Marx in Action: Marx Applied to my Work Experiences

*Note: Another paper written for class. Dense but some interesting trinkets underneath all the language.

Karl Marx lived in a world in which the social and economic structures of society were undergoing rapid and dramatic change. Industrialization was taking the world by a storm. This phenomenon was a response to Adam Smith’s revolutionary insights.

Now while Smith’s insights did indeed lead to unprecedented amounts of wealth creation, Marx observed that this wealth was growing concentrated in the hands of the few and a great chasm of inequality was appearing between different classes of society. The inequality was not only just a matter of economic security, but also in quality of life. In his discussions of this second measure of inequality, he introduces the concept of alienation, which consists of four forms each involving estrangement from different things. They were the product, the process, the species being, and others.

In his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 he writes, “In what, then, consists the alienation of labor? First, in the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., that it does not belong to his nature, that therefore he does not realize himself in his work, that he denies himself in it, that he does not feel at ease in it, but rather unhappy, that he does not develop any free physical or mental energy, but rather mortifies his flesh and ruins his spirit.”

This analysis will focus on a particular experience of mine, specifically focusing on how the alienation from ‘species being’ applies in the contemporary world. In my own experience, I have found significant disconnect between Marx’s portrait of a capitalist world and my observed reality, specifically in regards to ‘alienation of the species being.’ Below I detail in narrative form one such experience. Following, I grapple with Marx’s ideas and consider an explanation for any contradictions.

As a disclaimer, I realize that my experiences are limited so critiques are warmly accepted. My analysis looks at a specific group of people in a specific period of time. Mainly immigrants who experienced life in a country with systemic poverty and then began to work in America.

My uncle owns a food manufacturing facility in Anaheim, California. It began in 1985 in a small office space with just two other workers. Their equipment was rudimentary and the three of them were all engaged in the production process- roasting the nuts, adding the syrup, mixing it well, cutting it into neat bite sized squares, weighing the product, bagging it, and then preparing it for shipping. Now in 2015, the facility is close to 100,000 square feet and sprawls across six separate commercial lots. There are three main production lines with over 100 manufacturing employees involved.

As the facility got bigger, each individual’s responsibilities became more and more defined. One worker might stand at a weighting station 40 hours a week for several years. One worker stacks boxes on pallets all day long. Another worker pours sugar all day long. This operation is the epitome of the division of labor in practice.

I spent about six months rotating through manufacturing positions. A phenomenon that I observed was that the company’s employees tend to mainly be first generation immigrants. Second generation immigrants and individuals that were born in the United States, generally always find the conditions of the manufacturing environment too difficult and the work unsatisfying. Unsatisfying not only in a material sense, but in a fulfilling sense. While dissatisfaction in the material sense is present amongst first generation immigrants, concepts such as fulfillment and self determination are not nearly as common in their rhetoric. Why is it that when they discuss their experiences, they do not use this kind of ‘species-being’ vocabulary?

Marx argues that the ‘alienation’ of the species-being occurs when the labour of individual is not consistent with his human nature. The ‘alienation’ of work can refer to the economic dynamics of the worker and his physical output, but in relation to species-being ‘alienation’ seems to be a mental-psychological state. He feels that human labor must be ‘self actualizing’ and ‘creative.’ For any modern observer of the world, this statement is confusing in light of a large group of people who are indeed dissatisfied with their alienating labor, and yet another large group who speak of their supposedly alienating work in relatively good terms.

My argument is that Marx’s theories of alienation make more sense in the context of a historical progression. Initially, there were millions of people that struggled to live and afford basic necessities. When these millions were brought into the division of labor, the conditions were tough and the labor ‘alienating’ but they still interpreted their own experiences as an improvement. A key concept here might be relativity. An agreed upon designation of good requires an agreed upon standard of bad. What might be exploitive to some, might be a relief to others as the alternative was hunger.

I argue that work under the division of labor is experienced differently based on the individual’s relative level of wealth growing up. The first group that enters into the industrial labor market still has memories of poverty. As a result the conditions of labor are tolerable and the ‘species being alienation’ that Marx speaks of is difficult to detect. But the next generation is raised with more wealth and security and consequently perceives its difficulties in a different light. For this next generation, their baseline experience excludes situations where there is simply no work available and sickness and hunger is prevalent. Their basic needs are met and not in question, and only in this way does the worker grow immensely dissatisfied. This might explain the reasons for the differences in the psyche of first generation immigrants and second generation immigrants.

I reconcile the perceived absence of ‘species-being alienation’ in these particular first generation immigrant workers by understanding ‘alienation from the species-being’ as not an absolute feature of any worker, but instead only a feature of the worker who has grown up without extreme scarcity. Marx describes the desire for self-determination and self-actualization as present in every human. I think that its mere presence, does not imply its activity. The desire to actualize only presents itself when basic economic needs are guaranteed and relatively certain.

Marx’s theory on capitalism is a component of his materialist theory of history, which argues that history is a push towards ever more greater productive capacity. Marx predicts that there inequality and alienation will be defining features. The modern reader may inadvertently assume that these two characteristics will be easily observable and immediately obvious. But it should be emphasized that capitalism is occurs as a progression, and thus certain attributes described by Marx may have not yet fully developed. Marx himself viewed history as a process of ‘becoming.’ Alienation of the species-being will appear in greater degrees as capitalism continues to expand.

One potential example of this is the rise in contemporary literature discussing Millennials and their pursuit of fulfillment at the cost of financial security. The White House writes in it’s Millennials Report, “In sum, quality of life appears to be a focus of this generation: Millennials value staying close to family and friends, having free time for recreation, and working in creative jobs.”