Feeding the Masses

In the Manuscripts of 1844 Marx explicates the fundamentals of his interpretation of history as well as his predictions for the future generations where the probable proletarian revolution will lead to communism. This is the supposed goal for humanity, and Marx goes into great detail to explain the inevitability of such a situation. In a previous post I wrote of the Occupy movement as a change in the world’s Geist so that I may use the Hegelian term and explore the notion of political and economic change in hopes of providing a reasonable answer. After finishing the manuscripts of 1844, I am once again inspired to try and connect our text to our modern day and age, but due to my lack of certainty inside the occupy movement, I would like to describe my musings from reading Marx.

History for Marx is the story of human being’s alienation from the life of being producers. In the nineteenth century a producer faced much greater difficulty in comparison to the people in the modern era. Of course the benefits are not universal; people in third world countries (or even countries that treat its citizens like third world citizens) still participate in dangerous working conditions and human exploitation is still rampant around the world while in first world countries, the scandals of human exploitation and poor work conditions are muted by the daily press. Yet amongst the horribleness that comes from the present era, life has had numerous benefits included. Yet it is these socialist-inspired benefits that have been keeping the work force contained and fed. The challenge for many of the world citizens is no longer the fear of having an arm crushed inside a giant mechanic machine, but it is now instead the withdrawal of being taken out of the system. Our culture has begun to love the system we work for. There is certainly discontent amongst the system, but as a majority more people are more than willing to accept a certain position so long as it provides certain benefits that help the worker (for now I would like to refrain from using proletariat) and keep the worker in place. Our new challenge for making the transition into the new stage of history is simple. How do we live without what we have now?

The American author John Steinbeck wrote a short story that slid into his Magnum Opus The Grapes of Wrath, where a farmer is forced to interact with the men from the bank who have been hired to bulldoze the farmer’s house. During the whole meeting the farmer continuously asks who he needs to shoot and kill in order to keep his land and home, and repeatedly hears the answer that there isn’t a man to shoot. There is only the machine. An unfeeling machine that can take and only take, and no one can kill it. So 21^st century, where do we start?