ABSTRACT
Bourgeois thinkers are thinkers who are not critical of the capitalist order and as a consequence do not only oppose socialism, but also oppose socialists and their thought, such as Karl Marx’s theory.
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) was a French philosopher who had a major influence on the development of postmodern theory. Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) was a Canadian media theorist. Both thinkers argued that Marx’s theory ignored communication. Baudrillard argues that the Marxist theory of production is “irredeemably partial, and cannot be generalized” to communication, the media, and culture. McLuhan writes that Marx did not “understand the dynamics of the new media of communication. Marx based his analysis most untimely on the machine, just as the telegraph and other implosive forms began to reverse the mechanical dynamic”.
This chapter shows that communication and the means of communication played an important role in Marx’s works. It shows that claims such as the ones made by Baudrillard and McLuhan are false. Often such claims are attempts to delegitimise socialism by claiming that Marx’s theory is outdated. Baudrillard and McLuhan are bourgeois thinkers who have not read Marx’s works thoroughly.
Section 8.2 discusses Marx’s analysis of communication and language. Section 8.3 focuses on his concept of the means of communication. Section 8.4 points out the relevance of Marx’s notion of the general intellect.
This chapter shows that the claim of bourgeois thinkers, such as McLuhan and Baudrillard, that Marx has nothing to say on communication(s) is false. In his works, he provides an analysis of communication and language in society and capitalism.
Humans started communicating because there was a material need for it. For Marx, humans are material, social, communicating, sensuous beings. Marx participated in struggles for press freedom and the freedom of speech. He anticipated the contemporary theory of the public sphere by stressing that economic, political and ideological control of the press and that the media destroys the democratic character of the public sphere.
For Marx, the means of communication are part of the means of domination and exploitation. They are means for the acceleration and globalisation of capitalism and are part of the capitalist antagonism between productive forces and relations of production that at the same time constitutes and undermines capitalism.
Marx anticipated the emergence of the Internet. With his concept of the general intellect, he also anticipated the emergence of informational capitalism.
