Senior Seminar. Among many other things, The Communist Manifesto portrays capitalism as dystopian. Consider, for example, this description — not at all inaccurate for the time — of howthe work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him…. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois State; they are hourly and daily enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. (61-62)
Then there’s the effect of capitalism on the proletarian family, or ratherthe practical absence of the family among the proletarians…. The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour. (71-72)
This point is driven home in our edition by the footnote about an 1833 law permitting children aged 9-13 to be worked 48 hours per week and those 13-18 to be worked 69 hours per week.
Here are some questions: Are workers today “enslaved to the machine”? If so, how? In what ways are families and education nowadays degraded by capitalism? More generally, what are some of the ways capitalism today provokes the “uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,” so that “[a]ll that is solid melts into air, [and] all that is holy is profaned”?
Do you think that capitalism has found a way around what Karl Marx considered the inevitable result of capitalism’s “uncertainty and agitation,” namely, that “man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life”? Is there any future for communism?
Monday, March 2
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5 comments:
As long as the conservative movement, is alive, fights, and strives, there is going to be no place for Communism in the United States. Capitalism seems to be failing us, for the second Great Time, but the Republican Party will not let it go, and mainly because it is a shield for their favor of the wealthy.
Higher Education is most degraded by capitalism, in obvious forms. Almost all text books are ridiculous prices, tuition is sky rocketing, and many prospective students just cannot afford to attend. It is made even more difficult when the Republicans work to cut all the social welfare programs, and all Government funding of Higher or Secondary Education, as they proved during the process in which the Stimulus Package was moving through the Senate.
Workers today, do seem to be slaves of the machine. There are many who would love to move up the social economic latter, but of course..."it's their own fault, and they are there by their own choosing, they could change their circumstances if they really wanted to. pull themselves by their boot straps"...that was me being a conservative, who doesn't think things through, or take into consideration a person's disabilities, family obligations, or the fact that once you're at the top, you want the little guy at the bottom to stay there; so of course the Republican Conservative Party will fight to keep them there!
All that is solid, surely does melt into air!
We talked Tuesday about 'classical education' - found out today that you can now receive a master's degree in the Beatles - http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/04/beatles-higher-education-liverpool-university
Capitalism has certainly ensnared a large majority of Americans. Looking at the constant news headlines gives a clear indicator that Americans have gone over their heads. Many are in foreclosure, or behind on their payments, have vehicles they can't give away and can't afford to drive. I think a lot of Americans were too eager to snag the American dream. What's so dreamy about a mortgage for the next 30 years?
It makes me curious to think what is going to happen once the recent stimulus package hits the economy. I can't help but think about the WPA and the projects that were completed during that time. Are men and women with degrees in philosophy, chemical engineering, micro biology, and business really going to go out and work on highways? Are these individuals who have masters degrees going to build bridges? Not the architectural part of it, but the actual labor? Are these people actually going to be able to hack it and at the same time do it for lower wages? How great would it be if migrant workers came in and did the work for lower wages, thus saving the government money, and those poor bourgeoisie that are so desperate for employment right now were under-cut by the prols?
Are we enslaved to the machine? I think so - I think we're enslaved to the computer, the internet. How much of our daily lives is taken care of by computers? Cars, debit/credit cards, school work, traffic signals, lights, airplanes, trains, etc. (What if the world was turned off? Just think how quiet it would be!) Our lives, no matter how we try to deny it, are run by machines, by technology. We are no longer people, but users at an IP address.
Capitalism today is still depriving the family of quality time together. Anymore, both parents have to work to have a comfortable life. Kids tend to be away from parents because they are never at home because of work. I feel like the machine makes the worker a slave to it today because materials are needed at a fast rate, and machines are the fastest way to get it done.
I feel like the ideals of Communism will never come to fruition in America because, lets face it, we all like being better than our neighbor. We like to have nice cars, fancy clothes, and the latest technical devices. How will everyone be equal, when we would not be satisfied with only the necessities in life. We have come too far to go back to having nothing and being fine with it.
Snoopy
its not the same world its not the same world its not the same capitalism. we have shifted the entire world is mechanized and the exploitation of the politariot is no longer a local event. to face facts globalization has in all certainty caused a shift in class struggle that will take decades to alter, although judging from the current percentages of the federal deficit held by china things may be sooner. in our global economy we have no real knowledge of being a mere cog or gear in the lager scope of the production line. the vast majority of the first world works in a service industry and where as the 3rd world creates our consumer goods. goods which are a example in the shackles which are being worn by the petite bourgeois who purchases the majority of these goods rather than to invest into the markets
ROB
I do think it’s a valid argument that modern American society is a slave to the machines. Machines of every sort have infiltrated practically every aspect of our lives, but because we as individuals only exist as a short span within the grand scope of technological development, we are unable to see the grander scale of technological breakthrough in true perspective, and thus, we don’t realize how “unnatural” it is for us depend so heavily upon machines (but then again, given human reasoning and intellect, perhaps such development isn’t so unnatural after all; perhaps it is inevitable). In the same sense, if we are enslaved, it becomes very difficult to realize our enslavement because it is entrenched so deeply in our lives. We live in a society dominated by a constantly shifting media. Because of capitalistic society’s free market, supply and demand, etc., the ground of expectations from petty issues such as fashion all the way to politics and world relations is constantly moving underneath us. In this sense “all that is solid” really does “melt into thin air,” because the moment we grasp some issue, it’s already flown out the window to be replaced with something else. However, at the same time, we have grown so complacently accepting of our fractured modern lives (it is, after all, all we are capable of truly knowing) and the improvement the products of modernity can bring that maybe we aren’t necessarily slaves, though I am more inclined to think the opposite.
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