Marx’s Theory of Work and Historical Materialism
Society
A) Work
Marx rejects the idea of a universal human essence, like Hume proposed. He believes humans are primarily practical beings, defined by their constitutive praxis: work.
Work is the human activity of transforming nature. This activity connects people to nature, builds society, and establishes relationships between individuals. Humans are defined by the sum of these social relations. Ideally, work humanizes and liberates: it constitutes what it means to be human and, through interacting with nature, offers freedom. However, under capitalist conditions, work, instead of liberating, enslaves and dehumanizes.
B) Work in Capitalist Society
Four key concepts are central to understanding work under capitalism: labor force, working time, equity, and commodity fetishism.
Labor force refers to a human’s capacity and potential to create a product.
Workers sell their labor force, receiving wages in exchange for their working time. The goal is to produce within a specific timeframe, the “necessary labor time.” This covers the labor cost and generates the worker’s salary. However, the workday extends beyond this necessary time. The extra labor, or surplus labor time, produces goods that benefit the capitalist, not the worker. This benefit, the surplus value, represents the value of the products for which the worker receives no compensation.
This system gives rise to commodity fetishism. The products of labor are no longer simply products but become commodities. They take on a value independent of the worker, the labor required to produce them, and their social role. As commodities, these products lose their human connection, becoming mere things, fetishes, within the market. Work loses its humanizing potential, becoming solely a means of generating money. Therefore, simply increasing wages cannot solve the problem of dehumanization.
C) Historical Materialism
Marx’s historical materialism stands in opposition to German idealism, which prioritizes thought over being, or reality. Marx argues that thought and reality are distinct. This distinction is crucial to understanding his work.
Marx critiques Feuerbach’s materialism on two grounds. First, Feuerbach’s materialism is mechanical and abstract, reducing everything to mechanical laws detached from actual reality. Second, it lacks the dialectical and historical dimensions central to Marx’s approach.
Marx insists that human nature (thought) cannot be separated from reality. Humans and nature exist on the same plane. Humans, to be human, must interact with and transform nature through praxis. They are not passive observers but active participants, transforming nature.
The core of historical materialism is the economic infrastructure, the real foundation of society. Production relations are the relationships between people based on their position within the mode of production.
The economic infrastructure dialectically determines the ideological superstructure of society. Social contradictions arise from clashes between forces within the infrastructure, leading to changes in the superstructure. Forms of consciousness appear as ideologies, reflecting the worldview of the ruling class, which is imposed upon the whole society. This reveals that social relations are reflections of the relations of production between classes. These changes ultimately lead to a transformation of the production relations themselves, culminating in social revolution.
Therefore, the driving force of history for Marx is not reason but class struggle, the primary contradiction arising from the relations of production. Humans, through developing class consciousness, which exposes social contradictions, alienation, and the need for transformation, drive historical change towards liberation.