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Philosophy Paper #2
Question: Discuss Marx's analysis of the evolution of the "natural" division of labor from the three-fold "First Historical Act" up to present capitalist society. How is it (the division of labor) the basis of alienation, how does it function in current capitalist society to inhibit the realization of the "truly" human needs, and how does Marx forsee the resolution of this historical problem to reside in his vision of "communism"? What do you think of his vision?
The Humanist Manifesto
In this discussion, I will provide an outline of Karl Marx’s First Historical Act, as he explains it in German Ideology, which will be prefaced by a brief synopsis of his concept of historical materialism. This will lead to a discussion of the phenomenon of the alienated worker, which Marx argues is contrary to the human essence, and is therefore inhuman. As a solution to the alienation of man, Marx offers his vision of communism, or socialism, which capacitates the realization of ultimate human creativity, the essential humanity. After this discussion, I will provide my own reflections on Marx’s solution, and attempt to answer a simple question regarding the nature of communist ideals.
Marx begins German Ideology with the acknowledgement that all the social, conscious, and ideological processes of individuals, and groups of individuals, are directly determined by the way individuals interact with their environment, and by the way they produce materials for their real, everyday, physical lives. Men create their own ideas, concepts and histories, and these are directly conditioned by their material productions and real-life actions (153). Based on this fundamental acknowledgement, and as opposed to the view that ideas and concepts of humanity are independent of the material production of daily life, Marx describes the basic circle of consciousness that serves as an historical outline for the development of civilization: life determines consciousness, consciousness does not determine life. This circle of consciousness must be viewed as an interconnected whole, but can be broken down into three main points: (1) humanity’s real-life, material interactions with nature allow for (2) the appearance of consciousness in existing individuals, which then allows for (3) social intercourse and ideological invention, which then will direct the way individual’s understand their relationship to nature, and life itself (154).
From this, Marx lays down his first and most concrete premise, that of man in his actual, daily, empirically perceptible behavior, which includes his basic needs, his desires and passions, and his actual physical processes which enable him to exist as an organism in his environment. To understand Marx’s historical materialism, and, later, to understand his vision of socialism, or communism, this real-life physical human being must remain the constant focal point throughout our discussion (154). Thus, in order to ground history, and all its ideological and political concepts, in real, applicable, material life, Marx gives us a model for understanding the historical development of mankind -- a development which has led to present-day capitalism -- the First Historical Act.
The initial moment in the First Historical Act begins with the most basic and constant human need: the means to produce goods for normal day-to-day life. This includes the most fundamental aspects of human life, such as the production of food, gathering of water, clothing of bodies, and shelter from the elements. Before any history can begin, before science can develop, before philosophers can philosophize, before states can establish laws, the first and most primary function of survival on Earth must be established in a constant and dependable manner. In this way, all academics, religions, laws, and interactions between people in the most general forms must be grounded in man’s relationship to the Earth, and in his satisfaction of his most important requirements (155).
Then, in the very instant these most basic and general requirements are met, new needs are automatically created and new methods of production are enacted to fulfill them. For example, as soon as the requirement of basic clothing has been met and solidified, the need for better clothing is created, and later, concepts of fashion and style. The need for better foods, for cleaner water, for bigger and warmer shelters instantly spring up and are met by new manipulations of the natural environment (155).
Simultaneously occurring in this First Historical Act is the third facet: the production of other humans. This moment can be broken down into specific steps, and we can see how the creation of families is the ignition point for the explosion of private property. In order to provide themselves with privacy during the production of new humans (sexual intercourse), a man and a woman establish a separate dwelling place from the rest of the tribe or group of other humans (156). They pitch their tent, or find a shelter away from the rest of their clan and by doing so stake the first claim to their own private property. Subsequently, towns are built, infrastructures are established, and private spheres of living are woven into the fabric of daily life. The need for privacy during the sexual act leads families to become opposed to one another, and to compete in their individual attempts to create the best dwelling location for their families (which can be considered a new or variable need that is created, which is secondary to the most fundamental or constant aspects of human life) (158).
Thus we see that the way humans produce the means for their survival, the manner in which they interact with their environment in the attempt to satisfy their needs, necessarily influences the way history is written, and the way social relations are established throughout civilization. Here Marx stresses that “Human History” must be synonymous with “the History of Industry and Exchange,” for the multitude of productive forces (the way needs are met) in communal life determines the most basic and fundamental nature of society (156). Implicit in this First Historical Act is the realization that all the aspects of society increase when the population increases. This means that with the creation of more people, more needs are invented and more productive acts are required to meet them (157).
Beginning with the sexual act, a basic chasm forms in the relationships between people in society, which leads to a natural division of labor in the production of the means for survival. As soon as the husband becomes the patriarch of the family, and the family is thereby enslaved to his commands, the day-to-day workload is divvied out in a disproportional manner (158). This disproportional division is repeated throughout all interactions in society, and is based on the “natural predisposition” of strong vs. weak. When a stronger individual realizes that he can exert his influence on a weaker individual in order to force him to work longer, harder, and faster, he will; the exertion of force, and the threat of death, leads to a division of mental vs. material labor (158). An owner of a field envisions the crops that he will harvest from the cultivation of his land, and thereby hires a slave-driver to force weaker individuals to physically manipulate the soil so that he can enjoy his leisure time.
It is important to note that when Marx refers to this natural division of labor, the word “natural” is synonymous with “forced,” in that man’s initial relationships with other men in the various methods of production are fundamentally inhuman and the work is involuntary (more will be said on this later). We must also note that this division of labor necessarily implies the contradiction of the individual’s interest with the rest of the community’s; the individual member of society is forced to act against his interests in an attempt to satisfy the needs of the community as an interdependent whole, and is motivated to act out of fear for his life and the threat of punishment by individuals who possess more physical power and who are in control of more private property than he. As men are forced to act against their interests in “natural society,” their actions become alien to them, and they begin to unconsciously recognize the work they do as not their own (159).
This brings us to Marx’s concept of alienation, which is an historical consequence of the First Historical Act, and which remains a current phenomenological characteristic in modern capitalist society -- the most extreme and dominating symptom of modern life, even in supposed “socialist” or “communist” societies. The concept rests primarily in the specialization of the average worker; the fact that each member of modern capitalist society is born and raised, trained, to find their specific niche in the flow of production means that even now we dwell in a fundamentally natural state -- one that is dehumanizing and contrary to the true essence of human beings -- thus inhuman (159).
Marx describes the specialized worker as a “crippled monstrosity.” We must acknowledge, given the First Historical Act in its three-fold nature, that labor is man’s self-realizing activity. It is most important to view human beings and their relationships with each other and with their environment as social forms which are ultimately dictated by the methods in which they produce their livelihood, through labor. Humans are tied to their interaction with nature as closely as the internal processes of their own bodies, and when they are separated from this interaction and forced to produce their means of survival in a way that is dehumanizing and involuntary, they become disconnected with each other, with their environment, and with themselves. When our labor becomes forced we are required to exert more and more effort in the work environment; we must pay closer attention to our tasks and literally act against our interests; we must sell our labor and our time so that we can purchase the means for our survival, the result being an unwanted and unrewarding process which transforms our selves and our actions into commodities (33, 159).
An extremely powerful social power is created by the cooperation of groups of individuals, and this power makes a single individual’s contribution to the rest of society a forced and alienating involvement. As individuals, humans seek their own specific interests and modes of enjoyment, but these interests (by being individualized) do not and cannot match the interests of the entire capitalist society as a whole, and the individual is forced to cast aside his own individuality if he desires to keep up or stay afloat with his peers. This social power becomes one that acts on the individual from outside him; it usurps his time, his creativity, and his passions and channels his wide-spread interests into one specialized and singular sphere of production that disconnects him with his own basic humanity (160).
Alienation can also be viewed as a basic form of idolatry, which stems from the worship of things, and dwells in the act of having. Historically and biblically, idolatry has been man’s identification with the object of his own creation, a personification of himself in the physical products of his hands. He projects his own characteristics into some manifestation of his creative faculties, and thereby connects with himself through the object he has created, which presupposes an inherent sense of disconnection in the beginning. In an attempt to learn more about his own place in nature, and his identity as a human, man makes a physical image of himself and thereby objectifies his identity and the products of his creativity. Man submits to his own creation, instead of coming to know himself as a creator and an individual (37).
As a consequence of capitalism, man’s only way of relating to the rest of the world, and the people in the world, is by consuming and having. Regarding the difference between constant and variable needs (as outlined above), capitalism’s only creation is the variable need for capital, and more of it. This need is an inhuman need, one that is not directly connected to man’s essential survival, but unfortunately becomes life-threateningly real as money becomes a necessary requirement for capitalist life. In short, the more powerful money becomes, the more man needs money, and the quantity of money is the solitary goal of production in labor. We know ourselves to be “consumers” in the marketplace, yet we do not fully recognize ourselves as commodities to be consumed by the individual that is capital itself (44-45).
The question then becomes: What is Marx’s proposed solution to this problem of alienation, this dehumanization, this idolatry of objects? The answer to this question is the definition of Marx’s true communism, as opposed to the crude communism that has emerged in various societies in the world from the misinterpretation, misappropriation, misquotation and mystification of Marx’s concepts. Indeed, Marx’s communism, as it is generally (and untruthfully) represented today, has been vilified to such an extent that the term “communist” has become a derogatory and inflammatory term, overburdened with negative connotation and laced with unfounded hatred.
It is best to begin by stating what communism is not, which will then lead us to an understanding that communism proper does not exist now, and has not existed in the history of mankind (yet). Marx’s communism, his socialism, is not a fragmented, regimented society based on equal income for its workers. This misconstruction still includes the concept of capital, a form of private property, as power to hire labor, which also includes the alienated individual. Neither is it a society which is subservient to a separate and disconnected bureaucracy, nor is it to be considered an “abstract capitalist” or a single corporation which alone pursues capital (49).
Marx’s socialism must be understood to be entirely directed toward the human as human, and must be envisioned as always in pursuit of that which will allow man the realization of his fullest and most essentially rewarding potentials. This means an overcoming of alienation altogether, where men can cease to be disconnected from their work, from the products of their work, from nature, from each other, and from themselves. In order to end the alienation of the individual, the forced compulsion to work (as created in the First Historical Act) would be surpassed, and the necessity to sell one’s self as a commodity would cease to be an issue for the individual existing in society (who’s potentialities and creative powers would be constantly in focus) (49).
We must understand socialism to enable the development of man’s true creative power, his essence as an individual enmeshed with nature. In this way, Marx’s communism is not an end to all needs, or a satisfaction of all wants; it is primarily a situation in which man can develop his own individual capacities, and thereby recognize the realm of human necessity, his constant or fixed needs, and productively harness the modes of production in his relationship with his environment in an attempt to satisfy and expand those primarily human necessities. His relationship with nature would be one based on respect, as one respects the appendages of his own physical body, and one of intellectual love, as two people meeting in respectful acknowledgement. This socialism, this communism, must be constantly maintained as a condition for the fulfillment of life, not as the goal or end result of life. Indeed, the rapturous exploration of life and its extreme multitude of possibilities would become the main focus of the individual, rather than the production of the means by which to continue living (50).
Given that the State, as it currently functions, is a disembodied and ethereal form of community which serves to separate each individual’s interests from that of the community’s, we must ask what will motivate the world to want to create this condition of communism on a real level. Marx warns that the alienation of mankind can only be abolished if the real, actual, productive forces in the world develop to a point where the general population is essentially property-less, and physically ungrounded in their environments. They would necessarily have to be presented the opportunity to achieve a world of wealth and culture, one which they would consciously and intellectually have to choose (160). This basically means that capitalism, as we know it, would have to run its course. It would necessarily have to infiltrate every corner of the globe in order to gorge itself to death, and thus create an opportunity for a truly “World Historical” revolution -- one that would include all the societies of Earth in a simultaneous leap toward the fulfillment of man’s essence.
This is why communism has not yet existed in human history, and why certain societies who claim to be “socialist” and “communist” while simultaneously maintaining a bureaucratic and capitalist State are pseudo-Marxist, to say the least. Without capitalism’s own self-destruction, a mere want would be created in scattered individuals, and the First Historical Act would essentially begin all over again with the production of the means to satisfy the newly created want (160). A world-wide capitalist shut down would necessarily include a universal intercourse of all people in the world, for such a revolution could not be facilitated without universal communication, a universal intercourse and dialogue, a universal mind-set (161). It may be allowed that our current technological advances (which have sprouted from our increased methods of production, which are fundamentally tied to nature) have allowed us to nearly reach such a universal communication, as is witnessed in the phenomenon of the Internet, in satellite communication, and other near-instantaneous and world-maintained devices. However, if these requirements are not met (and they have not been) communism remains a local bubble, intercourse remains underground, and each communist pod is eventually shut down or collapses due to lack of focus and un-sustainability. Thus communism is an “all or nothing” process, one that depends on mutual intercourse and production on the world-wide level (161).
Marx gives us the tantalizing and almost dream-like description of the “well-rounded individual” that would be a commonplace in a properly executed communist society: one that could “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, [and] criticize after dinner” without ever being confined or trained as an “expert” or “specialist” in any of said methods of production (159). Indeed, such an individual would be free to contribute to society in ways that were essentially gratifying to him, in a way that would allow for constant variation, refinement and progress without ever feeling alienated, disconnected, empty, or frustrated with his allotted position -- for his position would continue to be a conscious, voluntary choice, not a forced compromise.
Personally, if this is “socialism,” if this is “communism,” and if this is the idea that has been stigmatized, mutilated, chopped up and spat on for over a century, then count me in, for as a part-time worker and a full-time student, I subscribe whole-heartedly to Marxism and the pursuit of my latent human abilities. However, a question might now arise that would demand: If communism is to unleash man’s latent creative powers, is not capitalism a human creation? What if humanity creates even worse powers than capitalism?
I can only answer that the only way this possibility can be avoided is the perpetual education and intercourse of humanity on an individual level. Since the focus of communism must remain totally focused on the human as human, not the human as a means for the creation of other non-human things, and as long as the human being is still acknowledged as the goal of creativity, other dehumanizing pitfalls and “natural” relations can be avoided. In keeping with Marx’s 19th century viewpoint, we must remember that humans arise out of nature, as beings essentially tied to the Earth but conscious of their relation to it, and likewise that our “natural” or forced relationships must also be grown out of, consciously acknowledged and then tossed away, like old clothing which could not adapt to our fervent growth.
At times I find it easy to share in Marx’s unabashed confidence in humanity, in his organic, home-grown belief that man’s real essence lies in the realization of creativity. And yet there are other times when the darkness of the alternate possibility creeps in through the cracks in the glimmering veneer: Why is man’s essence creativity? What makes us think we will ever be able to achieve a concrete state where this creativity can flourish? Isn’t it just as easy to say that man’s essence is destruction? Or worse yet: lethargy?
I must admit, though, regardless of the true essence of human kind, what we have on our hands is a simple decision, a choice at the cross-roads of human history: We’ve seen where this road has lead thus far, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any smoother; should we ride it out and hope for the best, or change course in hopes of finding a path more attractive, more ripe with the possibility for beauty, more open for interpretation, less crowded with avarice and clouded with antagonism? I cannot speak for the rest of mankind. I wouldn’t want to. I speak for myself as an individual who is slowly suffocating in the folds of modern society: the choice is easy.
Sources Cited
Fromm, Erich. Marx’s Concept of Man. New York: Continuum, 2004.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/karlazuniga/sets/72157600165897788/