The appearance and necessity of Labor 1844 vs 2022? (Is there a difference?)

Uploaded by Sociology Live on Nov 3, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30HeJvE9KCg (not a bad video if you wanna know more about alienation)

An Exegesis on the Estrangement of Labor (The Economic and Philosophical Manuscript of 1844)

The theme of Karl Marx’s work Estranged Labor in the Economic and Philosophical manuscript of 1844 was to assert the claim that labor in a capitalist society is estranged. To understand the arguments Marx presents, one must first understand the meaning of the concepts utilized in his explanations.

• Estranged stems from the French word estranger in the late 15th century; it means to be treated as a stranger. In this context to be estranged means to become a stranger in a preexisting relationship.

• Alienation is derived from the word estranged. It means to be shunned and to become independent of a relationship you were personally involved in.

• Freedom: Marx looks at freedom as synonymous emancipation; it is not clear what freedom is but it is clear what freedom is not —-- bondage, slavery

• Capitalism: Marx often refers to capitalism as the political economy. It is described as an economic system in which labor is estranged, and the worker gets poorer while the non-worker always gets richer despite the level of their effort.

• Commodified/Objectified– To be exchangeable for wages, to be deprived of subjective meaning and value during the process of estrangement.
  

• Species Being/Genus Being– Marx defines species-being as a unique universal human concept where humans are intrinsically interconnected and communal beings through the systems of division of labor. It is through that sense of species-being reasoning that humans develop what is known as humanity which exists not for a particular gain, but for the universal gain of nature and men.

Lets begin with Marx’s critique on fact and the necessity of dialectic thought. “Political economy starts with the fact of private property; it does not explain it to us. It expresses in general, abstract formulas the material process through which private property actually passes, and these formulas it then takes for laws” It is important to understand that Marx takes a philosophical economic lens towards the topic of capitalism. He acknowledges the failing of the economic system, and the approach to which political economists have used to navigate the economy and the people within it. He condemns the idea of “false facts” that narrow the scope of thought on the topic of capitalism. Marx’s critique gives way to his approach of explaining the relationship between labor and private property. His perspective is political, economic and most importantly, social.

According to Karl Marx, there is a relationship that exists between the worker, labor and the products of labor. In a political economy, the worker is estranged from each of the components of this relationship. Let’s first discuss the relationship between the worker and the products of labor. Karl Marx claims that “the product of labor is labor which has been embodied in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labor. Labour's realization is its objectification. Under these economic conditions this realization of labor appears as loss of realization for the workers.”

Karl Marx argues that the work an individual puts into creating an object becomes a part of that object. While a worker pours their life into their work, they continue to lose a part of themselves into the objects they create. In a capitalist society the worker and the product of his labor are commodified. All aspects of the relationship including the effort, time and life that creates the object are now objectified into things instead of fruits of value and meaning. As a result, the object now exists outside of the workers effort. The effort involved becomes meaningless because their creation which contains a part of their life no longer belongs to them and never belonged to them in the first place.. The more of their time they put into creating objects the greater the value of their objects meanwhile the value of the workers effort and time deteriorates at an even greater level. Karl Marx explains that a worker now becomes alienated and enslaved to the product of his labor because it now exists independent of himself even though it would not exist without him in the first place.

The second form of estrangement is the estrangement of the worker from the act of labor. On this form of alienation Karl Marx claims that “ it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself,” Karl Marx is arguing that, while a worker spends his energy and life to create something, it is not a creation he does willingly. In a capitalist society, the worker views his effort and life as a commodity, a sacrifice of himself that is a necessary means to physical sustenance. A worker does not truly feel free during productive activity because it is not an activity he chooses consciously or willingly. Karl Marx asserts that “it is forced labor”. Workers no longer work for the purpose their creation holds, but rather as a slave for the object they create. The new purpose of their labor is only as a means to physical sustenance. The worker now feels free performing his most instinctual activities i.e surviving (eating, sleeping, sex), meanwhile he becomes enslaved by what should be his most human activities (reason, division of labor , life activity). The act of labor itself exists independent of the worker.

Thirdly the idea of estrangement of man from man & nature, Karl Marx argues that “Man is a species-being, not only because in practice and in theory he adopts the species as his object, but also because he treats himself as the actual, living species; because he treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being” Marx explains this concept by taking a dive into philosophical anthropology. From primitive times, man has had the ability to connect with nature, and the means to live by processing it. What makes man human and not animal is our ability to reason and consciously divide labor for the benefit of a community. Marx argues that on a fundamental level, what separates humans from animals is our social ability to work together, and divide labor among ourselves for a universal benefit that extends beyond the individual. However in a capitalist society man no longer feels human at his most human behavior, he has become desensitized to his humanity. He is estranged. The inability of man to feel free in a community with his fellow men is a sign of dehumanization and estrangement of man from man. Marx argues that capitalism creates a society where man descends into an animalistic state of life where value, meaning and community are lost in the name of survival, avarice and private property.

Under this idea of estrangement, Marx discusses the relationship between the worker and non-worker. He poses the question “If the product of labor is alien to me, if it confronts me as an alien power, to whom, then, does it belong?“ To answer this we look back to the estrangement of man. Marx believed that the alienation of man from his fellow man, creates in itself a paradoxical relationship. “Thus, if the product of his labor, his labor objectified, is for him an alien, hostile, powerful object independent of him, then his position towards it is such that someone else is master of this object, someone who is alien, hostile, powerful, and independent of him”

For a man to be alienated from his creation, he must believe that the fruits of his labor belong to another man; someone of a superior class who can afford to take ownership over the life and labor of another. The existence of this relationship between the worker and the non worker, requires estrangement. However, for there to be a class that can have dominion over another, one must admit that society must be totally commodified, and the worker enslaved for and by his labor as an individual means for survival. If not, there can be no superior class, and no estrangement, because each man would have dominion over their own labor. One would not see labor as a means to survival but as a way to add value to life and participate as a species being. It is a paradoxical relationship because labor can only be estranged if it belongs to somebody other than its creator, and likewise, labor can only belong to someone other than its creator if it is estranged.

It is a similar relationship between the estrangement of labor and private property. Karl Marx asserts that “though private property appears to be the cause, the cause of alienated labor, it is rather its consequence, just as the gods are originally not the cause but the effect of man's intellectual confusion. Later this relationship becomes reciprocal. “ They exist in contradiction with each other. Private property is a direct effect of estranged labor. It takes away the value and meaning of labor and translates it into wages. It creates a society where the worker sells his life and humanity under the guise of survival & physical sustenance. From one perspective, private property appears as the cause of estranged labor, but it can only exist in a society where the worker works under the dominion of someone else, an estranged and commodified society.

In conclusion, we have to ask ourselves how Marx’s ideas relate to us in contemporary society today? In an age of post-unions, worker rights, transparency and the race for equity and equality. Are workers still estranged? Are we moving toward a society where we are more connected to the fruits of our labor? Does classism still separate us from the luxury of disenstrangement? If the answer to these questions is the same as it was in Marx’s era then how do we truly move away from the estrangement of labor towards emancipation? Or is estrangement truly the societal plight Marx makes it out to be?