I don't know enough about the emergence of capitalism to really give a good date. But the origin of the *possibility* of dead labor over living labor was/is our power of abstraction/objectification, which led us to confuse a process-in-product with a 'thing.' Once that reached a critical point through the increased exchange of the products of our labor, it was one long slog down shit creek.
The first recording (I believe), however, we have of human consciousness of the full possibility of its alienated powers was Babbage's Machinery and Manufactures (1835), where he made the leap from weaving machine to analyical engine (or so I've heard). Couldn't find anyone interested in it, tho! People would come to his house instead to see the automatons play games.
Ian,
Pre-capitalist oppressors could not borg us, even if they tried. They did not have the power. To borg is to convert everything into a single self-animated machine. How could despots or feudal rulers do that without the forces and conditions of production that capitalism wrought?
Cheers,
Jonathan
jjlassen at chinastudygroup.org wrote:
But seriosly, outsourcing methinks is just one manifestation of an ongoing trend to turn us into machines.
And when'd that start? 1830? 1730?
Doug
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