“Technological change can become 'fetishized' as a 'thing in itself', as an exogenous guiding force in the history of capitalism.”

—  David Harvey

Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 4, Technology, Labour Process And Value, p. 122

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Technological change can become 'fetishized' as a 'thing in itself', as an exogenous guiding force in the history of ca…" by David Harvey?
David Harvey photo
David Harvey37
British anthropologist 1935

Related quotes

Marshall McLuhan photo

“With Gutenberg Europe enters the technological phase of progress, when change itself becomes the archetypal norm of social life.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 177

“Karl Marx did not call for an opposition to the forces of history. On the contrary he accepted all of them, the drive of technology, the revolutionizing effects of democratic striving, even the vagaries of capitalism, as being indeed the carriers of a brighter future.”

Robert L. Heilbroner (1919–2005) American historian and economist

Source: The Future As History (1960), Chapter I, Part 8, The Marxian Blow, p. 41

Mark Kingwell photo

“It is only through a devoted attention to the details of objects and faces in the modern urban scene, he argues, that the commodity fetish of capitalism can be effectively dispelled.”

Mark Kingwell (1963) Canadian philosopher

Source: The World We Want (2000), Chapter 4, Spaces And Dreams, p. 141.

David Harvey photo

“Speculation in land may be necessary to capitalism, but speculative orgies periodically become a quagmire of destruction for capital itself.”

David Harvey (1935) British anthropologist

Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 11, Theory Of Rent, p. 369

David Harvey photo

“Perpetual revolutions in technology can mean the devaluation of fixed capital on an extensive scale.”

David Harvey (1935) British anthropologist

Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 8, Fixed capital, p. 221

John Desmond Bernal photo

“But if capitalism had built up science as a productive force, the very character of the new mode of production was serving to make capitalism itself unnecessary.”

John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) British scientist

J.D. Bernal (1959) Marx and Science. p. 39

Robert Kuttner photo

“In a world where technology and capital are highly transferable, there is a real risk that comparative advantage comes to be defined as whose labor force will work for the lowest wage.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 3, Trade, p. 102

Herbert Marcuse photo

“The liberating force of technology—the instrumentalization of things—turns into … the instrumentalization of man.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 159

“Current economic growth has uncoupled itself from the world and has become irrelevant. Worse, it has become a blind guide.”

Herman E. Daly (1938) American economist

Source: Steady-State Economics, 1977, p. 108

Related topics