Lesson v Notes on Human Labor

7/29/2019 Lesson v Notes on Human Labor

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The Manifesto of the Communist Party

Marx and his coauthor, FriedrichEngels, begin The Communist

Manifesto with the famous and

provocative statement that the history

of all hitherto existing societies is thehistory of class struggle. They argue

that all changes in the shape of

society, in political institutions, in

history itself, are driven by a process

of collective struggle on the part of

groups of people with similar economic

situations in order to realize theirmaterial or economic interests.

INTRODUCTION:


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- Where Hegel had seen

history as a dialectical conflict

between nations, Marx saw itas a dialectical conflict

between classes. A class is a

particular socio-economic

group.


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- According to this view of history,

first there existed the king-states,

which broke down into elements of

rulers and the slaves. From this

thesis and anti-thesis emerged asynthesis a feudalistic society

emerged. But soon the feudalistic

society also broke up into lords andserfs. The conflict between the two

resulted in the formation of modern

capitalistic society.


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- Marx says that the capitalistic

society has also divided into the

thesis and antithesis. The mostsignificant classes of the capitalism

are the bourgeoisie, the class that

owns the means of production, and

the proletariat, the class that

works for the bourgeoisie for

wages.


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- And there is a fundamentalinconsistency between these two

classes, which is giving rise to a

state of conflict. This conflictbetween the thesis and antithesis

will ultimately lead to a new

synthesisa socialistic society.Each stage in this dialectic is

ethically superior to its previous

stage.


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Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

(Karl Marx)

SUMMARY OF THE FIRST MANUSCRIPT:

The FOUR FORMS of ALIENATION

1. The estrangement of the worker from the

product of his work.

2. The estrangement of the worker from the activity

of production.

3. The workers alienation from species-being,or human identity.

4. The estrangement of man to man.


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1. The estrangement of the worker from

the product of his work:

- Under the economic system of private

ownership, society divides itself into two

classes: the property owners and theproperty-less workers. In this

arrangement, the workers not only suffer

impoverishment but also experience an

estrangement or alienation from the world.This estrangement occurs because the

worker relates to the product of his work

as an object alien and even hostile to

himself.


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- The worker puts his life into the object

and his labor is invested in the object, yet

because the worker does not own the

fruits of his labor, which in capitalism are

appropriated from him, he becomes moreestranged the more he produces.

Everything he makes contributes to a

world outside of him to which he does not

belong. He shrinks in comparison to thisworld of objects that he helps create but

does not possess.


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2. The estrangement of the worker from

the activity of production.

- The work that the worker performs

does not belong to the worker but is

a means of survival that the worker isforced to perform for someone else.

As such, his working activity does not

spring spontaneously from within asa natural act of creativity but rather

exists outside of him and signifies a

loss of his self.


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3. The workers alienation from species-

being, or human identity.

- For human beings, work amounts to

a life purpose. A person is what he or

she does in transforming nature into

objects through practical activity. But

in the modern system of private

ownership and the division of labor,the worker is estranged from this

essential source of identity and life

purpose for the human species.


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4. The estrangement of man to man.

- Since the workers product is owned by

someone else, the worker regards this

person, the capitalist, as alien and hostile.

The worker feels alienated from and

antagonistic toward the entire system of

private property through which the

capitalist appropriates both the objects ofproduction for his own enrichment at the

expense of the worker and the workers

sense of identity and wholeness as a

human being.


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Marx called himself an atheist and believedreligion to be a human fabrication. He was

of the view that religion was invented asresponse to the alienation in the materiallife, and once man is emancipated from thisalienation, religion will itself die away. Many

of his views on religion have almost becomeproverbial. Religion is the sigh of theoppressed creature, the heart of a heartlessworld, and the soul of soulless conditions. Itis the opium of the people.

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Lesson v Notes on Human Labor