Are Karl Marx's "Perpetuum Mobile" and/or Max Weber's "Machine State" Dominating Labor Today?
Why or Why Not?
Students, researchers, faculty members, and scholars working in sociology and related social sciences to submit abstracts for an upcoming joint open session at the XXI ISA World Congress of Sociology, to be held from July 4–10, 2027, in Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
The session is sponsored jointly by RC20 Comparative Sociology and RC02 Economy and Society of the International Sociological Association (ISA).
Speakers are invited to apply Marx and Weber's pre-Internet, classical sociological theories to our digital epoch.
Karl Marx and Max Weber thought about the problem of machines dominating labor. In Grundrisse and Capital, Marx wrote about a "perpetuum mobile" that reproduces itself, outlives humans, is un-conflicted, reduces labour's worth, hoards and turns-over money, as we become alienated from their work, each other, and from nature.
Weber's analysis of bureaucracy, domination, and the "machine state" depicts society increasingly organized through rationalized systems and administrative structures. Rather than advocating for a revolutionary take-over of the machines by labor, as Marx posited, Weber predicted military coups taking over informational infrastructure as the only social change possible in an iron cage of bureaucracy.
Are these ideas relevant in today's digital world?
Can Marx's concept of the "perpetuum mobile" help us theorize surveillance capitalism?
Does Weber's "machine state" offer a useful way of understanding machine enabled growing inequality, AI and technological power?
And where do their theories fall short?
Submit abstracts by October 14, 2026 through the ISA Congress submission system at:
ISA XXI World Congress of Sociology - Call for Abstractshttps://www.isa-