Karl Marx

‘As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are therefore coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce ’ (Marx, 1845). Marx’s conception of human nature is well founded upon historical materialism forming the skeletal framework of his writings. Marx’s notion of ‘human nature’ is encapsulated in the discourse of his conception of the quintessence of ‘labour’ in its most original form, the ‘species-being’ form. To Marx, labour or work is ‘the worker’s own life activity, the manifestation of his [whole] life (Marx, 1849). However, capitalism embezzles away man’s reflection of his true ‘self’ through production and work. Man’s life activity is no longer an ends in itself or a true manifestation of his own life. Instead, under the sway of capitalism, man’s life activity in the words of Marx, is only a means to enable him to exist. Man no longer has any form of affection or passion towards labour but instead, he develops a strong repugnance and antipathy towards ‘labour’. In this paper, I will first expound on Marx’s conception of ‘human nature’ or man as a ‘species-being’ then move on to discuss how alienated labour in the capitalist society can be see as a deviation from this ideal ‘species-being’ life.

Marx’s conceives human nature or man in his most ideal state as a ‘species-being’. In man’s ‘species-being’ life, man produces universally under the pressure of physical need and only produces when he is free. Man also produces whatever he wants to spontaneously at his own will and discretion. Marx’s conception of Labour is that of a process by which man and Nature participates (Marx, 1849) in together. Man appropriates products produced by nature - timbre trees, water and fishes - to live and live comfortably. Thus, he acts on the external world and subordinates the natural world to his own will and needs. His work is thus, clearly an objectification of himself and his life. In such an instance, man has consciousness as he consciously appropriates nature’s products to live. As Marx puts it, “consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence and the existence of men is their actual life process ” (Marx, 1845). Hence, when man as a ‘species-being’ partakes in free conscious production willingly and through his work and production in life, he understands himself, is conscious of himself and finds himself.

Thus based on this historical materialist conception of human nature as a ‘species-being’, Marx denigrates ‘capitalism’ as a system of production. In his paper entitled historical materialism, he describes Man as a potentially wise, creative and free creature whose character has deteriorated beyond recognition. But well, he makes such a repulsive statement towards capitalism because based on his notion and conception of man as a ‘species-being’, capitalism is obviously obtruding on this most beau ideal nature of man as espoused by Marx. The capitalist system of production estranges man or the worker from his species being, product and labour, from the production process, and from his fellow human beings.

However, preceding the discourse on the reprehensive effects of capitalism being alienation, it is imperative to look at the structure of the capitalist society which is a direct antithesis to the life of man in his ‘species-being’ envisioned by Marx. The capitalist society utilizes ‘abstract labour’ defined as human labour in the production process. Human labour or what is commonly euphemistically called ‘free’ labour is commodified in the capitalist system of production and sold to the capitalist for a stipulated time period. Thus, the labourer or worker no longer produces for his own sake of subsistence. He is forced to render his labour to a recondite and massive capitalist system of production unfamiliar to him to produce ‘surplus value’ of a good for the benefit of the capitalist while the worker himself only earns a pittance barely sufficient for comfortable living. At this juncture, it might be good however to realize that Marx was writing in the context of the very early stages of the halcyon years of capitalism whereby mass factory production which paid low salaries proliferated widely in power houses like France and Britain. In this contemporary society, albeit still functioning on the capitalist premise, there is significant variations such as seeing entrée to a more knowledge based economy which bestows higher pay to people with specialized knowledge. Also, governments are placing more emphasis on social welfare and in some places, raising the bars minimum wage laws so that workers do not earn only a pittance for their long hours of work.

However, whatever may be the case; capitalism irrefutably has the effects of causing ‘alienation’. Firstly, with regards to human nature, man is alienated or estranged from his true human nature or ‘species being’. Imperatively, as afore reiterated, humans as species-being indulge in conscious willing production or labour for subsistence. As Marx puts forth, “the mode of production is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life ” (Marx, 1845). Thus, through appropriating natural products in the natural world, through changing it, and using its resources for subsistence, man has and gains full ‘consciousness’ and control of his life. As Marx asserts, “consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is in their actual life process ” (Marx, 1845). However, in the capitalist society, or capitalist mode of production for the matter, this consciousness or conscious existence dissipates into what Marx terms as ‘false consciousness’. Any interest in labour in this capitalist system is merely an unconscious interest in the ruling class ideas and interest. As Marx puts forth “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas ” (Marx, 1845). The ruling class controls material and intellectual production and thus “the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it ” (Marx, 1845). Hence, there is an impoverished amount of consciousness of life and of man himself that one has in his species-being life.

More importantly, in contrast to labour in man’s species-being life where he produces spontaneously and willingly, labour under capitalism is forced labour or ‘alienated labour’. Labour as Marx put forth is only a means to satisfy needs outside oneself. This is expressed succinctly and clearly by Marx when he writes about ‘labour’. “Labour is exterior to the worker, it does not belong to his essence ” (Marx, 1857). “Man does not confirm himself in work. He denies himself, feels miserable instead of happy, deploys no free physical intellectual energy but mortifies his body and ruins his body ” (Marx, 1857). Thus, man in his species-being is where he extracts from nature whatever he needs to live and produces freely. In fact, it is tenable to say that man in his species-being labour for himself. However, man in the capitalist society is alienated from his species-being as his labour is now just an objectified commodity sold to the capitalist in exchange for a meagre remuneration of his day’s ‘salary’. He has no control over his working conditions, length of labour and objectives of labour vis-à-vis the free spontaneous labour in his species-being life. Moreover, as Marx argues, even if he has interest in production, it is merely ‘false consciousness’ or the interest of the ‘ruling class’. Thus, alienation from man’s species-being also implies that man no longer understands his true self and interests in production or when he labours because in the capitalist mode of production, he does not truly produce for himself and his needs but needs of an abstract entity, the capitalist. As mentioned afore, man denies himself at work, contrary to confirming himself and his life at work as it truly was in his species-being life. “Life instead begins for him where [work] ceases, at the table, in the public house, in bed ” (Marx, 1849).

Thus, following from this, man is also alienated from his own product of labour. The product that the labourer produces is appropriated and owned by the capitalist. The commodity that the labourer produces appears to him as something mysterious. The product takes on an external existence, alien to him and analogous to an independent autonomous power. The product that the worker produces has to be obtained only through the worker forking out a portion of his salary to purchase it from the commodity market. Hence, not only is the worker alienated from his own product, the need to purchase the product the worker produces from very his own salary further dominates and subjugates the worker forcing him to work more under the lowly paid and hostile conditions. This makes the worker even more estranged from his ‘species-being’. Thus, as compared to man in his ‘species-being’ life whereby man is able to devour the product of his own labour, man in the capitalist society has obviously no control over whatever he produces.

In the capitalist system of production, man is also alienated from the production process. Productive activity takes on an independent form owned by the capitalists and the whole productive process and conditions of work is planned and thoroughly conceptualized by the management staff or the ‘bourgeoisie’ independent of the worker. The worker has no role in the planning process and he has no voice over his working conditions. The role of the worker is only confined to that of a minimal, repetitive and monotonous one. This is best expressed by Weber who claims famously that “[The worker] is only a small cog in a ceaselessly moving mechanism which prescribes to him an essentially fixed route of march ” (Weber, 1968). Even more importantly, is that the capitalist system of production reduces the individual labour-power to a powerless form which is analogous to saying that any individual labourer’s sole “independent capacity to produce is destroyed ” (Marx, 1862). Hence, workers are once again forced to work under the purview of the bourgeoisie or otherwise, face relegation and expulsion from the capitalist system rendering them as helpless individuals on the streets. Again, this differs drastically with man in his ‘species-being’ life, whereby he is able to work as he please and take total control over productive activity.

Finally, as a corollary of the nature of the capitalist productive system, workers also face alienation from their fellow human beings. The worker’s social relations become more so shaped by the production work. Humans are social-beings but as a result of the long hours of work in the factory or office, he is isolated from his family and friends. The worker is also estranged from the people who exploit his labour, being the capitalists or the ‘bourgeoisie’. But most importantly, competition to offer highest efficiency rate at the lowest possible wages also alienates workers from fellow workers creating animosity and rancorous relationships between fellow workers. These can again be seen as deviations from the “species-being” life whereby man is able to form affable social relationships with anyone as he produces freely and is not subjected to work under a stipulated number of working hours in an organization or factory which separates him from his family and friends.

Retrospectively, in a capitalist society, labour is drastically different from labour in man’s species-being life which is plausibly a very idealistic notion or conception of life. Plausibly, Marx’s conception of human nature i.e. ‘species-being’ is a direct antithesis to estranged labour in the capitalistic society. Thus, it is useful here to use Marx’s conception of human nature as an ‘ideal type’ and see the capitalist society and alienation of labour as a deviation from it. At work in a capitalist society, most people repudiate themselves not confirm themselves. As Marx argues, only after work does life begins vis-à-vis work being part of man’s life in his species-being where he affirms himself. Also, labour or work in the capitalist society results in not only estrangement from one’s own labour, but also from products of labour, from the productive process, from fellow human beings and from one’s species-being. In the capitalist society, in Edward Sapir’s words “the individual [is just] a mere cog, as an entity whose purpose in life lies in subservience to a collective purpose that he is not conscious of or that he only has a remote relevancy to his interests and strivings ” (Sapir, 1924).

However, as an ending note, I feel that it is important to recognize that although majority of the lower skilled people who work in the service sectors in the capitalist society may still face estrangement or alienation in Marx’s sense, there is a growing population of people who are taking on ‘corporate identities’ willingly and happily. For this group of people, work is simply part of their life and it reflects who they are. This maybe ‘false consciousness’ at a very severe stage the Marxist interpretation but what appeals to me more is Rene Descartes’ notion of “I think therefore I am”. These people who maybe the growing number of specialists and middle-ranked managers, who incorporate their corporate identities and work into their life and take pride in it, might not feel that they are ‘alienated’ from their life and labour as much as other lower skilled workers. This proposition is not a novel one and is elaborated in great depth in the paper, ‘Bureaucratic Personality’ written by Normal Wiliams, Gideon Sjoberg, and Andree F Sjoberg. Hence, it is important to note that in contemporary capitalist society, alienation does not simply apply equally to all. Also I question whether man wants to revert back to the ‘species-being’ of life which seems to be possible only in the most primitive ways of life. In modern society inundated with millions and billions of people, probably the only way to ‘live’ and carry out mass administration is through the capitalistic division of labour which inevitably brings along the effects of “alienation” or ‘alienated labour’ to a certain degree.

References

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Marx, Karl. “In The Thought of Karl Marx” TTKM (1849)

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Marx, Karl. “The German Ideology.” KMSW (1845-6)

Marx, Karl. “The German Ideology.” KMSW (1845-6)

Marx, Karl. “The German Ideology.” KMSW (1845-6)

Marx, Karl. “The German Ideology.” KMSW (1845-6)

Marx, Karl. “Grundrisse.” KMSW (1857-8)

Marx, Karl. “Grundrisse.” KMSW (1857-8)

Marx, Karl. Wage Labour and Capital KMSW (1849)
Weber, Max. “Economy and society : an outline of interpretive sociology” New York, Bedminister Press (1968)
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Sapir, Edward. “Culture, Genuine and Spurious.” The American Journal of Sociology (1924)