Summary Of Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man

The Marcusian Conceptions of Automation In his book One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse argues that automation is a centrifugal tendency that is characteristic of technology itself. For Marcuse, automation can be a benefit, but carries with it some dangerous liability. The negative aspect is that that automation has the potentiality of use by repressive forces in society viz. government, to maintain the existing conditions. In a positive sense however, automation has the ability to yield a freer society (Marcuse 35). It is within this Marcusian conception of automation that I will describe its centrifugal tendencies, and the role it plays in the classical Marxist analysis of capitalism. Further, I will examine under what conditions the centrifugal tendencies of automation threatens capitalism, and by way of example, …show more content…
It appears that within this positive aspect of automation the condition can be set to contain it. Marcuse explains that, within the context of the contest between capitalism and communism, a shift of importance can be made to social and economic concerns over militarism (Marcuse 37). Using the antiquated example of a Soviet shift to total administration, Marcuse argues that this would force the U.S. to rationalize the productive process. In this rationalization, the worker would resist, but the resistance would not be reinforced by “political radicalization” (Marcuse 37). This would lead to the workers and the government accepting a common interest framework that could manage the centrifugal tendencies of automation (Marcuse 37). Marcuse uses a quote from C. Wright Mills, White Collar, to explain that worker (in C. Wright Mills quote “white collar workers”), that are free from the demands of physical labor, will make it easier to identify the true interests of labor in the whole