Modernity, Capitalism and Alienation (Estrangement)

1. Modernity, Capitalism and Alienation (Estrangement) Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. (Karl Marx, Eleventh Thesis on Ludwig Feuerbach)

2. HUM101-102 History of an Idea: Alienation, Natural State (Man), Authenticity Gilgamesh: Enkidu humanized, hostility towards natural man and nature Genesis: The fall of humankind, Paradise Lost Ovid: Golden Age lost, gradual corruption through ages Attar: Perceived loss of unity of being, separation from the divine Montaigne: (Loss of) natural simplicity and purity of humankind Hobbes: (Rational) necessity of leaving the state of nature, natural rights (Rousseau): Social, political, economic institutions vs. the Noble Savage Legal-economic senses: Separating oneself from or transferring a property, right Socio-psychological senses: Powerlessness, worthlessness, disconnectedness, isolation, meaninglessness, normlessness, nihilism

3. Enlightenment, Freedom and Emancipation Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book 1 (1762) ‘‘Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. … But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions.’’ For Marx: Political emancipation < Human emancipation

4. Enlightenment, Inequality and Emancipation Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Origin of the Inequality of Mankind, Book 2 (1754) ‘‘The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, ‘Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.’ …Mankind must have made very considerable progress, and acquired considerable knowledge and industry which they must also have transmitted and increased from age to age, before they arrived at this last point of the state of nature.’’ Private property and inequality that follows as condition of enslavement necessitating emancipation

5. Marx’s Historical and Dialectical Materialism ‘‘Political economy proceeds from the fact of private property. It does not explain it. … We must avoid repeating the mistake of the political economist, who bases his explanations on some imaginary primordial condition.Such a primordial condition explains nothing. … greed and the war of the avaricious - competition’’ ‘‘Estranged Labor’’ pp.322-23 From Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) ‘‘No living creature is naturally greedy, except from fear of want…’’

6. Centrality of Labor and the four types of Alienation: 1) The relationship of labor to its product 2) The relationship of labor to the act of production within labor (relationship of the worker to his/her own life activity) 3) The relationship of humans to their species-being(relationship to one’s species-life; concerns what it means to be human ) 4) Relationship of humans to other human beings (alienation of individual from other individuals) Charles Chaplin, Modern Times (1936) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPSK4zZtzLI

7. 1. Alienation from one’s products of labor (alienation of the object) …the more objects the worker produces the fewer can he possess and the more he falls under the domination of his product, of capital. …the worker is related to the product of his labor as to an alien object ‘‘Estranged Labor’’ p. 324

8. 2. Alienation from the act of production, creative laboring activity or work itself (activealienation) How could the product of the worker’s activity confront him as somethingalien if it were not for the fact that in the act of production he was estranging himself from himself? … So if the product of labor is alienation [alien/ated], production itself must be active alienation, the alienation of activity, the activity of alienation. ‘‘Estranged Labor’’ p. 326

9. 3. Alienation from one’s species-being (loss of properly human powers or regression from human potentials) For in the first place labor, life activity, productive life itself appears to man only as a means for the satisfaction of a need, the need to preserve physical existence. But productive life is species-life. It is life-producing life. The whole character of a species…resides in thenature of its life activity, and free conscious activity constitutes the species-character of man. [As a result of alienated activity] Life itselfappears only as a means of life. ‘‘Estranged Labor’’ p. 328

10. 4. Alienation of the individual from other people …the proposition that man is estranged from his species-beingmeans that each man is estranged from the others and thatall are estranged from man’s essence. … If the product of labor is alien to me and confronts me as an alien power, to whom does it then belong? To a being other than me. … [The relationship of the worker] to that object is such that another man –alien, hostile, powerful and independent of him –is its master. ‘‘Estranged Labor’’ pp. 330-31

11. A Daily Example of Alienation: • Education, Studentship in Capitalism, Grades and Exams • Analogy between money/capital as alienated product of human labor and exam grades • Frequent exams and/or quizzes prepare you for: • rigorous discipline of the work situation • the speed-ups on the job • putting up with boredom at work • accepting orders unthinkingly • impersonal job categories • accepting others’ superior knowledge • fear of punishment • high levels of anxiety Bertell Ollman, How to take an Exam…and Remake the World