Dismantling the machine: rethinking the role of technology in critical development theory

As we acknowledge the socioecological processes of the Anthropocene, we are compelled to reconsider the relation between nature and society as it pertains not only to environmental issues but also to development theory. A pivotal focus of such postdualist rethinking - because it is central to development discourse - should be modern technology. However, to reconceptualize technology as an inherently distributed phenomenon we also need to understand the extent to which it is contingent on asymmetric global relations of exchange. This chapter reviews several critical accounts of capitalism, all more or less inspired by Karl Marx, to examine how they define and theorize industrial technology. While some have emphasized its sociometabolic character, joining features of society and features of nature, and others have stressed its derivation from global conjunctures, it is difficult to find theorists of technology who do both. This omission no doubt results from neglect of the materiality of world trade - illuminated by studies of ecologically unequal exchange. Critical accounts of development thus continue to approach modern technology as external to social theory and accordingly as excised from the structure of the world economy of which it is an expression.