Understanding Capital, Alienation, and Economic Structures
Capital: Capital or principal is the term used for resources allocated to generate revenue, which serves to obtain benefits or accumulate wealth. It is the concept of capital that prevails in economics, and thus it is said to be the product for new production. Capital is formed through a productive first operation and a second output in which it is applied. Labor creates the product and transforms it into capital, leading to what some refer to as accumulation of labor or advanced labor. Capital represents the idea of a use or purpose that can encompass all: money, wheat, uprooted trees, and all products without distinction. These will cease to be capital or engaged according to new productions or if consumed unproductively. Hence, capital takes multiple forms as varied as the results and combinations in industry. However, due to the role that capital plays in trade, it can be categorized as follows:
- Supplies: Everything that supports workers while they develop new products.
- Raw materials: These are the results of earlier work and form the foundation of any industry.
- Auxiliary materials: These are consumed to change the initial raw materials, such as fuel, etc.
- Farmland and industrial buildings: This includes all alterations made to the land to prepare it for agricultural work or manufacturing, such as clearing, buildings, and communication roads.
- Machines: Tools that assist in our labor.
- Money: Although not directly involved in production, it is also a form of capital, as it can be used to purchase goods where capital is involved.
- Rights to services: This includes debts and obligations that can be applied productively, representing a changeable value.
Capital, like child labor, is a constant companion in economic tasks, making functions more effective and less painful for human effort, multiplying products, improving them, and reducing costs. However, it requires expenses for conservation and renovation.
Alienation: Alienation or estrangement refers to a circumstance in which a person is not the master of themselves and is not ultimately responsible for their actions and thoughts. For Marx, this is the condition in which the oppressed class lives in every society of exploitation, particularly in any society that supports private ownership of the means of production. Drawing from Hegel, Marx describes a situation where a subject does not possess themselves; when an activity cancels their essence, they become something other than themselves. We say that the subject is alienated, indicating a schism within the subject, who does not possess a complete self and consequently behaves contrary to their own being. While Marx adopted Hegel’s concept, there are significant differences in their interpretations. Marx believes that the emergence of private property creates a new social circumstance that can only be removed with the abolition of this form of ownership. We can understand this new situation by examining alienation in slave society: slaves do not belong to themselves but to their masters, who can dispose of them at will, including their bodies, minds, personalities, and abilities. The distinction lies in the individual, their activity, and the objects produced by their activity. In that society, the slave does not own themselves (lacking complete freedom) nor their work, which belongs to the master, along with all objects produced by the slave’s labor. According to Marx, the same applies in the capitalist production system: this man makes something, merchandise, used by the owner of the means of production merely as a tool in the production chain of goods. Private property alienates man because it is treated not as an end in itself but as a mere means or instrument for production.
Gain: Profit obtained by the capitalist from the sale of goods produced by workers. Marx distinguishes goods based on their use-value and exchange value. Use value is the value an object has in satisfying a need, referring to the features of things that help fulfill any need, from biological (like food) to more spiritual aspects related to leisure and culture. Exchange value is the value an object has on the market, expressed in quantitative terms, measured by money. Two objects with different use values can have the same exchange value, as determined by market laws; for example, a computer can cost the same as a motorcycle. A peculiar feature of capitalist society is that the workforce is also a commodity: since the producer has no other means to obtain goods and subsistence, they must offer their labor in the market. Just as market goods are subject to fluctuations based on supply and demand, the workforce also has a price determined by these laws. However, unlike other goods, such as a car, which merely satisfies human needs, the commodity we call productive power has the unique property of producing other goods. The workforce has both an exchange value and a use value. At the same time, the goods created by such work possess both use value and exchange value, but their exchange value always exceeds the value of change, which is the productive force that created them (the wage). Although this latter value may include other quantities, such as the amortization of machinery used in production or financial costs incurred by an employer, there will always be a difference. This difference is called goodwill and represents the profit of the capitalist. Without this profit, a capitalist society would not exist. The proposal of Marxism is the disappearance of surplus value, suggesting that the value of the object produced by the producer should be returned, either through direct profit-sharing among all workers, as in the cooperative interpretation of socialism, or indirectly through the state providing goods that can be enjoyed (such as roads, education, free healthcare, unemployment benefits, or pensions), as in the state interpretation.
Work: Activity through which man transforms reality to meet their physical needs, which has a purely economic dimension and becomes an anthropological category: Marx characterized man as a being endowed with a principle of motion, which determines their drive for creation and spirituality. In capitalist societies, work is often experienced as alienated, rather than as an activity of self-realization. It is essential to appreciate that for Marx, the notion of work transcends mere transformation of reality. Man is not passive but active, and work is a personal expression of their physical and mental capabilities, the place where man develops and refines (or should develop and refine). Thus, work is not just a means for producing goods but an end in itself, sought and enjoyed for its own sake. Given this understanding of human nature as a being who can only find perfection in work, it is not surprising that the central theme of Marx’s philosophy is the transformation of meaningless, alienated labor into rewarding, free labor. In his early writings, he referred to this realization of inclination as personal business, and when he criticized the concrete forms of this activity in capitalist societies, he demanded the abolition of work. In later writings, he established a distinction between free labor and alienated labor, and his critique of alienation expressed concern about the emancipation of labor.
Infrastructure: Or economic structure. The material base of society that determines social structure, development, and change. It includes productive forces and production relations. The superstructure depends on it: it is the fundamental factor determining the historical process and social development and change. In other words, when the infrastructure changes, the entire society changes (social relations, power, institutions, and other elements of the superstructure). It is composed of the productive forces (natural, technical, and workforce) and the relations of production (social relations established between people based on how they are linked to productive forces, such as social classes). The superstructure (legal and political forms, philosophy, religion, art, science, etc.) is dependent on the infrastructure.
Superstructure: The collective elements of social life that depend on infrastructure. This group includes religion, morality, science, philosophy, art, law, and political and legal institutions. The basic thesis of historical materialism is that the superstructure depends on the economic conditions in which each society lives, the means and forces of production (infrastructure). The superstructure has its own history, but it is a function of the class interests of the groups that have been created. Changes in the superstructure result from changes in infrastructure. This theory has significant consequences: on one hand, a complete understanding of each element of the superstructure can only be achieved by understanding the economic structure and the changes at its base; on the other hand, the idea that there can be no independence of the human mind or thought from the world economy in which people are engaged, which can promote a certain relativism. In the case of philosophy, this means that the history of philosophy cannot be an internal history of thought (like a narrative of how philosophical systems give rise to others) without appealing to something external, such as the economy, to understand one’s own philosophy. Philosophical theories are the result of the economic and class struggles in which society is immersed, affecting each philosopher’s work.