I wrote this eons ago for possibly one of the best classes I've ever taken-with one of the best professors, who shall remain nameless. But, I've been thinking a lot about work, what it really means, and why it's valuable to me to consistently 'work', rather than taking on the attitude that if I didn't have to, I wouldn't...
Throughout Karl Marx’ major works, there is a tone of derisiveness; Marx’ venom is directed towards that class of people which represents capitalism. His sympathies are reserved mainly for the lower—class, and in particular for the working class. Conception of the state of the working class as unacceptable, as objectified, is extremely important to the understanding of Marx and his ideas. To work, as it stands today, has become a detached, even degrading process, by which men are removed from the very natures and desires that inspired them to labor, to create products to begin with.
In order to better understand how it is that men can be completely segregated from his occupation and the fruits of it, we must first understand Marx’ ideas about alienation; how does it come about, and through what avenues might it be avoided? Here, we see that there exists a relationship between workers, and the products that they create and export to the outside world. What makes a relationship such as this possible, when ‘products’, as most would see them, are inanimate, expendable objects? Marx seems to believe that a product is imbued with the essence of its creator; when someone labors to create something, it becomes a part of them. For example, a woodworker who carves a great statue has spent his energies upon it, such that the statue is now dear to his heart; in a way, it now holds a personal attachment for him. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that the very essence of human-ness is removed from us when we begin simply working; labor becomes not a reason to exist, but a means by which we simply survive. Marx is also wholly opposed to the processes by which men become removed from what he calls “the sensuous external world”, meaning that world around us which is completely natural, is nature itself. Another issue of great concern to Marx is that of the appropriation of this external world; he maintains that, when made to labor extensively, we become detached from the true purpose of it. It becomes less an appreciated “means of existence” and more an indirect means of survival. We are no longer connected to that which has sustained our means of work.
What is most repellent to Marx is not this idea of alienation itself, but the final outcome of being thus removed from our once inherent rapport with the world around us. Marx states:
“ In both respects, therefore, the worker becomes a slave of the object….”
This is illustrated as a rather monotonous cycle, throughout which man receives work itself (a job) and then produces something by which he is able to subsist. Without work itself, and without the product to sell, or to get paid to make, he cannot exist. Marx offers several juxtapositions that illustrate the eventual result of this cycle, which, he says, rotates in accordance with the laws of political economy. The relationship of worker to product/production is presented as a nearly-parasitic coexistence: for example, the more the laborer expends, the less he receives; the more value he creates (the more product), the less valuable he himself becomes. As alienation of worker from product is discussed, so is the alienation of the worker from the means of production; after all, if one becomes removed from an object, it stands to reason that one would also become rather indifferent to the fabrication of that object in the process.
During this sense of what Marx calls “alienation of labor”, the work begins to externalize itself from the laborer. It is no longer in his nature to do the work he is now required to carry out. (Perhaps this can be likened to a desk clerk continuing, day after day, to file papers, all the while knowing that she was born to be on Broadway.) Unable to fulfill any personal hopes or dreams while laboring, the worker must therefore turn to leisure for a feeling of well-being. In some respects this is a valid argument, since most of us can relate to the fervent daydream that five o’clock might roll around sooner, allowing us to adjourn our workplaces and go fishing.
Throughout his discussion of alienation of labor, and of the process of laboring, Marx emphasizes that the products being created are always expended, never taken in; the energy and effort of working are always for the benefit of others, not for the worker himself. Here we discover the true reason for his dislike of alienation in its various forms. Since the products themselves have become alien, and the activity of fabricating them is not only alien, but also forced upon us, it cannot belong to us. If the worker himself is not the recipient of any such benefits, then some other human being must be. Thus, using the comparisons given earlier, such as that of the worker becoming less valuable while his work is more so, the labor/product that has caused so much degradation to the laborer must be doing the opposite for someone else.
Marx uses this demonstration of opposites to illustrate the point that there are two factions of society being created by alienated labor: that of the worker, the oppressed, and that of the man who does not work; he also suggests that there is a relationship between the capitalist, and work. Recall that one of Marx’s greatest nemeses is the concept of capitalism, and there lies the basis for much of his opposition to alienation, which he sees as supporting the capitalist agenda. A large portion of his ire is also reserved for the fact that, using the theories already discussed, the inevitable result of alienation is the emergence of private property. To Marx, whose Communist Manifesto is a treatise of one purpose only, that being the abolition of such private property, this is utterly repugnant. Therefore, in order to further his theories about Communism, Marx must have had to attack that which undermined such ideas, namely the concept of alienated labor.
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