Dall'anima semovente al 'soggetto automatico'. Stratificazioni filosofiche nel concetto di 'capitale' e nell'analisi marxiana del sistema di macchine

In this paper the Author examines the philosophical implications of the Marxian analysis of the «automatic system of machinery». In the first part, he shows that the notion of «automaton» cannot be univocally assimilated to a passive and heteronomous kind of movement. In fact, it displays (both etymologically and conceptually) an affinity with the notion of «self-motion»: an «automaton» is something that finds within itself the sources and the principles of its movement. In the second part, the Author argues that Marx’s definition of «capital» as «automatic Subject» (Book I, chapter 4) should be grasped from the standpoint of this notion of «automaticity», which is also coherent with the Idealistic (Fichtean and Hegelian) account of the prerogatives of the «Subject». In the third part, he examines the chapter on «large-scale industry», in which the «automaton» (i.e. one of the shapes of capital as automatic Subject) proves to be the real «Subject» of capitalist production, through the subsumption and expropriation of the subjectivity (of the capacity of initiative, movement and control) of the human bearers of labour-power.