What did Debord mean by this?

"The production process's constant innovations are not echoed in consumption, which presents nothing but an expanded repetition of the past. Because dead labor continues to dominate living labor, in spectacular time the past continues to dominate the present." I kinda get the first sentence, but I'm not really sure what he meant by dead and living labor.

>>8675 I've only read this excerpt just now, but he clearly seems to mean scientific work done for automation by "dead labor" which is in contrast to the "living labor" that merely builds on top of the work of the dead. This is true in most all things, however, so perhaps I've misunderstood.

is dead labour not just the work of the ancestors ? The builders of our highways, our great presses, our dockworks and steelmills ? Vast infrastructures that enable and support all modern works?

>>8676 >>8677 Afaik dead and living labor were concepts introduced by Marx. Living labor is what makes technology, while technology is fixed as dead labor (which will become capital, technology true form, once it returns to the workers). But even taking this into consideration, I find the whole paragraph kinda odd.

>>8675 The French Marxists were disillusioned with PCF, and this statement is in reference to Marx's quote from the 18th of Brumaire "revolutions of the past live as nightmare among the living." I wouldn't tale Debord literally though. He was mentally ill, an alcoholic, and he did end up killing himself. He clearly was not well.

>>8679 The Spectacular society and all the interesting actions and writings of the Situationnist international happenned decades before Debord really lost it though (exclusions and political sectarism apart). >>8675 It has to be read in context to better get the meaning imo. It's also a statement about how history is treated and reified to be used in the context of lack of real history of the spectacular society, to produce our false conscience of time.

From what I understood, and its been a while since I've touched Debord, is that the new technological breakthroughs we see occurring seemingly daily are not reflected in mass consumer markets, where we are inundated with much of the same, boring, repetitive things. These 'things' are mere copies (and I'm sure there's some connotation you could draw here to Baudrillard & simulacra) of what we have already created either through consciousness or more physically and literally as technology, i.e how Marx referred to "dead labor". This same dead labor dominates living labor, as in actual, occurring labor, because of the disconnect between innovation and consumption, and resultantly the past "continues to dominate the present." As well, what >>8679 said is probably also something debord references. This is just my understanding though, and I have literally given myself brain damage from opioid abuse, so take my words with a grain of salt please.