New Criticals


Machinery paves the way, says Marx, for the “free development of individualities [and] the general reduction of the necessary labor of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individual in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.” Even the lowliest worker in the furthest-flung factory is impacted. It follows that in the most advanced capitalist societies this development is most stark, perhaps even to the point where there are some who work without ever working at all – diminishing “labor time in the necessary form so as to increase it in the superfluous form, [positing] the superfluous in growing measure as a condition for the necessary.” Time spent not working is just as important, if not more important, in determining true wealth and perfect capitalism. How then to monetize superfluous time and produce without work?