Karl Marx über Technologie und Entfremdung

For Marx, technology exemplifies the interaction between humanity and nature. His perspective on this relationship has evolved over the years. An older, humanistic, and vitalistic paradigm viewed humans as a qualitatively different kind of force in relation to nature. In contrast, a newer thermodynamic paradigm emphasized the continuity between humans and nature. Marx's work stands at the intersection of these two paradigms and contains elements of both. This is evident in his concept of labor. While labor was previously understood as a meaningful activity associated with the mastery of the natural world, it was later degraded to merely being a point where energy is transferred. Against this backdrop, Marx increasingly saw the prospect of human freedom not in meaningful work, but in the abolition of work. Furthermore, he demonstrated how the labor of the working-class, particularly that of women, was contemporarily interpreted within this new and bleak paradigm.