What began as an article for The Critique sociale in which the Marxist doctrine of unlimited growth of the productive forces questioned eventually acquiring the dimensions of a trial that aims to take stock of the current civilization. Reflections on the causes of freedom and social oppression are a synthesis of the thought of Simone Weil in late 1934 that summarizes the teachings of his militancy within the revolutionary syndicalism before his decisive experience working in large industry.

Its main purpose is to capture the mechanism of oppression in the material conditions of social organization. For this analysis invited to make use of what he considers the true legacy of Marx, materialism as a method of knowledge and action. A consistent application of this method leads to discovering the causes of oppression in the structure of the factory, specialization and division of labor, not the ownership. Facing the "religion of the productive forces" feature of the Marxist Vulgate and comforting dogma of progress as magical pot of revolution, Simone Weil lays the foundation for a new science of society centered on the study of the struggle for power and social force. On this basis, and at the time of the rise of totalitarianism, proposes to investigate the conditions of a free society in which the individual's ability to think and act, the "methodical spirit" prevails on the social machine and blind community.