This is a paper written for my Modern Political Thought class at Portland State University in Spring 2018.
Marx writes quite a bit about the alienation of the worker from his production. Marx concludes what a worker creates in a factory over time becomes an alien force which has greater importance to the capitalist than the worker does. This alienation is exemplified in the recent technological patenting by Amazon which tracks worker production. According to Marx, the shipping of products by Amazon is more important than the alienation the workers experience on a level of self alienation and alienation of species-being.
The patents were filed by Amazon in 2016, but were just granted in February 2018 are for a wristband which would track employees hand movements and vibrate when the employees hand was not at the correct product (Yeginsu 2018). The wristbands would also track employees movements throughout the work day, and keep track of how long employees were doing tasks. A former Amazon employee stated working in an Amazon shipping facility was so strict and timed if you “didn’t make targets, you were fired.” He further stated he “felt like one of the robots he worked with.”
Marx spends a great deal of time in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts discussing alienation in its various forms. Marx states “The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object…but that it exists outside him” Marx means here the worker’s production, in the Amazon case the products pulled for shipping, force the worker to become alien to himself. Marx believed a worker’s labor is what he was, and by conducting labor devoid of creativity, a man became an alien force to himself.
Marx emphasizes the point of alienation from the self through production in the Manuscripts stating “the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself.” This clearly relates to the Amazon case because the more efficient the warehouse worker becomes, the higher the standards Amazon places on the workers, making them work harder and longer for the same pay. Therefore, the production the workers creates becomes their enemy, the alien force outside and against them Marx speaks about.
The more the workers devote their labor to this hostile, alien force, the weaker their position becomes to Amazon. Marx claims this kind of work is the “activity of alienation” meaning the more of this kind of labor a worker does, the more estranged he becomes to himself and his species. This estrangement forces a worker to fail to live up to what he should be as a human, being chained to the money brought in by wage-labor.
Marx discusses gattungswesen which roughly translates to species-being in The Manuscripts. Marx asserts humanity is a species-being stating “Man is a species-being, not only because in practice and in theory he adapts the species as his object, but…also because he treats himself…as a universal…free being.” To that end, Marx means so long as a person treats him or herself as a universal and free being, they are living up to their species-being. How a person treats him or herself as a species-being is all in the material production he or she labors at. If there is no creativity in the labor, a human becomes estranged or alienated from his or her labor, and the product of that labor.
This alienated activity forces the laborer to view the labor only as a means to an end. Marx states in The Manuscripts “[for] labor, life activity, productive life itself, appears to man in the first place merely as a means of satisfying a need-the need to maintain physical existence.” When a man is only concerned with sustaining himself, he continues to fail to realise his species-being mentioned earlier. Marx would equate all wage-labor as an alienated activity which estranges a worker from himself, his fellow man, and from his species-being.
These wristbands create an alienation between the worker and his species-being. Marx states in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts “[the] animal is immediately one with its life activity. It does not distinguish itself from it.” This means that the animal only does what it must to survive, a robot could be seen as doing the same thing, except instead of survival, it is based on programming. Further, Marx continues “[in] creating a world of objects by his personal activity, in his work upon inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species-being.” Marx means here that so long as you are consciously producing something, you are realizing your human species-being. The wristbands force the workers to become more synonymous with the robots that will one day be replacing them.
Marx would argue this tracking technology makes the product more important than the worker producing it. Marx states in the German Ideology “[a] man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him.” Marx means the product controls the worker which is hostile to the worker. The workers at Amazon, by this employee’s testimony, are filling in until the robots can fully replace the workers. This replacement of workers by robots is a direct result of the division of labor under capitalism and the capitalist’s desire for maximized profits and minimized costs.
Marx further argues in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts “[the] relation of the worker to the product of labor as an alien object exercising power over him.” In the case of Amazon, the capitalist holds the product higher than the worker. The vibration from the wristband controls the worker to keep the product of their labor over the worker in a hierarchy. Further these wristbands track movement and efficiency, allowing the capitalists to “trim the fat” from their workforce and replace them with more efficient workers.
Amazon has begun treating its employees as animals, or with this new technology, like machines. As stated, the animal only concerns itself with its sustenance, producing only what it needs to survive. A machine on the other hand does only what it is programmed to do. These wristbands move one step closer to making people act more like machines. These wristbands alienate the worker from not only themselves, but their species-being by removing their ability to engage their labor in a cerebral way. The labor under the yoke of the wristband is one of programmed estrangement.
Without comparing workers to animals or machines, we fail to connect this kind of labor with the alienation the workers suffer. The estrangement workers suffer by being alienated from themselves weakens and dulls the mind, failing the man when it is needed most. A weak and dull mind is unable to ruthlessly criticize all things, all the time. Without the ability to criticize, a man is unable to come to the truth of the world he produces. By failing in these two pursuits, a man fails to realise his species-being. If a man is alienated from himself and his species-being then the only thing left to compare him to is either an animal, or a machine.
The animal comparison can be rejected as the wristbands seem more a means of programming rather than domestication or husbandry. This technology seeks to make people more like machines, removing all criticism and creativity from the labor in which they engage. Labor devoid of creativity is labor not fit for humans. Only under capitalism, according to Marx, does this kind of labor form.
The division of labor in capitalism Marx argues in the German Ideology “each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.” As these Amazon employees have had their labor divided down to the point of pulling products from shelves to package, they are unable to creatively express themselves in their production. Their production does not create anything of use-value, only moving a product from one place to another. The wristbands prevent the worker from truly engaging with his or her production on a critical or intellectual level. By removing a worker’s ability to critically, intellectually, or creatively engage in labor, this perpetuates the alienation of worker from his or her production, creating a greater “activity of alienation.”Marx argues a great deal against these wage-labor jobs as being dull and destructive to a person’s humanity. While Marx is correct on the outcomes of these jobs, he fails to realize these estranging activities are low- to no-skill jobs. Not every person has the ability, knowledge, or inclination to be an artisan. Marx seems to want all people to be, at least part-time, philosopher kings, in the Aristotelian sense. Marx only partially replaces Aristotle’s slaves with machines. Marx claims in Das Kapital that in the morning he could be a hunter, in the day a farmer, in the evening a fisherman, and at night a critic. Marx fails to realise that to be proficient at any of these tasks, you must spend thousands of hours practicing them. Further these alienating activities can be valuable instruction in becoming an artisan, or that there are those in the population who enjoy these kinds of work.
[…] can be used in Chapter 21 and those in the guard like in Chapter […]
[…] The counter to the previous two chapters is the same as any low thrust, to pass back with the…
how much cbd drops for depression
how many mg of cbd ointment for pain
where can i buy cbd oil in the us
0 Comments