Marx believed capitalism is going to be inevitably reformed through a communist revolution as a response to the ongoing societal contradictions and conflicts that have not been able to be resolved. People have needs they necessarily have to fulfill in order to survive. There is an ever-changing cycle in society that adapts to the modifying power dynamics. In the initial primitive communism, people were acted based on natural restraints, referring to the necessity to hunt and gather for the survival of the group. Even if not all roles were the same, there was equality overall in the distribution of societal goods. Then, with the evolution to feudalism, class structures developed more and became much more stratified.
“The bourgeoisie … has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and has concentrated property to a few hands” (Marx, pg. 63). The highest class ended up receiving most of whatever the workers produced, while the lower classes struggled to survive the harsh conditions of deprivation. There was an entire class of people that worked for their superiors and were producing more than what was needed. Even though there was a production surplus, poverty was considerably prevalent. Given this rearrangement in societal structures, these new social constraints leaded to increased inequality between members of different classes.
According to Marx, classes are composed of individuals grouped together who share a common position related to the means of production. The class division leads to a discrepancy in power distribution which, in turn, results in a very conflictive societal dynamic. In the greater machine that is our society, the means of production refer to the raw material or technology necessary for production; whoever owns those means, has control over those who do not. The proletariat live off the sale of their labor, but do not get to take part in enjoying the products from their work, their whole lives are devoted to the demands of the workforce. They work for the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production and have control over the proletariat.
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It is a situation where the will and command of the ruler affects the ruled, and their possibilities to do something about it are slim to none. Nonetheless, the proletariat class has not always existed in the same way as Marx considered it. In Marx’s class stratification the proletariat in the industrial revolution were directly affected by the dramatic shifts in production procedures that were created to increase production productivity. The new technology being implemented displaced factory workers because these machines made processes faster and cheaper. Workers became a liability in the workplace and capitalists where finding new methodologies to increase profit.
Society embraces the change in interpersonal dynamics relating the proletariat to their labor. The economy is now controlled by those placed in more favorable position within the social rankings, producers vs. consumers. Labor is a commodity, and, therefore, is lawfully regulated like any other of the commodities (Sweezy 1999). This would mean that, in the same way an object (commodity) would be prices based on the cost of production, so would labor of the workers be equaled to the cost of the products made by them. Capitalists made sure to give their workers the minimum for them to barely survive and maintain their families. It could become feasible to compare the proletariat worker to the feudal slave, their social restrictions and unending labor really resembled one from the other.
In spite of that, the slave was only sold a single time to his owner. On the other hand, the proletarian sells himself everyday through their work. Like Marx wrote, “[The proletariat is] a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital” (Marx, pg. 64). In a way, the slave has a secured standard of living while the proletariat lives in uncertainty because he has become disposable to a society that now values efficiency over everything. The new working class is trapped in a cycle of incessantly trying to please his superiors, his personal survival rests in the hands of the capitalist.
Every system has proved to have what can be denominated as internal contradictions. This would mean that there is constant conflict in society, in Marx’s terms: “class struggle.” In capitalism, he pointed out how every bourgeois constantly tries to increase profit by whatever means possible. However, since the bourgeoisie constantly cuts production costs, meaning they reduce the number of workers in factories since they now have machines or found cheaper labor elsewhere, the proletariat’s income gets reduced. So, as the working class has less money to actively participate in the economy, the capitalists have less demand on the product they are selling. It becomes a self-destructing cycle that spirals down ending in a necessary implosion for the evolution of the economy.
Marx analyzed society in terms of classes and production. He argued that in factory jobs, a worker’s duties are so specialized they become incredibly mind numbing. For example, car factories divided their factory workers into different assembly lines. Each group would have a task that would contribute to the overall process of building the car, something like doing quality control of the rear-view mirrors. While the job was not hard it was incredibly dull. It is worth noting that the worker is not essentially needed for their potential, but more so for their ability to fulfill the task at hand. The human is dehumanized and totally stripped from his creative competence. However, there is nothing he can do about it since that job is the only way to provide for his family.
Marx explained the relationship between the proletariat and labor by saying, “the worker becomes all the poorer the m ore wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates” (Marx, p. 49). Working just for the wage received in return is the equivalent of selling your soul to the bourgeois which gives labor control over his life because it has become a sort of lifeline. Because this dependence seems to be one sided, the employee is subject to whatever demands the industry has. Marx identified this as alienation since there is a reassignment of power in the workplace over who controls the labor. Since the worker is alienated from his work (the process), he is also alienated from the end result (the product).
In 2015 The New York Times published an article about the multi-billion-dollar company Amazon. In it, the company’s workplace dynamic was scrutinized in order to corroborate past allegations of the toxic environment there. Inspecting the case closely, it was clear alienation is not something that just existed in the 1800s since it existed in all of its forms. Firstly, employees were alienated from themselves because the job was so demanding, a fruitful personal life was not a feasible reality for them.
Then, they were also alienated from each other given the implemented feedback tools, such as “Anytime Feedback” or “Collaborative Feedback,” that just promoted workers to quietly group to bury or praise the same person at once. This led to decrease in worker collaboration due to the cut-throat environment that did not promote mutual cooperation. Alienation from the work process was prevalent as well. Due to the immense pressure to complete tasks quickly and efficiently, creativity was limited given its experimental nature. Finally, Amazonians were alienated from the products they were creating because they turned out to be so impersonal to them, it is the embodiment of their exploitation.
Marx would explain the problems in the company with his theory of alienation but, also by exposing the hidden exploitation employees are being subject to in their work. Surplus labor is hidden because it does not have to be justified to the employee. One can only see a difference between labor that is necessary and extra work time forced from the employee to increase the capitalist’s profit. The company is tearing their workers down while still expecting them to continually build it up. As previously stated, it would seem workers are powerless in this situation.
However, as soon as they became parts of the machine, they became essential to its seamless functioning. Employees hold a great deal of power in their hands because they are the only reason the economic wheel keeps on turning but, teir bosses have been able to make them think they have no say at all. One criticism of Marxism is that it wants to eliminate primate property. Marx believed that socio-economic problems are rooted in private property.
