Capitalism and Alienation: The Foundation

The development of capitalism can be correlated with the economic development in the West. Capitalism allowed innovation to take precedence over traditional forms of labor and business. It replaced these traditional forms because capitalism was by nature a flexible and adaptive economic system. By incorporating competition in its rubric (a sign of flexibility), it was able to encourage the private sector to invest more in the market, resulting inevitably to increased public welfare. It was also this competition that allowed innovation to develop.

By increasing the number and quality of players in the market, economic collusion was prevented, and hence this forced all firms to formulate efficient means to capture a significant portion of the market share. Because other firms would want to “get” the same portion of the “pie”, their relative share in the market remained the same; increasing the benefits accrued to the society. Thus, we come to the second quality of capitalism: adaptability. Adaptability refers to the capacity of a system to capture new locations to which it may be situated. Being adaptive does not necessarily mean that capitalism will succumb to the power of tradition or existing cultural systems. Rather capitalism sought to redefine the foundations of society (Marx, 1844/1959).

Changing some aspects of society would inevitably result to a categorical redefinition of societal institutions. Capitalism could then infiltrate the society and spread its scorching arms. At this point Marx began to examine the “evils” resulting from this economic system. He argued that although capitalism initially stimulated innovation, in the long-run the bad effects of capitalism would be revealed in the so-called “superstructures” (refer to the institutions of the society – as differentiated from “substructures” which refer to the overarching systems of any society). When capitalism developed into a full, working economic system, it encouraged the private sector to invest in the market.

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The market here referred to the manufacturing and industrial sectors of 19th century European cities. This caused widespread migration of laborers from rural areas to booming industrial centers. In exchange for wages, the laborers “sold” their labor to capital-owners – labor became a commodity. Because labor was treated as a commodity, the capital-owner became essentially the owner of labor (Marx, 1844/1959). Although it was far from slavery, its effects were never far from the “qualities” of slavery. Here Marx identified two major effects of capitalism that approached the characteristics of slavery. The first problem that workers encountered in the workplace was alienation.

Alienation refers general to the breakdown of natural interconnectedness of entities (Marx, 1844/1959). Applied to the social sciences, this refers to the natural interconnectedness of man to other things. When a man produced a certain good, it was natural to consider the man as the owner of such good. In capitalism, because the laborer sold his labor to the capital-owner, the latter became the owner of the laborer’s labor. Thus, laborers experienced 4 types of alienation in the workplace. Here are as follows: 1) alienation of man to his own products, 2) alienation of man to his fellow workers, 3) alienation of man to the production process/activities, and 4) alienation of man to his own development.

The first alienation refers to the inability of the worker to own the products made by his own labor. The second type of alienation refers to the breakdown of man’s relationship to his fellow laborers in the workplace. The third connotes the inability of man to control the production process to which his labor is a significant factor of production. The last type of alienation in the workplace refers to the incapacity of man, given current circumstances, to develop his personal being.

According to Marx, even lawyers and respected professionals end up as laborers because of their incapacity to oppose capitalism. When alienation became immanent in the workplace, the capitalist could easily grapple the value of the laborers, exploiting it until valueless; thus the second problem - exploitation.

Reference

Marx, Karl. (1844/1959). Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

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