A ontologia do trabalho e a ideologia do progresso técnico-científico

Abstract

At first glance, our theme may sound like another study in the philosophical line, or that goes in the direction of an interdisciplinarity. Our intention was not to follow any of these paths, although economic analysis of reality that takes into account other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, etc. is of great importance. . In this sense, our objective is not to go deeper into the topic of ontology, but to contribute a little more to the relevant role that the Ontology of Work in Political Economy should have. Therefore, we would like to highlight now what we mean by ontology. Ontology means going to the roots, searching for the meaning and foundation of human reality in the world. This foundation is placed in different "structuring structures" according to the representation that is made of this reality. If one starts from an idealistic perspective, ontology will be characterized by a metaphysical, transcendental concern, that is, it will be placing the Spirit as the ultimate foundation of reality. On the other hand, if starting from a materialistic perspective, ontology will seek a concrete foundation for reality, such as "work". The ontology of work, therefore, places "work" as prior to humanity's socio-political, cultural and economic organizations. And as the basis, foundation, of the history itself. It is, then, an ontology that is not only the starting point, but a critical and conceptual reference with which we are constantly delimiting and building our object of study. We seek to recognize "work" as a starting point for understanding the economic process as having a structural historicity, because "work" is nothing other than the universalization, via abstraction, of the social relations that men establish among themselves, fundamentally for to provide them with the materiality that guarantees their life. In this sense, we start from a conceptual priority that does not translate into a mere theoretical speculation, but in an articulation of categories built from the different concrete realities that base and structure the concept of work. If this concept appears as a generic expression, which can reveal a historically decontextualized action, this is because in capitalism "work" has reached an extremely high degree of abstraction; it became a "real abstraction", as Marx would say. The important thing, and what is necessary for scientific research, is, however, to specify the ways in which the work is being carried out, according to its determined historical moment. One of the difficulties that we face in this study was the demonstration of the centrality of work not only in the productive process, but also of work as a category that precedes the development of the productive forces, of technique and of science; as a category that precedes and explains the ways of men to articulate socially and culturally and, therefore, as a category that delves into history. The difficulties are justified because if the work, in the dimension in which we are considering it, gradually gained the determinations that made it a concept, today the capitalist organization of production, which brought this process of abstraction of work to the last consequences, no longer collaborates in the sense of making this abstraction positive, when, for example, it does not recognize work as the source of all wealth. On the contrary, the current capitalist organization of production denies work as a foundation, by making it redundant for the production of wealth. Regarding the specificity of this study, which is dealing with the relationship between Work Ontology and Ideology of Technical-Scientific Progress1, we would say that in the contemporary world, characterized by the globalization of commercial and financial exchanges (via, fundamentally, the development of information technologies) technique and science are given a degree of autonomy unprecedented in the history of capitalism itself. Technical-scientific progress has been appearing as a determinant of economic development and even social organization. And in the dominant ideology, work does not appear as the true subject of technique and science. It is true that in the midst of the crisis of jobs and work itself 1 This does not mean that we disregard, for example, the affirmation of the financial dynamics of capital "above" the denial of work. Quite the contrary, we believe that parallel to the autonomy of science and technology is the autonomy of capital-money. However, the object of this dissertation is restricted to the subsumption of work by an ideology of technical-scientific progress. factory, there is in general a compliment to the so-called "knowledge work". However, while for us this is one form of work among the others, the dominant ideology seeks to bring work closer to knowledge and its remuneration to property and capital.