PC February 15 - The productive work of the workers stands foreign and against the workers in this capitalist system - to understand why, we always resume Marx

Why do we publish steps of this illuminating Marx manuscript on the "alienated work"? Because today (but unfortunately for several years - but the causes cannot be the subject of this text) there is a reversal , even in the consciousness of many workers and workers, of the relationship between one's work and private capitalist purposes of production, between manufacturers of value, of social wealth and appropriates of this wealth; There is a modern "alienation"; so, paraphrasing a phrase by Marx, The worker "feels free only in its animal functions, such as eating, drinking, procrear, and at most still living a house and dressing; and instead you feel nothing more than a beast in its functions human "; He feels man when he does activity for himself who would also do an animal and feels an animal when he does a production activity, creative, social.

So, as Marx writes: "What is animal becomes human, and what is human becomes animal".

From economic-philosophical manuscripts of 1844

Karl Marx

(steps from) Alienated work

[XXII] ... we have shown that the worker decays for goods, to the most miserable of goods, that The misery of the worker lies in reverse relationship with the power and quantity of his production , that the necessary result of the competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands, and therefore the most terrible reconstitution of the monopoly, which finally disappears the difference between capitalist and land owner, as the difference between the farmer and the factory worker disappears, and all whole the company must split in the two classes of the owners and workers without property .

The political economy starts from the fact of private property. But he does not explain it ... the political economy does not give us any explanation on the foundation of the division of capital and work, of capital and earth. When, for example, it determines the relationship of the salary with the profit of capital, The interest of the capitalist applies to it as the supreme reason ; that is, it presupposes what must explain ...

... now we must understand the essential connection that runs between private property, the greed of money, the separation between work, capital and land ownership, between exchange and competition, enhancement and devaluation of man, between monopoly and competition , etc., the connection of all this outsuit process with the monetary system ...

... we start from a fact of the political economy, from a present.

The worker becomes all the more poor the greater the wealth it produces, the more its production grows with power and extension. The worker becomes a much more cowardly commodity

This fact expresses nothing more than this: the object that the work produces, the product of the work, is opposed to it as a foreign being, as one Power independent of the one who produces it. The product of work is the work that has been fixed in an object, it has become one thing, it is the objectification of the work. The realization of the work is its objectification. This realization of the work appears in the stadium of the private economy as a cancellation of the worker, Objectiveness appears as loss and enslavement of the object, appropriation as an estrangement, as alienation.

The realization of the work presents itself as a cancellation in this way that the worker is canceled to die of hunger. The objectification presents itself as the loss of the object in such a way that the worker is robbed of the most necessary objects not only for life, but also for work. Yes, the work itself becomes an object ... as much more objects the worker produces, much less he can possess it and the more it ends up under the lordship of his product, of capital ...

.. The more the worker is consumed in the work, the more powerful the foreign, objective world becomes that he creates before, The more poor he becomes himself, much less his internal world belongs to him. The same happens in religion. How many more things transfers to God, much less he considers it in himself. The worker puts his life in the object; But from now on his life no longer belongs to him, but to the object. The bigger, therefore, this activity is, the more the worker is free of object. What is the product of his work is not himself . The bigger, therefore, this product is, the smaller it is himself. The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his work becomes an object, something that exists outside, but that it exists outside of him, independent of him, unrelated to him, and becomes in front of him one power by itself; It means that the life he has given to the object is opposed hostile and foreign to him.

[XXIII] And now we consider the objectification, the production of the worker more closely, and in it the estrangement, there loss of the object, of its product.

The worker cannot produce anything without nature, without the external sensitive world. This is the subject on which his work is realized, on which his work acts, from which and by means of which it produces.

But how nature provides the work of subsistence, in the sense that work cannot exist without objects to apply; Thus, on the other hand, it also provides the means of subsistence in the narrower sense, that is, the means for the physical support of the same worker.

So the more the worker appropriates with his work of the external world, of sensitive nature, the more he deprives himself of the means of subsistence in the following double direction: first of all, for the fact that the external world ceases more and more to be a object belonging to his work, a means of existence of his work, and then for the fact that the external world itself ceases more and more to be a means of existence in the immediate sense, that is, a means for its physical sustenance. In this double direction, therefore, The worker becomes a slave to his object: in the first place, because he receives an object to work, that is, he receives a job; Secondly, because it receives means of sustenance. And therefore, in the first place because it can exist as a worker, and secondly because it can exist as a physical subject. The full of this enslavement occurs when he can be maintained as a physical subject only as he is a worker and is a worker only as he is a physical person.

(According to the laws of the political economy, the estrangement of the worker in his object is expressed in the fact that the more the worker produces, the less he has to consume; how much more value produces, both less value and less dignity, he possesses; The more beautiful its product is, the more the worker becomes deformed; the more refined his object, the more he abbaries; the more powerful the work, the more he becomes helpless; the more the work is spiritual, so much The more he became material and slave of nature) ...

... Of course, work produces for the rich wonderful things; But for workers it only produces deprivations. It produces buildings, but for the spelonche worker. It produces beauty, but for the deformity worker. It replaces the work with machines, but a part of the workers in a barbaric work falls and transforms the other part into the car. It produces things of the spirit, but for the idiotic worker and cretinism.

The immediate relationship between work and its products is the relationship between the worker and the objects of his production. The relationship that the rich has with the objects of production and with the same production is only a consequence of that first relationship ...

... estrangement is shown not only in the result, but also in the ego of production, within the same production activity. How could the worker make himself foreign in the product of his activity, if he did not estrange himself from himself in the act of production? The product is nothing more than the "resumé" of the activity, of production. So, If the product of the work is alienation, the production itself must be an active alienation ...

And now, what does work alienation consist of?

It consists first of all in the fact that The work is external to the worker, that is, he does not belong to his being, and therefore in his work he does not affirm himself, but is denied, He feels not satisfied, but unhappy, does not develop free physical and spiritual energy, but brush his body and destroys his spirit. Therefore the worker only outside the work he feels near himself; And he feels out of himself in the work. And at home if he does not work; And if he works he is not at home. His work is therefore not voluntary, but forced, it is a forced job. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need, but only a means of satisfying foreign needs. Its extraneousness is clearly revealed in the fact that as soon as the physical compulsion or any other compulsion is less, the work is fled like the plague. External work, the work in which man is alienated, is a work of sacrifice of oneself, of mortification. Finally, the exterior of work for the worker appears in what The work is not its own, but it is of another. It does not belong to him, and he, in the work, does not belong to himself, but to another . As in religion, the activity proper to human fantasy, human brain and human heart affects the individual regardless of the individual, as a foreign, divine or diabolical activity, so the activity of the worker is not his own activity. It belongs to another; It is self -loss.

It therefore comes as a consequence that The man (the worker) feels free only in his animal functions, such as eating, drinking, procrear, and at most still living a house and dressing; Instead, you feel nothing more than a beast in its human functions. What is animal becomes human, and what is human becomes animal.

Certainly eating, drinking and procreating are also frankly human functions. But in that abstraction, which separates them from the remaining circle of human activity and makes them become ultimate and unique purposes, they are animal functions.

We have considered the act of the extremation of the practical activity of man, that is, the work, from two sides. 1) The relationship of the worker with the product of the work considered as a foreign and oppressive object ... 2) the relationship of work with the act of production within the work ...

... [XXIV] Now we still have to derive from the two determinations described a third determination of estranged work so far.

Man is a being belonging to a species not only because of the species, both of one's own and that of other things, it theoretically and practically its object, but also (and it is only a different expression for the same thing) Because it behaves towards itself as towards the present and living species, because it behaves towards itself as towards a universal and therefore free being ...

... the animal is immediately one with its vital activity. It is not distinguished from it. And that same. The man makes his vital activity the same object of his will and consciousness. It has a conscious vital activity. There is no determined sphere in which the man immediately confuses himself. The vital conscious activity of man distinguishes man immediately from the vital activity of the animal. Just for this reason he is a being belonging to a species. Or rather he is a conscious being, that is, his own life is his object, just because he is a being belonging to a species. Only therefore its activity is a free activity. The foreign work overturns the relationship as the man, precisely because it is a conscious being, makes his vital activity, of his essence only a means for his existence.

The practical creation of an objective world, the transformation of inorganic nature is the proof that man is a being belonging to a species and endowed with consciousness, that is, it is a being who behaves towards the species as towards his own being, or towards himself as a being belonging to a species. Certainly the animal also produces. A nest is made, homes, as bees, beavers, ants, etc. do. Except that the animal produces only what it needs immediately for itself or for its born; It produces unilaterally, while man produces universally; It produces only under the empire of immediate physical need, while man also produces free from physical need, and truly produces only when it is free from it; The animal only reproduces itself, while man reproduces the entire nature; The animal product immediately belongs to its physical body, while man freely puts himself in front of his product. The animal only builds according to the measure and the need for the species, to which it belongs, while man knows how to produce according to the measure of all kinds and knows everywhere to prepare the measure inherent to that certain object; So man also builds according to the laws of beauty.

Just only In the transformation of the objective world, man therefore really shows himself as a being belonging to a species . This production is his active life as being belonging to a species. Through it, nature appears as its work and its reality. The object of work is therefore the objectification of man's life as being belonging to a species, as he doubles himself, not only as in consciousness, intellectually, but also actively, really, and therefore looks at a world from it created. Therefore the work estranged by snatching the object of his production from man, he tears his life of being belonging to a species, its specific real objectivity and changes its primacy in the face of animals In the disadvantage consisting in the fact that his inorganic body, nature, is subtracted.

Equally, The work estranged by degrading autonomous activity by means, free activity, makes man's life as being belonging to a species a means of his physical existence.

By the work of alienation, the consciousness, which man has of his species, therefore transforms into what his life of being that belongs to a species becomes for him a means.

Alienated work therefore does:

3) of the being of man, as being belonging to a species, both of nature and of his specific spiritual ability, a being foreign to him, a means of his individual existence. It makes man foreign his own body, both external nature, as his spiritual being, his human being.

4) An immediate consequence of the fact that man is made foreign to the product of his work, of his vital activity, to his generic being, is the estrangement of man from man. If man opposes himself, the other man opposes him. What is worth of the relationship of man with his work, with the product of his work and with himself, is worth the relationship of man with the other man, and also with the work and the object of the work of the other man. ..

... therefore in the relationship of foreign work every man considers the others according to the criterion and the relationship in which he himself is as a worker.

[XXV] We moved from a fact of the political economy, from the extracting of the worker and its production. We expressed the concept of this fact: the estranged, alienated work. We analyzed this concept and therefore we simply analyzed a fact of the political economy ...

... if the product of work is foreign to me, it is facing me as a foreign power, to those who ever belong? If an activity that is mine does not belong to me, and it is an activity of others, a forced activity, to whom never belongs?

To a different being from me.

But who is this being?

Are perhaps the gods? Certainly, in ancient times not only the main production, such as that of the times, etc., in Egypt, in India, in Mexico, appears to be performed at the service of the gods, but the same product belongs to the gods. Except that the gods were never the only masters themselves. Nor does nature ...

..The being foreign, to whom the work and the product of work belong, who uses work and enjoys the product of work, can only be man.

If the product of work does not belong to the worker, and a foreign power is facing it, this is possible only for the fact that it belongs to another man foreign to the worker. If his activity is a torment for him, it must be a enjoyment for another, it must be the joy of the life of others. Not already the gods, not nature, but only man himself can be this unrelated power above man ...

... if he is therefore in relation to the product of his work, to his work objectively as in relation to a foreign, hostile, powerful object, independent of him, lies in relation to it so that master of this object is another Man, unrelated to him, hostile, powerful and independent of him. If it refers to its own activity as a non -free activity, it refers to it as an activity that is at the service and under domination, coercion and yoke of another man ...

... with the estranged work, man therefore constitutes not only his relationship with the object and with the act of production as a relationship, with foreign forces ed. hostile; But it also constitutes the relationship in which other men are with his production and with his product, and the relationship in which he is with these other men. As man makes his production his annihilation, his punishment, as well as his product makes a loss, that is, a product that does not belong to it, Thus puts the lordship of the one who does not produce, on the production and product. As he makes his business foreign to himself, so the activity that is not his own ...

... therefore, with the foreign work, alienated, the worker puts in place the relationship of a man who is foreign and outside the work, with this same work. The relationship of the worker with the work puts in place the relationship of the capitalist - or as otherwise you want to call the master of work - with work. The private property is therefore the product, the result, the necessary consequence of alienated work, of the relationship of extraneousness that is established between the worker, on the one hand, and nature and himself on the other.

Private property is therefore obtained through the analysis of the concept of alienated work, that is, of the alienated man, of the estranged work, of the estranged life, of the estranged man ...

... Only at the top of its development, the private property reveals its secret, that is to say, first of all that it is the product of alienated work, secondly that it is the means by which the work is alienated, is the realization of This alienation.

This development immediately sheds light on different contradictions so far not resolved:

1) The political economy starts from work understood as the soul of production, Yet it does not give anything to work while giving private property everything ... This apparent contradiction is the contradiction of work estimated with himself, and that the political economy has done nothing but expose the laws of estranged work.

So we also recognize that salary and private property are the same thing, since the salary, to the extent that the product, the object of work, pays off the work itself, is only a necessary consequence of the extracting of the work; In fact, in wages, work also does not appear as an end in itself, but it is at the service of salary ...

... A forced increase in salary ... it would be nothing more than a better remuneration of the slaves And it would not eleve the worker or work their human function and their dignity ...

... from the relationship of work estimated with private property it also follows that the emancipation of the company from private property, etc., from slavery is expressed in the political form of the Emancipation of the workers, not as if it were only this emancipation, but because in this emancipation the universal emancipation of man is contained; which is contained there because In the relationship of the worker with the production, all the enslavement of man is included, and all servant relationships are nothing but modifications and consequences of the first relationship ...