Utopians, Marxists, and Labor Under Capital.

The wave of liberal revolutions that swept across Europe following the French Revolution began the process of displacing the domination and restrictions of feudal Europe. However, while this wave of revolutions appeared to promise an emancipatory movement for the common man, it instead supplanted the structure of feudalism, replacing it with a new structure of control. The liberal revolutions, filled with rhetoric of liberation and common rights of man, instead replaced the domination of society by the feudal order with the domination of the bourgeoisie, making formal and political the power they already asserted over the economy, and driving forward the expansion and development that would lead to the rise of the Industrial Revolution throughout Western Europe. It is in reaction to the domination of the Bourgeoisie in political life and the emergence of industrial capitalism that major socialist philosophy and labor novels begin to surface in the West. Amongst the writers and theorists responding to the phenomenon of Bourgeois states and industrial capitalism are the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, Utopian socialists Flora Tristan and Charles Fourier, and foundational figures of Scientific Socialism and Communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, a collection of philosophers and thinkers whose responses to the rise of the Bourgeoisie and Capital address its major political and moral implications with a variety of theories and solutions.

The industrial revolution, as it developed in the United Kingdom, inspired a generation of authors to pen numerous industrial novels, which delivered indictments of the system of industrial capitalism. Amongst this generation of writers is the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, whose industrial novel North and South provides a critical portrait of industrial capitalism. The novel is centered around the character Margaret Hale, daughter of a formerly elite, aristocratic family who is displaced from the tranquility and simplicity of the countryside and transplanted into the bustling industrial city of Milton. In the stark contrast between the agrarian setting of Hellstone, where Margaret previously held residence, and the bleak industrial town of Milton, we see one of the first major criticisms of industrial capitalism made in the novel. In the description of Hellstone, a handful of cottages are described which were “built by squatters fifty or sixty years ago” and “are going to be taken down once the old man who lives in the other is dead.” (Gaskell 25) This image demonstrates one of the major divides between the old feudal society and the new capitalist society seen later in the novel, the lifestyle of the lower classes and their relationship to land and property. In Hellstone, which is still far behind the wave of industrialization taking hold of England’s northern counties, property is still held in relative commons. Without the domination of bourgeois property yet in place, the poorer vagrants and peasant classes are able to maintain some level of connection to the land, and therefore a connection to and ownership of the means for sustaining their lives, which is in opposition to the type of labor performed under industrial capitalism. In fact, the formerly aristocratic repeatedly voices distaste for industrial labor, delivering statements such as “I’m sure you don’t want me to admire butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.” (Gaskell 19) and “Don’t call the Milton manufacturers tradesmen, Margaret… they are very different” (Gaskell 67). While these examples may appear to constitute an attack on the laborer himself, they arrive early in the novel and are followed by Margaret’s developing an understanding for the people of Milton. Rather than serving to dismiss the merit of wage workers themselves, it appears that Gaskell is using the Hale’s complaints about wage labor alongside description of Hellstone to demonstrate the loss of craft and connection to the land associated with the development of industrial capitalism, an assertion that is supported by Margaret’s development throughout the story, and the development of the novel’s major setting, the town of Milton.

Gaskell further elaborates the novel’s major criticisms of industrial capitalism later into the novel. One major element of this criticism appears as Margaret increasingly challenges Mr. Thornton, one of Milton’s chief industrial capitalists. She challenges his insistence on maintaining the mythology of the entrepreneur, claiming that Thornton “considers all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies.” (Gaskell 84) and further challenges his position as an owner by citing both religious and paternal obligations to his workers. This idea, that the owner should, on the principles of religious morality and civic duty, take on a caring and paternal role for his employees appears as the major antidote to the ills of industrial capitalism in the eyes of Margaret Hale. Her challenging Thornton throughout the novel puts Margaret in opposition to the march of capital, and her friendship with workers like Bessy puts her seemingly on the side of industrial proletariat.

However, we cannot pretend that this is a satisfactory answer to the problems presented by the state of affairs under industrial capital. For all of Margaret’s romanticism of the countryside, and her horror at the conditions of the workers in Milton, her reaction seems at least a bit flat. In hoping to appeal to the moral sense of the ruling elite: the owners, foremen, bureaucracy and parliament, Margaret, and the sort of reformists in her tradition, tend to perpetuate the domination of the ruling class, making only temporary gains for their cause, if any gains at all are made. Beyond the fact that reformism makes only gradual and impermanent gains, Margaret’s ideas on improving industrial capitalism are morally flawed, and come from a place of relative privilege. Gradual reform is luxury of those who are not being directly affected by hazardous conditions and abuses of rights, and insistence on reform over revolution often serves to perpetuate the sufferings of the underclass. Given the dramatic conditions of Milton, it is increasingly clear that while reformists like Margaret and the Chartists campaign for change to no avail, workers are left to suffer; By the time a reformist like Margaret has pulled sufficiently at the heartstrings of the bourgeois class, Bessy has died from the fluff.

Beyond the relative ineffectiveness of asking nicely for your oppressors to play fair, Margaret’s ideas of paternal guidance by the owner is inherently conservative and patronizing. The idea that the capitalist should tend to his workers like his flock is a glaringly obvious recall to the role of the ruling elite which Margaret’s family descends from. Her argument that Thornton should be a paternal figure for his workers is not a theory moving towards greater liberation, but a restructuring of old hierarchies and ties. It is not a system that produces freedom for the industrial worker, but rather a return to the relationship of a Lord overseeing his Vassals and Serfs with the only major change present being how the Lord derives his power; that is to say in the substitution of capital as right to rule over bloodlines.

However, if the solutions to the abuses of the bourgeois state and industrial capitalism seen in North and South seem wholly too conservative there is also a quite different school of thinking approaching the same issues as Margaret Hale, the Utopian Socialists. Proceeding from the French Revolution and the experiments with liberal democracy practiced during its course, the Utopian Socialists envisioned a radical new world that in most cases was meant to expand upon the liberatory potential of the Revolution. One such Utopian Socialist was Flora Tristan, one of only a handful of women included in the canon of French radicalism in the 1830s and 1840s. In her essay “The Workers Union”, Tristan presents a challenge to the French state and a model for progression of rights. She begins her essay with a scathing rebuke of the French government and its lack of response to decades of grievances, stating that “justice and humanity imposed the duty of coming to the aid of the working classes by a law permitting the organization of labor (and) that even general interest and security… recommended this measure. But even so, for twenty five years, many eloquent voices have been unable to awaken the solicitude of the Government.” (Tristan 189) While Tristan diagnoses similar issues with the bourgeois state and industrial capitalism that Margaret Hale expresses in Gaskell’s novel, such as the abject suffering of the poor, Tristan advocates a radically different course of action than Ms. Hale does. While Gaskell’s hero believes that appeals should be made to the owners to act as paternal figures, Tristan instead declares “Worker, wait no longer for the intervention promised to you for twenty-five years. Experience and the facts tell you well enough that the government cannot and does not want to be bothered with your kind.” (Tristan 190) While Tristan’s call for direct action is infinitely more radical than the model of reform in North and South, Tristan’s more specific tactical ideology on how to seize power for the lower classes is somewhere shy of being radical, and in some ways aligns with the views of Margaret Hale. The similarity between the two is present in Tristan’s rejection of violence as a means of seizing political and economic emancipation. Rather than endorse the application of force for political means, Tristan advocates the formation of workers unions in order to organize the working classes into a unified body and exact political advancement through coordinated direct action. However, the call for a union is not the only radical (by her contemporaries’ standards) demand Tristan makes. Not merely a socialist but also a profound feminist, she argues that not only the working classes, but the women of the world had been made into pariahs, outsiders from society and its promises. Her assertion that the revolution of society in the favor of the proletariat must include the emancipation and education of women in order to foster the growth of the working class as a whole.

Radical in her time, Tristan’s ideology represents a major contribution to the theory of proletarian struggle and emancipation. Her call for direct action rather than simple appeals to authority appears immediately as a generally accepted concept in the far left. Tristan states that the change needed for the proletariat cannot come from the state or the government, but rather is the result of collective action. The stem of victory for Tristan is not simply the vote, nor is it parliamentarism. Rather it is the muscle, brains and unification of the proletariat. However, much the same as the reformists like Hale and the Chartists, Tristan diametrically opposes the use of force for political gain. While this position is easy to praise on the grounds of the culturally constructed morality of nonviolence, the question posed in my discussion of Gaskell’s novel still stands: is nonviolence in the face of a destructive and fatal system an indication of privilege? On the contrary, does Tristan’s opposition to force represent a more liberal sentiment coming from an otherwise radical thinker. While this theory presents a significantly more radical antidote to industrial capitalism than the theory presented by Gaskell, Tristan’s most significant theoretical point, and the one which maintains the most ideological sentiment today is her theory of proletarian feminism, the assertion that the liberation of the working class cannot occur without also liberating and emancipating women who raise, nurture and educate the next generation of working people. In addition to Tristan, Charles Fourier also expands upon the canon of Utopian Socialist philosophy.

Whereas Tristan’s radical propositions largely equate to a relatively moderate call for a general union, Charles Fourier advocates a truly radical and utopian social system known as Phalanstery. In his essay “On the Phalanstery” Fourier diagnoses a major contradiction that underpins the bourgeois state. This contradiction is the opposition of the civilized state to natural human passions, and the suppression of these passions open expression. Fourier identifies several passions that are elements of human interaction and expression, however for the purposes of this essay we will be discussing the three distributive passions. These passions, which Fourier asserts originate in the primitive age of mankind and have been branded as vices rather than passions, in spite of their importance in achieving social harmony. The first of these passions is the cabalist passion, which drives mankind to associate in closed groups to complete mutually beneficial tasks. While cabals are often decried as being secretive, criminal and dangerous to the whole of society, Fourier asserts that cabals form the basis of close and beneficial human relationships, and that interactions within the cabal are admirable in their “terseness, their animation, the quick play of ideas, the alertness of action.” (Fourier 162) Following the cabal passion, Fourier then defines the composite passion, that passion which “requires in every action a composite allurement or pleasure of the senses and of the soul.” (Fourier 162) This passion too has been subverted by the civilized state. Truly, there is little pleasure of the body or fulfillment of the soul on a factory line, a contradiction between internal passion and material conditions that drives Fourier’s major critique. This critique is further sharpened in consideration of the papillonne, or butterfly passion, which drives man crave “periodic variety in the phases of life and frequent variety in our occupations.” (Fourier 163) This passion, too has been subverted by the rise of industry and the bourgeois state. There is no room for variety and intrigue on the factory floor, nor does the division of labor into separate, repeated tasks conducive to the experience of a fulfilled life. A man who drives rivets into the same spot on units of equipment for 8 hours a day is incapable of fulfilling the demands of the butterfly passion. Beyond its subversion of human passions, Fourier also asserts that the civilized state also reversed natural order surrounding such human and natural endeavors as eating, noting that “in the civilized state, love of eating does not ally itself to industry because the laboring producer does not enjoy the commodities which he has manufactured” a condition which Fourier asserts will be changed under the associative state of the phalanstery, where producers may benefit directly from their labor rather than produce commodities they do not claim any benefit from other than a meager wage. The solution to these ills, according to Fourier, is not an appeal to the morality of the ruling elite, nor is it the foundation of a general union for working men. Rather, Fourier proposes a system of intentional communities which he calls phalansteries, self sustaining, voluntary and cooperative communities that allow for the actuation of the individual’s passions.

As a response to the abuses of industrial capital and the imposition of bourgeois values in opposition to human passions, Fourier’s analysis appears to be both more radical, and more fundamentally useful than the theories presented by Gaskell and Tristan. While the tactic of liberation through the establishment of phalansteries certainly appears utopian in its vision and scope, an observation reinforced by Fourier’s failure to actually establish one in his lifetime, the history of far left revolt and its connections to communes, a term that is mostly synonymous with phalanstery. Surely, Fourier’s vision of small, egalitarian voluntary societies has been seen in revolutionary movements around the world. Given the rise of the autonomous commune in Ukraine under Nestor Makhno in the years following the Bolshevik Revolution, in Catalonia under the CNT FAI during the Spanish Civil war, Fourier’s thesis on phalansteries appears repeatedly as a revolutionary social structure. With the continued push towards communization in places like the Greek community of Exarchia, the autonomous municipalities under EZLN influence in regions of Chiapas and the urban squats that have been established across France and Germany, Fourier’s utopian vision of intentional communities holds precedence still, and asserts itself as a wholly more radical, and more effective strategy for radically recharting social relations. However, Fourier’s vision, as effective as elements of it appear to be, is in many cases articulated in a way that borders on fanaticism. Furthermore, while Fourier studied and referred to Newton in his theory, his work is relatively lacking in a true social science and a controlled, experimental approach to the development of complex theorem later seen in scientific socialism.

Amongst the foundational and most influential of scientific socialists and historical philosophers are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Both Marx and Engels produced a large body of work on topics ranging from political and social economy to revolutionary structure, and employed scientific inquiry and Newtonian sensibilities about time and progress to formulate the basis for the school of socialist thought known as communism. Their first major work together, “The Communist Manifesto” lays out their major diagnosis of the ills of industrial capitalism, analyzing through the lense of scientific inquiry the forces that drive social and political development throughout history. Their theory behind the forces of history is delivered in the opening lines of part one of “The Communist Manifesto”, in which they state “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engels, Manifesto 7) The theory that all of history has been driven by the struggle of an underclass against the class in power represents the writers’ attempt to make measurable and discernable to seemingly invisible forces behind history. This statement represents the foundations of Marx and Engels’ theory of dialectical materialism, the idea that a new society is built by the society before it, and then, capitalizing on the inadequacies and internal contradictions, destroys the old society. Through this theory, the writers are able to explain the rise of capitalism and bourgeois society not as random and spontaneous but as “the product of a long course of development, a series of revolutions in the modes of production and exchange” (Marx and Engels, Manifesto 9) Unlike the utopian socialists and Gaskell, who mostly address the vast abrogations of industrial capitalism against the common man without exploring the root of the system, Marx and Engels set out to explore through scientific inquiry and explain in quantifiable, scientific terms, how industrial capital came to power, and how it spreads. In addressing the bourgeois state, Marx and Engels indicate the massive role of capital, the dead labor accumulated by the bourgeoisie through industrial manufacturing and extraction of surplus value, in influencing the structures of control. Not only are the bourgeoisie of a nation capable of shaping their own national policy, but the hegemony of capital influences international revolutions in modes of production and structures of control. With Engels assistance and funding, Marx went on to explore not only the process by which the bourgeoisie emerge as the dominant class of society, but develops a scientific analysis of labor and value, expressed in his behemoth economic treatise Das Kapital, which outlines the major economic basis of the communist and marxist system, and develops a working theory on the relation between labor and capital. According to Marx’s work in Das Kapital, the wealth of nations under capitalism appears as “an immense collection of commodities.” (Marx, Das Kapital 125) Marx defines a commodity as the product of labor that has both a use value and an exchange value. If a good is useless and not desired, it is not a commodity. Furthermore, if a produce manufactures a good to use for his own consumption, this too is not a commodity for it is without an exchange value. Underpinning value, according to Marx, is not merely the factors of the market and of demand, but also the labor cost, measured in labor hours, to produce a commodity. This is referred to as the labor theory of value, a theory central to Marx’s explanation of the rise of capitalism. If the labor put into the production of a commodity is where it derives its worth, then laborers ought to be compensated for the value they alone create, yet they instead have their surplus value taken off of them by their employer, one of the major contradictions of capitalist production. A man may labor 8 hours a day to produce commodity a. In those 8 hours he produces 1000 dollars worth of commodity a (in this equation let us assume that means 1000 dollars exceeding the costs to produce commodity a). However, this worker, who has only his labor-power to sell, only receives a portion of his productive capacity. The rest is taken by the capitalist as profit.

When compared to the Utopians and Gaskell, Marx and Engels present a methodical and heavily contemplated analysis of the abrogations of capitalism and bourgeois society against the lower classes. This analysis of course proves to be wildly more influential than that of previous socialist thinkers, and there is clear evidence why. Not only do Marx and Engels present a clear and scientific argument against capital, but they furthermore provide a genuine path forward, one that relies not on an appeal to the moral of the structure of control or the ability to establish independent communities within bourgeois society, but instead, an overthrow through any means necessary of the forces of inequity and injustice that underscore capitalist society.

The wave of liberal revolutions that swept across Europe following the French Revolution brought about a radical restructuring of feudal society. The liberal revolutions, filled with rhetoric of liberation and common rights of man, instead replaced the domination of society by the feudal order with the domination of the bourgeoisie, making formal and political the power they already asserted over the economy, and driving forward the expansion and development that would lead to the rise of the Industrial Revolution throughout Western Europe. It is in reaction to the domination of the Bourgeoisie in political life and the emergence of industrial capitalism that major socialist philosophy and labor novels begin to surface in the West. Amongst the writers and theorists responding to the phenomenon of Bourgeois states and industrial capitalism are the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, Utopian socialists Flora Tristan and Charles Fourier, and foundational figures of Scientific Socialism and Communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, a collection of philosophers and thinkers whose responses to the rise of the Bourgeoisie and Capital address its major political and moral implications with a variety of theories and solutions.