Inštitut za delavske študije (IDŠ) – Institute for Labour Studies (ILS), an observer member in transform! network, organises a series of events around „intellectuals”, their functioning within the capitalist system, and their role in political projects, every Wednesday from March to June 2024 — in partnership with transform! europe. The following event is part of this series.
Capitalist development resulted in technology becoming a pivotal force that subjugated labour and enabled explosive production of wealth. The socialist state projects also harnessed technology on a vast scale, with the left intellectuals actively involved. Once these projects failed, the left retreated, finding refuge in humanities and social science academic departments. Neoliberal capitalism embraced computing and networking technologies, enabling the logic of capital to flourish by accounting for anything that could be quantified and connected in the pursuit of surplus value. Artificial intelligence marks a further advancement in labour subjugation and the global integration process. In the absence of plausible and emancipatory visions for a post-capitalist social order that would supersede state socialist projects, leftist intellectuals fear the capitalist character of new technologies. The thesis put forward is that Marx’s form analysis is a methodological foundation by which technological advances can be freed from the shackles of capital. The starting move in this approach is to grasp theoretically and quantitatively the social and economic determinations of forms of wealth as they pass through their productive and allocative circuits, within and beyond the state borders.
Toni Prug is a former software and networks engineer studying egalitarian production of wealth under the dominance of the capitalist mode of production. He is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka. He is one of the founding members of the recently formed Platform for social equality (The Equality Factory), an informal association of NGOs, unions, academics, activists and researchers whose goal is to study, map and advocate production of equality of outcomes and opportunities through the establishment of high-quality, equally accessible public services, and through fairer and more efficient distribution of wealth. His recent writings are Social Forms Beyond Value: Public Wealth and Its Contradictions (2023, with M.Žitko) and Globalne strukturalne zadatosti i proizvodnja jednakosti (2023).
Practical information:
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- This time the meeting is being held on Monday (not Wednesday as usual)!
- Venue & time: Participativna ljubljanska avtonomna cona (PLAC) at 19.00.
- The lecture will be recorded and later published on ILS YouTube channel.
- You can also read about this event on Instagram and on the dedicated ILS web page
- Next events will be announced on transform! website.
- For more information on the whole event series, you are warmly invited to read the description below.
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ILS LECTURE SERIES 2024 – INTELLECTUALS
The social division of labour between intellectual and manual labour, between the labour of the brain and the labour of the hands, represents one of the earliest and most enduring hierarchical divisions in the history of class societies. It persists even in the capitalist mode of production, where it has undergone intense transformations, especially because of the tendency towards the proletarianisation of intellectual production, which has led to a partial disenchantment of the intellect and the consequent partial recognition of intellectual labour as just one of many different forms of labour. Nor has intellectual production escaped the other socio-economic processes – quantification, mechanisation, and specialisation – which have generally characterised the transformation of labour under capitalism. Despite these changes, intellectual labour within capitalism retains a privileged status compared to physical (or merely “technical”) labour and continues to be tied to the elite institutions of the ideological superstructure, which raises questions about the functioning of a special stratum of “intellectuals” within the class structure.
Although the intellectual stratum is not necessarily tied to a single class, it is most often associated with the class position of the petty bourgeoisie, which in cultural, ideological, and scientific institutions seeks its own ways of climbing the social ladder through the accumulation of cultural, symbolic and social capital. Despite the lofty attitude that derives from the apparent exemption of this kind of ascendancy from the vulgar economic aspirations of the average worker and the bourgeoisie, the intellectual stratum nevertheless remains embedded in the workings of capitalism as well as in the material and ideological foment of class struggle. As many Marxist thinkers have recognised, intellectuals are also an active element in the development of class consciousness or rather in the maintenance of existing class hegemony.
To better understand the functioning of intellectuals within the capitalist system and their role in political projects, including the building and dismantling of socialism, this year ILS is organising a series of lectures on the problem of intellectuals, a problem that has accompanied and plagued the Marxist tradition since its earliest articulations in the works of Marx and Engels. The lectures take place every Wednesday at 19:00 on the premises of Participativna ljubljanska avtonomna cona (PLAC).
Read more about the whole event series (in Slovenian)
Inštitut za delavske študije
info[at]delavske-studije.si
Jakšičeva ulica 8,
1000 Ljubljana
