A Cuttlefish in a Capitalist Society

For any creature, what matters most is surviving within the community in which it has been placed. Whether it is the impressive camouflaged cuttlefish or the presumably less impressive human being, all must make their way and either accept the norms of society or assume that their failure is inevitable. This paper, reflects today’s Capitalist society, and how the systematic structure upon which America’s way of life has been shaped and molded upon five sub-branches derived from philosophy: logic, epistemology, social & political, ethics, and ontology. The sub-branches can express the way in which a capitalist society may alienate its citizens unlike the feudal or hunter-gatherer model. Logic gives our reason for beliefs and is the science that gives us the rules of correct knowledge. We see this within social theory as Marx appears as our basis for what is correct knowledge on a system. Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge and the conditions, limits and justification that allows humanity to accept a piece of data as knowledge. This comes about within the societal standards and norms to our labor, our means of production, and our transition from more so primitive societies to current Capitalist societies. Social and political philosophy relates to how human beings form societies, as well as creating and enforcing the institutions that contain them. The citizens of a society, enforce the model that was put into place and the creator of the model upon which there is knowledge. They allow themselves to assume that they’re not being alienated through the acceptance of the model. Ethics applies to the realization in what is a good life — what is right and that is wrong. This knowledge can in all actuality not positively benefit the individual but more so, alienate them. Lastly, ontology or metaphysics asks the question of being, existence, and reality. Overall, the theory upon which all parts are founded; allow the balance that is the construct of an accomplished society.

This can also be seen in today’s line of careers and political tone. According to the reading, Ritzer on Alienation, Karl Marx believed that there is an inherent relation between labor and human nature that is perverted by capitalism, known as perverted relation alienation — “you no longer see labor as an expression of our purpose, and because our labor is no longer our own, it no longer transforms us — thus alienating us from our true human nature” (Ritzer on Alienation, 53). Plato’s definition of justice appeals to this notion by providing evidence that our society is thus unjust. The temperance is the understanding of what should rule in order to create a just society which is the ideal form of a society. In order to have a just city, all must mind their businesses, however; all must just as well have a purpose to which their actions fulfill.

As the model upon which our current society sits begins to unfold the dark realities of its contents, we see in Avineri’s: Commodity Fetishism, that “Marx views the relationship between man and his products in capitalist society under two aspects: while commodities, the products of man, become his master, man, as a worker, becomes an object-less being…Once the objects cease to be objects of human activity and become independent beings, subjects unto themselves, man himself remains devoid of objects and realization” (Avineri, 117). Today, we find ourselves more likely to be satisfied through the acceptance of an object versus an actual being. This is due to the huge attraction that we put upon an object which makes the objects potential for flaws, negligible; whereas other human beings or citizens, are always at a steady disagreement with each other on every situation. This ability to create a false satisfaction implicates a disconnect that is not sufficed through basic human interaction. We replace humans and their place in one’s life, for objects like our cell phones or laptops or game consoles. This is a primary example in which we can begin to hone on the conceptualization of our current Capitalist society being a step backwards. As our purpose and daily activities begin to carry more meaning without the actual presence of humans, we begin to see the object increasing the contribution of the object to surplus value. Moreover, machinery magnifies alienation; human’s faculties become objectified as constantly producing machines and act as the appendage to such.

There is a separation between the city that encompasses the rulers, guardians, and artisans of a community. The citizens must mind their specific duties and pay what is owed. Being just is being intrinsically good, thus as a formation of soul the rulers (politicians) manage laws, the guardians or auxiliaries, enforce and protect the spirit of justice, and the artisans take care of the needs and individual soul. Reasons, intellect and implicit respect for one’s duty implies a just being. A community is just, if it is a structured political body that lives in harmony, and an ideal society consists of your common folk (tradesmen, and farmers), warriors, and guardians. This system of classification can align within the system that separates groups of people in Marxist thought. This is whether one owns means of production decides the class level that the individual may identify with. In his logic, you either own the factory or you don’t, and if you ever planned to overthrow the proletariat, you need to overthrow the means of production. This system is followed and when the security of a capitalist economy is in question, it can potentially affect the triangle that encompasses the concept of a society — including the media, mass-culture, state litigation, and religion. As each society is comprised of groups of people, they must each perform their appropriate function in order to sufficiently assume the right position of power in relation to the others. It is not until each societal role is fulfilled that justice is assumed. The justice of an individual mirrors the justice of a society and its politics. There is a claim that there are three parts of an individual that aligns between the three classes that is a just society. The parts of this individual results in the rationalization of the soul seeking after knowledge, truth and the tendency to act upon aggregated information; a spiritual ability to accept ones existence and is responsible for emotions and money used to fulfill the basic desire. With these three components, an individual may assume his/her position in the just society.

Looking at hunting and gathering societies, John Gowdy in, Hunter-Gatherers and the Mythology of the Market, writes that it is, “an irony of modern life that, in spite of spectacular increases in material abundance and centuries of technological progress, hunter-gatherers, people who have lived with almost no material possessions, have enjoyed lives in many ways as satisfying and rewarding as lives led in the industrial North” (Gowdy, 1). In previous paragraphs, it depicts the fact that Capitalist societies are, in fact, over-simplifying the interaction between humans, and are over-emphasizing the humanity that can be given to objects. That being said, there is a gap between what true progress in the structure of a society is and otherwise, what is merely an evolution in society. As our current Capitalist society continues to globalize and grow in technological advancements, we realize that this is not actually satisfying our need, but instead, increasing the “needs” themselves. Society wants excess and excess means limitless material objects. Our markets and economies are setup to appeal to audiences assuming that their object is not the only object they’ve ever bought or ever will. Rather than competing upon all objects it then is settled down to the select categorical few based upon the description of their use. This allows for the concept of presumption where according to, Production, Consumption and Prosumption from the Journal of Consumer Culture, “it involves both production and consumption rather than focusing on either one (production) or the other (consumption)” (Production, Consumption, Prosumption, 14). This entails, that businesses continue to create goods and objects since the need will always be present. There is never an end to the needs for the majority of objects because of our attachment to allowing them to simplify our lives. Gowdy pointed out that hunting-gathering societies believed that they had everything they needed. They had leisure time which they considered vital to the contribution of balance within their lives.

Hunting-gathering societies believed to have owned their labor and had a closer means to identify their true purpose; thus satisfying the fact that this is their lives. These societies may have experienced less mental drain and damage that our current Capitalist society inevitably ensures within the competitive job force. Life begins to lose meaning as we as well begin to take away from the uniqueness of the individual. In hunting-gathering societies, each individual served a purpose and was known for this. Today, we see cloned robots of people, huge concentrations of them, mimicking each other in fear that they’re doing something wrong. We begin to doubt our inherent instincts on what to do whether that is the occupation you go into or how to complete the duties of one’s job, and instead, we bring upon what the society has socialized us to accept and what the fate of every being is. This shows how this society may have carried more meaning than Capitalist societies do today, and because of this the citizens are prone to wishing that they had the meaning to put upon their labor, a way to call it their own. Overall, Capitalist societies have a firm grasp upon constant progress but the definition of what progress should be has become skewed over the years. This, progress, is no longer the positive outcomes to which an action a citizen performs implements, but rather the perspective on how much excess can be created and distributed among the society.

References

Avineri, Shlomo. 1968. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Gowdy, John. 2011. “Hunter-Gatherers and the Mythology of the Market.” Pp. 391–399. in The

Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, edited by Richard Lee and Richard Daly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ritzer, George. 2008. Sociological Theory. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Ritzer, George and Nathan Jurgenson. 2010. “Production, Consumption, Prosumption.” Journal

of Consumer Culture 10(1):13–36.