Untitled Flashcards Set
ALIENATED LABOUR
Linking philosophy to the realm of economics
Political economy
Is the type of economy linked to a the capitalist mode of production, focuses on the relationships between labor, capital, and class dynamics
Marx's political economy seeks to uncover the exploitative foundations of capitalism and its contradictions, which he argues lead to its eventual collapse
Alienation and externalization of labour
Separation from one's human nature, inherent to capitalism
For Marx, the essence of being human was the fact that human beings imagined and then created their environment. With the advent of industrial capitalism, the craftsman becomes a cog in the production line. Now, rather than an important member of society, he is an industrial worker, a commodity that the capitalist trades on the labor market as just another input into the production process.
Vital activity
the essential and defining activities through which humans express their nature as creative and social beings
Marx describes how the worker under a capitalist mode of production becomes estranged from the product, from himself, from his work, and from other workers.
Marx argues that labor is central to a human being’s self-conception and sense of well-being.
By working on and transforming objective matter into sustenance and objects of use-value, human beings meet the needs of existence and come to see themselves externalized in the world.
Labor is as much an act of personal creation and a projection of one’s identity as it is a means of survival.
However, capitalism, the system of private ownership of the means of production, deprives human beings of this essential source of self-worth and identity.
The worker approaches work only as a means of survival and derives none of the other personal satisfactions of work because the products of his labor do not belong to him. These products are instead expropriated by capitalists and sold for profit.
In capitalism, the worker, who is alienated or estranged from the products he creates, is also estranged from the process of production, which he regards only as a means of survival.
Estranged from the production process, the worker is therefore also estranged from his or her own humanity, since the transformation of nature into useful objects is one of the fundamental facets of the human condition. The worker is thus alienated from his or her “species being”—from what it is to be human.
Finally, the capitalist mode of production alienates human beings from other human beings. Deprived of the satisfaction that comes with owning the product of one’s labor, the worker regards the capitalist as external and hostile. The alienation of the worker from his work and of the worker from capitalists forms the basis of the antagonistic social relationship that will eventually lead to the overthrow of capitalism.
Under the economic system of private ownership, society divides itself into two classes: the property owners and the property-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. 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 more estranged 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 this world of objects that he helps create but does not possess. This first type of alienation is the estrangement of the worker from the product of his work. (Alienation from one's product)
The second type of alienation is 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 is forced to perform for someone else. As such, his working activity does not spring spontaneously from within as a natural act of creativity but rather exists outside of him and signifies a loss of his self. (Alienation from the act of production)
The third form of alienation is the worker’s alienation from “species-being,” or human identity. For human beings, work amounts to a life purpose. The process of acting on and transforming inorganic matter to create things constitutes the core identity of the human being. 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. (alienation from one's human nature)
The fourth and final form of alienation is the “estrangement of man to man.” Since the worker’s 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 of production for his own enrichment at the expense of the worker and the worker’s sense of identity and wholeness as a human being. (alienation from others)
THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY
Recap
the Young Hegelians saw themselves as continuing the work of the great German philosopher Georg Hegel
according to Marx, none of these thinkers have made any original advances on Hegel’s ideas
They (Marx and Engels) propose that philosophy can only produce real, useful knowledge insofar as it takes material conditions as the foundational premises for its analysis.
The most basic of these “premises” is the fact that human beings need to produce their “means of subsistence,” i.e., the basic things required to live, and that they do so under particular forms of physical and social organization
Producing physical existence = producing ourselves, our very nature
This form of social production only appears once human population increases beyond a certain level, which brings them into relationships of various kinds with other people (Marx and Engels often call this “intercourse”). Developments in production, intercourse, and the division of labor—initially just a matter of how necessary work is divided up between different members of families, tribes, towns, etc.—all influence one another, and correspond to different forms of society and stages in human history
As the division of labor develops, it necessarily entails different forms of ownership of property (pre-modernity)
Tribal ownership: hunter-gatherer societies and the earlier forms of agriculture. At this point, the social system is still essentially based on the patriarchal family structure, headed by a chief
Ancient communal/State: when tribes unite by agreement or conquest to form a city/town. Both of these forms rely heavily on forms of slavery, the difference being that in the latter citizens derive their power over their slaves from their membership in their given community, which is what binds them to that community
Feudal system: In the countryside, it was defined by the property-owning nobility and serf labor, while in the towns the masters of guilds commanded the labor of so-called “journeymen,” alongside an underclass of casual laborers, generally escaped serfs
Empirically verifiable details (such as the division of labor, dominant modes of production, property, and labor) serve as the necessary starting point for an analysis of the social system of a given period (law, politics, religion, etc.)
Consciousness can only be understood as conditioned by this process of material production and ideas have no history independent from the history of material conditions
Analysis
Marx and Engels are not just expounding their ideas, but also criticizing the opposing viewpoint and contrasting it with their own.
The core of Marx’s critique of the Young Hegelians—who he uses as an example of the “idealist” conception of history—is that they begin with abstract ideas and then seek to understand reality on the basis of those ideas.
instead of looking first at actually existing men and women and their real-life conditions, they start out from the general concept “Man” and judge what they find in the world against it.
This is what Marx means when he calls their approach fundamentally “religious”: it reduces everything to a simple matter of dogmas and beliefs
Marx argues that this approach not only leads to shoddy thinking, but also necessarily produces a “conservative” political program. The illusion that ideas have an independent existence and determine reality makes it impossible for them to see “that they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating the phrases of this world” (149)
The way people create their "means of subsistence" necessarily entails an entire "mode of life" (way of thinking, living, being)
“The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production” (150)
There is, for Marx, no trans-historical, abstract “human nature” besides the fact that people, in contrast to animals, produce their nature through their own activity
It is only on the basis of this activity, which can be defined in terms of empirical facts about the forms of production, property, intercourse/exchange, and division of labor, among other things, that one can develop an adequate understanding of the dominant social, political, and ideological forms of any given period of human history
"intercourse" refers to economic exchange and social relations
Modern division of labor
they don’t insist that the “modern” forms of these practices only exist under capitalism, but rather it is only under capitalism that they are fully developed and emerge as the dominant ways of organizing a given economy and society.
Marx and Engels are not, here, rejecting the use of abstract concepts as such. Instead, the main thrust of their argument is that abstractions are only useful insofar as they are developed out of, and therefore accurately characterize, observations about the real, concrete life-processes and material conditions of human beings
instead of “descend[ing] from heaven [i.e., the realm of ideas] to earth” the only pathway to arrive at real knowledge is to “ascend from earth to heaven” (154)
they also reject purely empiricist analysis of history, which sees the past merely as a “collection of dead facts” because it fails to contextualize them within the total “active life-process” of human beings.
MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
Main Themes:
The Inevitability of Class Struggle: all history is a history of class struggles. The modern era is characterized by the antagonism between the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) and the proletariat (working class).
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
The Rise and Fall of the Bourgeoisie: The manifesto details the revolutionary rise of the bourgeoisie from feudal society, highlighting its achievements in industrial production and global trade. However, it argues that the bourgeoisie's own success will ultimately lead to its downfall.
"The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together."
The Emergence and Destiny of the Proletariat: The industrial revolution, driven by the bourgeoisie, creates the proletariat, a class dependent on wage labor and increasingly exploited by the capitalist system. The manifesto predicts the proletariat's growing awareness of its power and its eventual revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
"The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie."
The Communist Solution: The document advocates for the abolition of private property and the establishment of a communist society, characterized by the common ownership of the means of production and the elimination of class distinctions.
"The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation."
Important Ideas and Facts:
The Manifesto identifies capitalism's inherent contradictions: Overproduction, economic crises, and the increasing impoverishment of the proletariat are presented as inevitable outcomes of the capitalist system.
"The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them."
It emphasizes the role of technology and globalization: Machinery and improved communication are seen as both accelerating the development of capitalism and ultimately contributing to its demise by uniting the proletariat.
"Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist."
The Manifesto argues that the proletariat is the only truly revolutionary class: Other classes, like the petty bourgeoisie, are depicted as either conservative or reactionary.
"Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class."
How does the proletariat's rise challenge bourgeois power structures and society itself?
The rise of the proletariat poses a fundamental challenge to bourgeois power structures and the very foundations of bourgeois society. The proletariat's growth is directly tied to the expansion of capital, as the bourgeoisie needs a workforce to exploit. However, this dependence on the proletariat ultimately becomes the bourgeoisie's undoing.
Here's how the proletariat's rise undermines the bourgeois order:
Erosion of Bourgeois Dominance: The advance of industry, driven by the bourgeoisie, leads to the isolation of labourers through competition. This competition is inherent to the capitalist system, as workers vie for scarce jobs. However, this same process also fosters revolutionary combination and association among the proletariat. As workers unite in trade unions and other organizations, their collective power grows, challenging the bourgeoisie's control over the labor market. This collective power disrupts the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products.
Exacerbation of Capitalist Contradictions: The bourgeoisie's relentless pursuit of profit leads to overproduction and economic crises, which threaten the stability of the entire bourgeois society. These crises expose the inherent contradictions of capitalism, where the abundance of production clashes with the limited consumption capacity of the masses. The proletariat, bearing the brunt of these crises, is increasingly driven to challenge the system that perpetuates its misery.
Forging of a Revolutionary Class: Unlike previous oppressed classes, which sought to secure their place within the existing social order, the proletariat has no stake in preserving bourgeois property relations. Their mission is to abolish all forms of individual property and establish a new society based on collective ownership and control of the means of production. This makes the proletariat a truly revolutionary class, whose interests are fundamentally opposed to those of the bourgeoisie.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party argues that the proletariat's victory is inevitable because the bourgeoisie's very existence depends on the exploitation of the proletariat, which in turn creates the conditions for its own demise. As the proletariat gains consciousness of its historical role, it will overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish a communist society, ending the antagonism between oppressor and oppressed.
Phases of proletariat revolution
Marx describes the proletariat's revolution as a process that unfolds through distinct phases, driven by the inherent contradictions of capitalism and the growing class consciousness of the workers:
Early Stages of Struggle:
In the initial phase, the proletariat's struggle is marked by isolated and localised actions. Workers, driven by their immediate grievances, may direct their attacks against the instruments of production themselves, such as destroying machinery or setting factories ablaze. This reflects a limited understanding of the true nature of their exploitation and a desire to restore the perceived stability of the past. At this stage, the proletariat remains fragmented and disorganised, its actions often spurred by the bourgeoisie's manipulation for its own political ends.
Development of Class Consciousness:
As industry develops, the proletariat grows in number and concentration, its strength increasing alongside its awareness of that strength. The homogenising effects of machinery and the fluctuations of the market further equalise the conditions of the workers, eroding differences in interests and living standards. This shared experience of exploitation fosters solidarity and a growing recognition of their common enemy: the bourgeoisie.
Formation of Trade Unions and Associations:
The proletariat, realizing the need for collective action, begins to form trade unions and other associations to protect its interests. These organizations serve as crucibles for developing class consciousness, providing a platform for workers to discuss their grievances, strategies, and engage in collective bargaining. They also serve as a training ground for future political action, instilling discipline and a sense of shared purpose.
Transition to Political Struggle:
The proletariat's struggle gradually transitions from the economic sphere to the political arena. The formation of a class-based political party becomes essential to challenge the bourgeoisie's dominance at the state level. This political party, representing the interests of the proletariat, aims to seize state power and restructure society in its favour. The improved means of communication brought about by modern industry play a crucial role in facilitating this transition, enabling workers to connect and coordinate their actions across geographical boundaries.
Open Revolution and Overthrow of the Bourgeoisie:
The sources describe the culmination of the proletariat's struggle as an open revolution leading to the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This revolution, fueled by the exacerbated contradictions of capitalism and the proletariat's realisation of its historical mission, marks a fundamental rupture with the existing social order. The proletariat, having gained control of the means of production, will then establish a new society based on the principles of collective ownership and social justice.
The sources emphasize that the proletariat's victory is inevitable, as the bourgeoisie's reliance on the exploitation of the proletariat ultimately creates the conditions for its own demise. The proletariat, as the gravedigger of the bourgeoisie, is uniquely positioned to abolish the system of oppression and usher in a new era of human history.
What role did technology play in the rise of the bourgeoisie?
The rise of the bourgeoisie was inextricably linked to technological advancements, particularly in the realms of production, communication, and transportation. The sources highlight how the bourgeoisie harnessed these technological innovations to revolutionize production, expand markets, and consolidate its power:
Revolutionizing Production: The transition from the feudal system of industry to the manufacturing system, and subsequently to Modern Industry, was driven by technological breakthroughs. The sources cite steam and machinery as key factors in this transformation, enabling unprecedented levels of production and efficiency. The "constantly revolutionising" nature of the instruments of production became a defining characteristic of the bourgeois epoch.
Expanding Markets: Technological advancements in navigation, communication, and transportation, such as the rounding of the Cape, the development of railways and electric telegraphs, facilitated the expansion of markets on a global scale. This expansion allowed the bourgeoisie to access new sources of raw materials and reach wider consumer bases, further fueling its economic growth and dominance.
Facilitating Global Trade: The bourgeoisie's exploitation of the world market, made possible by these technological advancements, led to a "cosmopolitan character to production and consumption". The cheap prices of commodities, enabled by mass production and efficient transportation, acted as "heavy artillery" to break down traditional barriers and force even the most remote nations into the global capitalist system.
Centralizing Production and Power: The agglomeration of population in urban centres and the centralisation of the means of production, both facilitated by technological advancements, led to the concentration of property and power in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This consolidation of economic and political power enabled the bourgeoisie to shape society in its own image, further solidifying its dominance.
In essence, the sources portray technology as a double-edged sword in the hands of the bourgeoisie. While it enabled the bourgeoisie to achieve unprecedented levels of economic and political power, it also sowed the seeds of its own destruction. The same technological advancements that fueled the rise of the bourgeoisie also created the conditions for the emergence and growth of the proletariat, the class destined to challenge its dominance.
Capital and the Fetishism of Commodities
Is a commodity valuable because human labor was expended to produce it or because it is intrinsically valuable?
Marx posits that values “appear to result from the nature of the products”, yet, labor, specifically human labour, gives the product its value.
People in capitalist society treat commodities as if the objects themselves contain intrinsic value rather than regarding value as the amount of real labour expended to produce the object.
If human labour is treated as value-less, if “value by labour time is … a secret, hidden under the apparent fluctuations in the relative values of commodities”, then the world can be erroneously described as though market exchange occurs independently of human agency
Link to alienation -> If human labor gives value to a product but is void of conscious individual action, then workers will be apathetic to what they produce. (alienated from the product/process of production)
If, as Marx posits, the social relations within capitalist society exist between commodities and not between workers, then do workers even have social relations at all? If so, in what context? Are workers able to exercise conscious individual action (agency)?
Marx answers this question by locating real social relations between workers (the rise of class consciousness) as a precursor to the great proletariat revolution. This is where real social relations and agency are born. Before a revolution can occur, workers must first acquire “class consciousness”, then they must unite. This will enable them to overthrow the capitalist class, creating the conditions for a communist society
Commodity Fetishism
Commodity fetishism is a term coined by Marx to describe the way in which the social relationships between producers are obscured by the exchange of commodities in the market.
In other words, people relate to each other through the products they produce, rather than directly. For example, when someone buys a coat, they are not thinking about the labor that went into making it but about the coat itself and its price.
The value of a commodity can only be expressed relatively, requiring another commodity to act as the equivalent.
The act of equating different products as values in exchange implies equating the different forms of labor expended upon them as human labor.
Although we may not consciously recognize this, we inherently perform this equation during exchange. This underscores the social nature of value. Value isn't an intrinsic property of a commodity; it's a social construct arising from the human labour embedded in its production
Here are the key aspects of commodity fetishism:
Commodities are seen as having intrinsic value, rather than value being a result of the labor that went into producing them. This is because the social character of labor is hidden behind the value relation between commodities.
The relationship between producers appears as a relationship between things, rather than a social relationship. This is because producers only come into contact with each other through the exchange of their products.
This illusion is perpetuated by the way in which commodities are exchanged in the market. The market appears as a neutral force, but it is actually based on the exploitation of labor.
Marx argued that commodity fetishism is a consequence of the capitalist mode of production. Under capitalism, production is carried out by private individuals or groups who work independently of each other. The only way that these producers can come into social contact is through the exchange of their products. As a result, the social character of labor is obscured.
Marx believed that the discovery of the true nature of value was a significant step forward in human understanding.
However, he also believed that commodity fetishism would continue to exist as long as the capitalist mode of production remained in place.
Labor-Power and Capital
Labor-Power
The total sum of a person's mental and physical abilities used in producing any kind of use-value.
Unlike other commodities which realize their value during exchange, labor-power possesses the unique characteristic of creating value when put to use.
For labor-power to appear as a commodity, certain conditions must be present:
Free labor:
The worker must be free to sell their labor-power and not be enslaved or bound by feudal obligations. They must be the sole owner of this commodity (their capacity to work).
Compulsion to sell:
The worker must be compelled to sell their labor-power because they lack access to the means of production (tools, raw materials, etc.) or the means of subsistence. Without these, they cannot produce and sell their own commodities and are forced to sell their labor-power for survival
This relationship between those who own the means of production and those who own only their labor-power is a result of historical development and marks a new epoch in social production –> the capitalist epoch.
The value of labour-power is determined by the labour-time required to produce the means of subsistence necessary to maintain the worker and their family.
This value also includes a historical and moral element, as the standard of living considered 'necessary' varies across time and societies. This acknowledges that what a worker needs to survive and reproduce their labour-power goes beyond mere physical needs and is influenced by societal norms.
Employing labor-power in the production process creates both commodities and surplus-value. The worker essentially gives the capitalist credit by allowing their labor-power to be consumed before receiving payment, a real risk as unpaid wages can be lost if the capitalist goes bankrupt.
The exchange of labor-power in the market, however, obscures the exploitative nature of the capitalist system by appearing as a simple exchange of equivalents between free and equal individuals. This illusion aligns with the concept of commodity fetishism discussed previously.
