Classical Sociology; Karl Marx

The challenge:

Initially, I had difficulty grasping Marx's conception of human nature.

I referred to quite a number of books before I could understand his work.

I got a B+ for this paper.

In what ways is Marx's conception of human nature crucial to his discussion of alienated labour in capitalist society?

Introduction

Today, we can see how the majority of people consider working as a means to an end. They work for subsistence and though the present working state is not as severe as compared to Marx's period, some of the workers cannot afford to buy things which they produce or are selling. I shall use a factory worker who makes metal parts for an aeroplane as an example. In order to cut cost, an airline company may hire small companies to make certain parts for its aeroplane. A factory worker who earns $1,000 per month, before Central Provident Fund (CPF) deduction, may work from 8 am to 6 pm for years and does the same work for the same company. His mundane job is to drill holes into big cylinders. In Singapore context, $1,000 is barely enough to support one's family and he can forget about going for an overseas holiday with his family. He produces important components of an aeroplane everyday in his life but he never sits in an aeroplane for even a minute! Not only is his product is being robbed away from him, but he is also suppressing his creativity by doing a routinized and mindless job everyday – with a pathetic pay check – for subsistence!

The above situation is exactly what bothers Karl Marx. According to Adam Smith, a laissez-faire capitalism would lead to a 'system of perfect liberty'. In other words, it would be a win-win situation for the capitalists and the workers. Everyone has the chance to enter marketplace as a competitor and wealth generated could be used for the general well-being of a society. While Marx agreed with Smith that government plays an important role in ensuring rights to private property, Marx pointed out that instead of achieving a 'system of perfect liberty', alienation of labours would occur instead. Capitalism acts as a barrier to the workers and prevents them from fulfilling their needs as human beings as it inhibits them from engaging in creative and useful activities (Edles & Appelrouth, 2005).

Human Nature

Marx regarded human as innately an altruistic being. It is capitalism that makes human selfish. Hence, the current state of a human cannot be chosen because although “men make their own history ... they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past” (Marx, 1852). Here, a person is borned into a class, either proletariat or bourgeoisie class which guides their personal characteristics – altruistic and subordinating or selfish and dominating. In return, these characteristics determine a person's consciousness. The way a proletariat perceives reality differs from a bourgeoisie's. As Marx noted, “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”. The notion of interest is no longer a matter of subjectivity. It is grounded onto a class instead.

Also, there is an innate need for a person to realize his potential in his works. Such need is what makes human different from other animals say, monkeys. He creates products, via creative and conscious activities, and that products reflect himself. Once these products are taken away from him, he would feel as if he has lost part of him. This is what happening in a capitalist world. A person is being alienated from his product.

Alienated Labour

However, a worker is not only being alienated from his products. He is alienated from the process of production, from his species essence (self-estrangement) as well as from his fellow workers.

Alienation From His Products

“... the worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object. For on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful the alien objective world becomes which he creates over-against himself, the poorer he himself – his inner world – becomes, the less belongs to him as his own” (Marx, 1844). As mentioned above, man expresses himself into his products. However, in the capitalist society, working is a means to an end. The workers commodify their labour power and work in order to get money. They produce a lot of products but can claim none to them because the products are owned by the capitalists. In other words, the producers are separated from things which they produced. This can cause devastating effect to the workers.

For an illustration, imagine a poor 5 years old prodigy boy who draws very well. His drawings are very unique and are used by this boy to express himself (such as his anger or his happy moments). That is human nature. The need to express himself and relate himself to the objects produced. One day, a wealthy person arrives and takes away all his drawings. The buyer only drops a few coins to the boy as an exchange. Being only a 5 years old boy and poor, he cannot do anything to stop the transaction from happening. He is powerless. Thus, he will feel as if a part of him is being unwillingly torn away. Thus, the producer is separated from the things he produced.
After a while, the boy sees his drawings being displayed in a shop which is selling them at high prices. The boy can only look at his drawings via the glass windows as if the products of his labour are alien objects. He cannot determine how his drawings should be sold, to whom and at what price.

Alienation from the Process of Production

This will lead us to the alienation of workers from the process of production. “This relation is the relation of the worker to his own activity as an alien activity not belonging to him; it is activity as suffering, strength as weakness, begetting as emasculating, the worker's own physical and mental energy, his personal life or what is life other than activity – as an activity which is turned against him, neither depends on nor belongs to him” (Marx, 1844). As stated above, working becomes a means to an end. Even in today's context, every employee will look forward to weekends where they could spend their times doing meaningful activities such as photography, painting and swimming. Everyone has the innate need to fulfil one's potential. For example, a construction worker may love taking pictures and has high potential of becoming a good photographer. However, in reality, very few people can make it into photography field. Realizing that and the need to earn money to pay for daily expenses, the construction worker goes to work everyday but his job does not mean anything to him and offers no innate satisfaction. He may even drag his feet to work everyday. The forced labour is external to the worker and does not belong to his essential beings (Marx, 1844). His human nature to express himself and realize his potential is suppressed in the capitalist society.

“... the external character of labour for the worker appears in the fact that it is not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another” (Marx, 1844). As in the case of the prodigy boy where his drawings are being sold without him having a say as to what values to be placed his drawings, producers do not control their products. The construction worker may build a nice condominium but no doubt, he can never live there due to the meagre salary paid to him. The product now confronts the producers with hostility and only money can unite the product and the producers. “Money is the pimp between man's need and the object, between his life and his means of life” (Marx, 1844).

Alienation from His Species Being

What distinguishes between animals and human beings is that human could potentially gain greater control over their own creations through creative and conscious life activities (Scott, 2006 ; Marx, 1844). “Conscious life-activity directly distinguishes man from animal life-activity. It is just because of this that he is a species being that he is a Conscious Being, ie., that his own life is an object for him. Only because of that is his activity free activity.” (Marx, 1844). In the capitalist society, however, a man works against his consciousness. He becomes a robot and keeps doing routinized work. With the introduction of machineries, his skills become redundant and he will lose his creativity. A worker may be drilling holes into large cylinders and at the same time is unaware where the parts will end up and how his work is useful to others. He will spend more hours working in the factory despite longing to do something else and turns his life-activity into a means to an end. Thus, the worker loses his species essence in the capitalist society.

Alienation from His Fellow Workers

The capitalists also try to outdo each other. In doing so, each capitalist wants to incorporate new machines and technology into their factory so as to improve efficiency and hence, generate more profits. With the arrival of machineries, the workers' skills become irrelevant and machineries will only further simplify the workers' jobs. As such, the workers are no longer valued and reduce to no more than just commodities to be traded on the market which can easily be replaced by other new workers from a reserve 'army of labour' (Marshall and Scott, 2005). Knowing that a lot of people are jobless, the exploited workers are willing to work long hours in order to allow them to retain their jobs. By spending long hours in their alienating workplace, they come into minimal contact with others. It is also innately human nature to form meaningful social relationship. However, the factories in a capitalist society, which emphasize on efficiency, do not allow workers to do so. The capitalists would rather see workers competing with each other for jobs, so that they could control freely the amount of wages to be paid to workers. Furthermore, by alienating them from one another, the workers will not come together and class consciousness can therefore be prevented from happening.

Conclusion

While discussing various aspects of alienated labour, we can see that alienated labour cannot be separated from Marx's conception of human nature. Alienated labour challenges human nature. By being alienated from his product, it is as if a part of him is being taken away because his product reflects himself. By being alienated from the process of productions, innate needs to realize one's potential is prohibited. By being alienated from his species essence, he works against his consciousness and his life-activity becomes a means to sustain him physically. Last but not least, alienation from workers deprives him from having meaning social relationships – something which is essential to a social animal. Hence, Marx's conception of human nature is crucial to his discussion of alienated labour in capitalist society.

Others’ Perspectives on Human Nature and Alienation

It is worthy to take note that there are different concepts on human nature. For example, Max Weber does not acknowledged human nature as something innate to human. Rather, he believes that human nature is the product of and being moulded by various experiences and events. Alienation, on the other hand, is due more towards the bureaucratic nature of capitalist society. Weber sees bureaucracy's potential to dehumanise workers (Macionis and Plummer, 2005). Efficiency is essential to a bureaucratic organization and workers have to remain impersonal in order to achieve efficiency. The workers put up a bureaucratic personality and become insensitive to the personal needs of the clients. They are thus alienated from their true feelings and are prevented from forming meaningful social relationships.

As for Heidegger (1927), human beings were constantly in danger of forgetting their place in this everyday world of Being. Human beings are to some extent always homeless beings; being without a place in the world, they are alienated from their reality (Turner, 1999). On the other hand, Sigmund Freud sees human as innately selfish and egoistic, a view directly opposite to that of Karl Marx which views human as intrinsically altruistic and co-operatives (Marshall and Scott, 2005).

References

Books
Edles, Laura D. and Appelrouth, S. 2005. Sociological Theory In The Classical Era. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Pine Forge Press.
Turner, Bryan S. 1999. Classical Sociology. Thousand Oaks, Ca: SAGE Publications Inc.
Scott, J. 2006. Social Theory : Central Issues In Sociology. Thousand Oaks, Ca: SAGE Publications Inc.
Scott, J. 2007. Fifty Key Sociologists: The Formative Theorists. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Marshall, G. and Scott, J. 2005. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. NY: Oxford University Press Inc.
Macionis, John J. and Plummer, K. 2005. Sociology: A Global Introduction. Edinburgh Gate, Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Readings
'Labour', in The Thought of Karl Marx, ed. D. McLellan. London; Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 167-176.