The development of the nature of humankind
In Private Property and Communism, Karl Marx shows how private
property causes a change of the nature of mankind from simple utility to human
self-alienation. Private property, as explained in Alienated Labor, causes humans to be alienated from human nature,
as they work without free conscious activity, all so that they can get by.
Private property creates a sense of having, which is a contributing factor to
alienation.
Marx discusses how human beings
have an “immediate natural species-relationship” (70), meaning that humans
naturally interact with each other. In
addition to this, Marx says that humans’ “social organs are developed in the
form of society” (74). Because the quest for private property has become the
norm for society, people’s social organs are continuously shaped by the sense
of having, and they become so
preoccupied with it that all their other senses will become alienated,
therefore these other senses are never fully developed. “All the physical and
spiritual senses have been replaced by the simple alienation of them all, the
sense of having” (74). People will reach the point where “…the life they serve is the life of private
property, labor, and capitalization” (74). An example of such a person is the
dealer in minerals, who never developed a sense of beauty for the minerals he
deals, and only works to sell them.
What people
know of nature changes completely as they become dependent upon on private
property. “Nature has lost its mere utility use by becoming human use” (74).
People become dependent on their private property, so they must work for wages
to maintain it, because “private property is with labor at its essence” (69).
The result of this labor and private property is self-alienation, and change in
the nature of humankind to one of dehumanization.
Question for the group: How specifically does communism
reverse this change in humankind: How does communism re-humanize people?
Anker poses the challenging question of how Marx believes communism will re-humanize an alienated and materialistic society. From my interpretation, Marx suggests that the greed and competition that drives the current economy isolates individuals in a material transfixion. It is only by the communal sharing of property and general human relationships that unites society as humankind. This is what Marx calls "universality communism," and emphasizes natural human nature over materialism (69). Marx argues that according to true human nature, we are social beings. He argues that the most natural relationship is between a man and a woman, rather than a man and his private property. This example "indicates the extent ti which man's natural behavior has become human or the extent to which his human essence has become a natural essence for him, the extent to which his human nature has become nature to him," (70). According to this definition, the essence of humanity lies in shared relationships, rather than the isolation that the current economic competition creates. This is his reasoning behind proposing universality communism over a capitalist model.
ReplyDeleteEleanor, building off your excellent point to answer Anker's question, in curbing material transfixion with the promise that one's labor is not lost, communism re-humanizes people by reimbursing the life one puts into his or her work. This reimbursing process does not leave a worker alienated because the worker's efforts are his or hers in addition to everyone else's. Once a worker is no longer in the forced labor state of isolation, he or she regains the opportunity to become a social being once again. Without the need for or want of "having," as Spank mentions, a human does not ingratiate themselves in the alienating world of capitalism.
ReplyDeleteI Agree with Eleanor and Eric. I would expand upon the Eric's point by further exploring the notion of value. In the capitalist system the value of both objects and human labor is distorted by the fact that "private property has made us so stupid and one sided that an object is ours only if we have it, it exists for us as capital"(74). This distortion of value that Marx's references is what he sees as one of the greatest evils of capitalism. Communism re-humanizes people by establishing the proper value for objects and labor. Seeing this true value of things is vital to living our species life in the proper way. Marx says that under communism "actual life is positive actuality no longer attained through the overcoming of private property"(79). The destruction of distorted value thus enables humans to live out their proper actual species lives.
ReplyDeleteConsequently, I would also like to agree with the statements above. Marx says "This communism as completed naturalism is humanism, as completed humanism is naturalism. It is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man; it is the true resolution of the conflict between existense and essence" (71). It seems to me that Marx believe communism to not just change the nature of humans from that of pure existence caused by the alienation of labor but actually support a individual human essence within the being. It is interesting because it is almost as if he says that the communal aspect communism offers in fact offers humans to be more individual and pursue their own needs.
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