system of machinery on a capitalist basis, which is the factory system." By establishing various factory systems, capitalists suppress the intellectual and professional development of the workers themselves, such that the workers possess no mind or will of their own, existing only as appendages of the factory body for the sole purpose of generating more surplus value for the capitalist.
The establishment of the capitalist factory system, which serves the will of the capitalists, provided new systemic guarantees for capitalists to obtain more surplus value on the one hand, and draped the capitalist exploitation of workers' productive labor in a cloak of legitimacy on the other. Taylorism and Fordism are both typical summations of the core characteristics and key concepts of the factory system of capitalist large-scale machine industry. Friedman argues that Taylorism is the most typical theory of the factory system after Marx, as it "attempts to limit the manageable scope of labor power through the threat of coercion, close supervision, and the minimization of individual worker responsibility... it treats workers just like machines." With the establishment and consolidation of the capitalist factory system of large-scale machine industry, workers were progressively degraded, both mentally and physically, into machines, and their various living conditions became increasingly dependent on the use of capital and the whims of the wealthy. Simultaneously, "competition among workers intensified, and consequently their price decreased. This condition of the worker reached its apex under the factory system." The emergence of the capitalist factory system of large-scale machine industry further intensified the power struggle between workers and capitalists. Raising the factory system, which represents the will of the capitalists, to the level of the state will became a historical necessity for capitalists to continue suppressing the productive labor of workers.
Factory legislation, as an expression of the state will, thus became an important instrument for capitalists to suppress workers. The "Factory Acts" [13] constitute a legal system established upon machine production and the factory system; they represent a key concept with qualitative significance in Marx’s discourse on machinery. This qualitative significance is primarily reflected in two aspects: on the one hand, capitalists not only directly formulated various factory regulations but also fully utilized the power of the modern capitalist state regime to promote the enactment of various Factory Acts, striving to guarantee and expand the scale of surplus value production from machine-based industry. On the other hand, the emergence of various Factory Acts provided capitalists with more ostensibly appropriate social justifications for fixing workers into specific positions within capitalist machine production. The enactment of various Factory Acts superficially alleviated the sharp contradictions between workers and capitalists in capitalist machine production, but in substance, it allowed capitalists to use social public power to socialize contradictions between capitalists and workers that might originally have been confined to one or a few factories. The result of this socialization of local contradictions allowed capitalists to unite in practice, whereas the working class within capitalist large-scale machine industry could not necessarily unite as easily as the capitalists. Marx discovered that within the various Factory Acts of capitalist machine production, "the machines are described as the 'master's machines,' and the function of the machines is described as the master's function in the production process (in 'production affairs'); the same applies to the science embodied in these machines, production methods, chemical processes, and so forth."
Of course, the Factory Acts of capitalist machine production also improved the living conditions of workers to a certain extent, but they did not fundamentally alter the social relations of production between capitalists and workers. Factory legislation based on the private ownership of the means of production and the logic of capital did not provide workers with more substantive liberation; rather, it rendered the capitalist social relations of production—built upon machines and machine systems—more stable. It transformed capitalist machine-based factories and production, which were previously scattered and lacked social institutional guarantees, into a social system that serves capital valorization more realistically and thoroughly. Marx emphasized: "Machinery is good in itself, and it is impossible to do without it; but what is bad is the use of machinery, the fact that they are possessed by individuals and not by the whole state." In Marx's view, the fundamental cause of the various forms of alienation produced by capitalist machine production lies in the foundational existence of the private ownership of the means of production and the logic of capital. In such a social system based on private ownership and the logic of capital, the more machinery develops and the more extensively it participates in the productive labor of workers, the more rapidly the living labor of the workers is transformed into surplus value that the capitalists can extract.
To this end, Marx repeatedly cautioned the working class that smashing machines [14] could not change their destiny. Only by completely transforming the private ownership of the means of production and establishing public ownership of the means of production—which is more suitable for the free and well-rounded development of the individual—can the working class better utilize machinery and attain liberation. In Marx's view, the transition from private ownership to public ownership of the means of production is not merely a subjective wish of the workers, but a historical necessity of the development of capitalist machine production. From individual traditional tools to machines and machine systems, and onwards to automated machine systems and automated factories, the development and application of machinery in human social production has become increasingly socialized. However, in capitalist machine production, private ownership and the logic of capital remain a foundational existence, giving rise to a deep-seated basic contradiction: the contradiction between the private ownership of the means of production and the socialization of capitalist machine production. Marx pointed out, "The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of labor reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds." Through the negation of the negation, it will "re-establish individual property on the basis of cooperation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production produced by labor itself," thereby creating a new mode for humanity to utilize machine production.
IV. Conclusion
In existing research on Marx's various ideas, his thought often presents certain facets or characteristics depending on different contexts and objectives. Different studies treat his thought as a "massive machine" from which different components can be arbitrarily disassembled, as if his thought lacked internal unity. However, the research in this article shows that from traditional tools to machines, automata, and machine systems, to automated machine systems and automated factories constructed from them, and finally to social institutions like the factory system and Factory Acts based on machine production, Marx’s discourse on machinery spans multiple scenarios of human social production and daily practice. Machinery in Marx’s context is not an isolated objective existence but constitutes a unique machine narrative and conceptual genealogy. It is precisely within this machine narrative and conceptual genealogy that Marx reveals that the application of machinery predicated on the private ownership of the means of production is not the optimal way for humanity to utilize machinery. While the private ownership of the means of production and the logic of capital created the modern machine civilization of human social production, historical development requires human society to break through the social power constraints of private ownership and the logic of capital as much as possible, as well as to use machinery wisely for the free and well-rounded development of the individual.
(Author's affiliation: Huazhong University of Science and Technology) Source: Zhexue Yanjiu (Philosophical Research), No. 3, 2025 Web Editor: Paul