Marxism: Class Struggle, Alienation, and Capitalism
Class Struggle and Capitalism
Marxism posits that the bourgeoisie and proletariat classes have antagonistic, or contrary, interests. Marx believed that the essence of humanity lies in labor, through which individuals create and transform their world. However, capitalism has transformed work into a commodity to be bought and sold.
In a pre-capitalist artisan economy, the worker owned the goods produced, and the wealth generated from their sale belonged entirely to them. With industrialization, significant resources, capital reinvestment, and the division of labor are required to produce goods much faster. The owner sells the product and retains the full benefit, while the worker receives only a fraction. This difference is what Marx termed “surplus value.”
Surplus Value and Exploitation
Surplus value, the foundation of accumulated capital, represents unpaid labor. This leads to another crucial concept in Marxist theory: exploitation. The worker, having sold their labor—their very essence—becomes alienated, estranged from themselves. Marx stated, “The salary is the immediate consequence of alienated labor, and alienated labor is the immediate cause of private property. The disappearance of one term should cause the disappearance of the next.”
Alienation
Being alienated means not belonging to oneself, being outside oneself, which dehumanizes the individual. Marxism identifies religious, social, political, and philosophical alienation, but all stem from economic alienation. In the capitalist mode of production, the proletarian worker, or seller of labor, suffers essential alienation because human labor is reduced to a commodity, “reifying” the individual.
Marx described the alienation of labor as follows: “In work, man does not affirm himself but denies himself, is not happy but unhappy, does not develop his free physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. Therefore, the worker only feels himself outside of work, and in work feels outside of himself.”
Consequently, individuals feel free only in their animal functions (eating, sleeping, procreating), while in their uniquely human function (work), they feel like animals. Furthermore, the alienation of work is rooted in the exploitation of one person by another.
Plusvalue explained
The capitalist pays a wage for labor, which is necessary to reproduce the workforce. However, that workforce, over a number of hours, produces much more value than the worker is paid. The unpaid value, the surplus, allows the capitalist to make investments that generate more capital. The surplus value, therefore, is the difference between the worker’s wage and the value the worker produces. This is the tragedy of man: the more one works, the more capital one produces, and the more enslaved one becomes, however much the capital will raise to receive a salary.
Religious and Ideological Alienation
Regarding religious alienation, Marx agreed with Feuerbach but believed that Feuerbach had not fully grasped religion’s role in society. Marx argued that religious consolations would disappear when conditions of injustice cease to exist. As Marx put it, “The fantasy world of the gods exists because the unjust world of men exists.”
Ideological or philosophical disposition, according to Marx, masks reality, with reason justifying the status quo: “The ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas of each era.” In each historical period, the ruling class has justified its position as necessary.
Alternative: A Classless Society
Marx saw the potential for socialized industrial production to increase output and reduce the labor required. However, a malfunction has occurred: the socialization of work should correspond to the socialization of productive assets. If this were the case, private ownership would end, leading to the end of class society. The ultimate solution, according to Marx, would be for each individual to contribute according to their potential and receive according to their needs.