With this post, I’d like to
address a few of Marx’s points one by one and see what everyone thinks:
1.
1. “The
whole of society must fall apart into the two classes—the property-owners and the propertyless workers” (70).
Surely, at least in the modern
day, to proclaim that all of society must fall into one of two classes is
reductive. Even if one regards the delineation
of classes as defined by the ultra wealthy vs. everyone else, it mustn’t be the
case that the latter group consists only of propertyless workers. Doesn’t the diversity inherent to the working
class in a modern setting indicate the existence of some combinatorial
progression?
2.
2. “The
alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes
an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him,
independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power of its
own confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on the
object confronts him as something hostile and alien” (72).
Do you think that Marx is
referring to the worker’s labor as objectified or the objectification of the product of the worker’s labor or
both? This seems to me a potentially crucial
differentiation. Is it possible to
experience one without the other?
3.
3. “If
his own activity is to him an unfree activity, then he is treating it as
activity performed in the service, under the dominion, the coercion and the
yoke of another man” (78).
This passage makes me wonder
whether or not it is possible to be a free, uncoerced member of the working
class. Is it possible for a worker to
feel as though he, under any conceivable circumstances, would perform the same
activities? Would such a mentality
relinquish the worker from his worker status?
4.
4. “The
laws of political economy express the estrangement of the worker in his object
thus: the more the worker produces, the less he has to consume; the more value
he creates, the more valueless, the more unworthy he becomes; the better formed
his product, the more deformed becomes the worker; the more civilized his
object, the more barbarous becomes the worker; the mightier labour becomes, the
more powerless becomes the worker; the more ingenious labor becomes, the duller
becomes the worker and the more he becomes nature’s bondsman” (73).
Although I understand much of
what Marx is saying in this passage, I’m confused by his assertion that “the
more value [the worker] creates, the more valueless, the more unworthy he
becomes.” Why is it that the worker’s
continued productivity results in progressive devaluation? I’m inclined to believe the reverse, despite
my (admittedly tepid) agreement with the rest of this quotation.
I think you chose some really great passages from Marx. I'll answer number four because it is the most interesting to me. Even without my comments on the issue, I never thought of the laborer on these terms. The worker is devalued because his labor is becoming cheap in many ways. First, simply in the view of the laborer, the longer he works and the more value that he creates, the cheaper his service became. Say for instance I am making a chair that is worth $20. I technically created $20. But then, you are told to create 20 chairs at the same wage. The value created is different, but at the same time your labor has gotten cheaper. And I think he also means that as capital grew, people were going to need to work harder and longer to accompany the capital, but now at a lesser pay. And I think that this is the cycle. This is what I think he is saying. Tell me if I am missing the point.
ReplyDeletePhong I think we see this the same way...
ReplyDeletebut also if another worker making $20 chairs was then told to make only 5 for the same wage, there is a smaller discrepancy, meaning he feels LESS unworthy than the worker Phong described? And if Phong's worker is willing to make the 20 chairs at the wage, he sees less value and feels MORE unworthy...
I guess I'm seeing this as a desperation (for lack of a better word) scale that workers move down (towards poverty and alienation) as the cycle of capitalism continues..
I believe that it is also important to note that the value created by the worker is incapable of being defined until the market makes its decision for the proper price. So it appears to me as though the feeling of unworthy cannot be determined by the amount of capital the worker is being produced. It would seem that the more value one creates is arbitrary, and rather than the value being produced, it is simply the repetitive action of labor in itself.
ReplyDeleteI find it frustrating in Marx how dogmatic he can be. This of course may be due to the numerous decades that have passed since the 1844 manuscripts, for, as we have seen and/or experienced as workers ourselves, there are numerous laws that have developed to protect the worker. As for some of the questions Adam has raised, it seems redundant to believe that everything that Marx stated could be applied to the capitalist system of the 21st century. Now I don't claim that everything Marx says is false (for he does speak plenty of truths that have survived for 168 years), I simply believe that his terminology as well his dogmas of the capitalist system have become outdated. It is up to us as human beings to reexamine our own situation and take our analysis of today and put it in direct comparison to an analysis of Marx's day and age so that we may be able to see what of "Estranged Labor" is still prevalent.
In that case, Chris, of the four points I discuss above, which do you think is most pertinent to our modern capitalist society?
ReplyDelete