“ The tool, as we have seen, is not exterminated by the machine. ”
Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867). copy citation
| Author | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Source | Das Kapital |
| Topic | machine tool |
| Date | 1867 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling |
| Weblink | https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-... |
Context
“Once discovered, the law of the deviation of the magnetic needle in the field of an electric current, or the law of the magnetisation of iron, around which an electric current circulates, cost never a penny.23 But the exploitation of these laws for the purposes of telegraphy, &c., necessitates a costly and extensive apparatus. The tool, as we have seen, is not exterminated by the machine. From being a dwarf implement of the human organism, it expands and multiplies into the implement of a mechanism created by man. Capital now sets the labourer to work, not with a manual tool, but with a machine which itself handles the tools.”
source
Meaning and analysis
