TECHNOLOGY AND/IN CAPITALISM – THE GENESIS AND RELEVANCE OF THE RELATIONSHIP FOR THE PRESENT ECOLOGICALLY UNSUSTAINABLE ORDER

Abstract

Abstract. The article critically analyses the crucial relationship between capitalism and technology(ies) in its historical and foundational dimension and its unprecedented natural-environment-altering dimension. It is argued that existing research in political science and political theory and progressive and emancipatory critiques of the unsustainable, exploitative nature of contemporary capitalism lack a critical interrogation of this relationship, which it attributes to a naïve, simplistic and problematic understanding of technology(ies) as neutral instrument(s). Building on materialist and neo-Luddite critiques, a comprehensive analytical framework is developed and applied to critically examine the genesis and nature of the relationship in its various dimensions and contexts, including the birth of the factory system, modern transportation, and modern ICTs. The analysed technological systems are demonstrated to be inherently capitalistic and environmentally unsustainable and their radical transformation should be at the centre of sustainable visions of a future socio-economic order. Keywords: technology, capitalism, industrialisation, materialist critique, neo-Luddism, ecological crisis.