Karl Marx is best known as a revolutionary since his works have founded a multitude of communist regimes during the twentieth century. He was trained to be a philosopher, but discarded that lifestyle in favor of turning toward economics and politics. Though, his writings still have points of philosophy within them. Many of his writings deal with historical and social science philosophy, along with moral and political philosophy. His theory of history-Historical materialism-focuses on human societies and how they develop over time, and claims that they follow many tendencies that can be observed.
He sees the tendencies always ending in communism. His study of the capitalistic economy is based on how he viewed the labour theory of value, which includes what he thought about the removal of surplus value from the working class that had been exploited. A number of Marx’s main theories appear in “Life in the Iron Mills” a work written by Rebecca Harding Davis and earlier works that he had written before Harding had written hers.
In 1841, Karl Marx wrote “On the Jewish Question for Deutsh-französische Jahrbücher (Marx 46). In the article, he claims that Bruno Bauer had not gone far enough when criticizing religion. Bauer had written a piece from an atheist perspective that argued that the Jewish and Christian religion was a barrier to freedom. Marx agrees with this. Men and woman would only become equal in when civil and religious classes were banned (Wolff).
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In this piece, Marx also introduces a difference between political freedom-that is, liberal rights and liberties-and human freedom. He claims that political freedom is possible with established religion, but that in terms of human freedom, political emancipation is also a barrier. Liberal rights and ideas for justice are made on the idea that every person needs protection from other beings that are a threat to liberty and security. This makes liberal rights a human’s rights of separation to protect us from those threats. This makes freedom a freedom from conflict.
Marx’s next piece, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts was written in 1844. The manuscripts covered numerous topics, and are known for detailing his concept of alienated labor. Marx describes a worker under capitalism as suffering from four types of alienated labor. The first is the alienation of the worker from their product. This means that the design and development of a production is not made by the worker, but by the decisions of capitalists. The worker has no control over what he or she produces or the specifications of the product.
The second type of alienated labor is alienation of the worker from the act of production. This is where the production of goods and services within a capitalist society is repetitive and mechanical in that it offers little to no psychological satisfaction to the worker. The labor almost seems to be forced because the worker does the work to survive. The third type of alienation is the alienation of the worker from their species-essence. According to Marx et al, “the species-essence of an individual comprises all of his or her innate potentials.” They further go on to explain that in capitalism, the individual loses their identity and any opportunities for self-development, as the worker is forced to sell their labor as a market product.
The fourth and final type of labor alienation is the alienation of the worker from other workers. The worker is forced to compete against other workers since their labor is seen as a market product. Labor is traded in a competitive market instead of being considered as a “constructive socioeconomic activity characterized by collective common effort” (Marx et al, 25).
In 1861, April Harding Davis wrote the short story, Life in the Iron Mills. Davis uses the story to show class conflict within American culture. She wrote the story to the upper and middle classes so that there could be a change within the class structure. Within the story are many examples of Karl Marx’s theories, especially his theory of alienation. In the story, Davis describes:
Not many of even the inhabitants of a manufacturing town know the vast machinery of system by which the bodies of workmen are governed, that goes on unceasingly from year to year. The hands of each mill are divided into watches that relieve each other as regularly as the sentinels of an army. By night and day the work goes on, the unsleeping engines groan and shriek, the fiery pools of metal boil and surge.
This quote provides an image like a machine and the description of the iron mill is hellish, which shows the constant oppression of the lower class. In such a system, the oppressed are distracted by their need to work for their necessities in such a way that they are blinded to the possibility of social mobility. Wolfe, a character within the story, realizes when listening to upper-class men read the newspaper “that between them there was a great gulf never to be passed” (Davis). This describes the large gap between the lower class and the upper and middle classes that is almost impossible to breach. These descriptions follow Karl Marx’s theory of alienation in terms of labor. In his theory, the worker is oppressed and forced to focus on working for their necessities in order to survive. It also describes a large gulf between the classes.
