The Dialectic of Knowledge: A Contribution to the Theory of Knowledge in Advanced Capitalism

Abstract

This essay focuses on the issue of knowledge in contemporary socioeconomic relations, arguing that Marx’s observations in this field are valid and relevant today. In particular, his remarks on fetishism and his dialectical method can contribute to explaining phenomena related to knowledge taken as an economic variable. This study presents four points of dialectical tension relating to knowledge in modern capitalism, all of them connected to the historical processes of socialization, thingification, and the transition from formal to real subsumption of labor under capital. The argument is focused on the dialectics of individual and social knowledge, deskilling and reskilling, average (homogeneous) and extra knowledge, and the process of new knowledge and its obsolescence. These four dialectical moments are presented together as a tool for overcoming the thingification and reification of knowledge.

Key Words:

• Dialectics
• Formal Subsumption
• Knowledge Work
• Real Subsumption
• Surplus Knowledge

Notes

1 Or they create a “second nature,” as Sohn-Rethel (1978) calls it.

2 This is so even in property rights theory; see Alchian and Demsetz (1975).

3 Consequently, researchers here distinguish a separate social class. For example, Erik O. Wright (1997) classifies the highly educated specialist as part of the middle class, while Tittenbrun (2011) distinguishes a separate position, the performers of “pre-material work.”

4 This also applies to AI; see Gray and Suri (2019).

5 This essay does not analyze the issue in detail because to do so would require a wider epistemological introduction. I accept a materialistic view that new knowledge is the result of social relations and practices.