On the Objectification of Species

But if labourers could live on air they could not be bought at any price.

-Karl Marx, Das Kapital

In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, author Karl Marx points out the shortcomings of political economy and argues that it has not done an adequate job of explaining the question of wage labour and commodities in capitalist societies. He believes that much of the problem lies in the fact that political economy does not sufficiently explain the relationship between the worker and production, and thus, hides the true evils of capitalism from the very labourers who, ironically, fuel the discipline of political economy. Marx argues that political economy merely emanates from the “fact” of private property without explaining private property itself (58) and takes it upon himself to explain the superficiality that is embedded into this so-called “fact”. He says that political economy only recognizes the material process of private property which does not result in a complete understanding of it, and what is worse, it takes these basic tenets as laws which cannot easily be traced back to the nature of private property (58). In this discourse, Marx argues that capitalism dehumanizes workers by turning them into inanimate mechanisms of production for the purpose of increasing capital but does so under the false presupposition that labour fully expresses what humans are.

The type of alienation which Marx is referring to in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts is alienated labour or “unfree labour”, which, he says ostracizes humans from the very actions that constitute their humanness. One of Marx’s main concerns with unfree labour (which he sometimes refers to as “forced labour” in this discourse) is that humans do not have ultimate control over their own labour under capitalism, and are, therefore, robbed of something essential to the human experience (55). Furthermore, humans are forced to dissociate from their drudgery and that which they are producing which causes a level of deprivation that not only interferes with their ability to flourish but eats away at their spirit as well. According to Marx, we should be wary of capitalism because it requires this very type of unfree labour to survive. That is, capitalism not only prevents workers from finding joy in their work, but the worker is also dehumanized in the process. In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx outlines four types of alienation that necessarily arise under capitalism: the alienation of the worker from the product of their labour, the alienation of the worker from their activity of production in labour, the alienation of the worker from their spiritual essence, and the alienation of humans from other humans.

The first form of alienation is alienation of the worker from his product, meaning, that the product of labour does not belong to the labourer, but rather, to another person, namely, the “capitalist”. Marx argues that under capitalism “the worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object” (60) insofar as that which he is producing belongs to the capitalist exploiting him rather than himself. Because of this, the worker cannot claim the product as his own because he is only involved with one, minor, step in the process of manufacturing that product, and without this ownership, the capitalist may do what he likes with the finished product. Marx argues that this loss of control over the product leads to the labourer having a diminished sense of pride in his work (Livingstone). Ultimately, the labourer has nothing to show for all the hours that he has laboured aside from his wage which is, disturbingly, less than the exchange value of the product of his labour.

The second type of alienation that Marx discusses in this discourse is “the fact that labour is external to the labourer” (61), which, according to Marx, “is labour of self-sacrifice” (62). Marx categorizes this type of labour as “forced labour” because “the worker does not affirm himself in his work but denies himself, feels miserable and unhappy, develops no free physical and mental energy but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind” (62). Since Marx believes that the way in which we (humans) labour is the very thing that makes us distinct from other animals, "forced labour" robs us of what would otherwise be our most human experience. What he finds most harmful about these conditions, is that the worker only feels free outside of work, when he is attending to his animal needs such as "eating, drinking, and procreating, or at most in his shelter..." (62) which unnaturally turns these lower, base needs into human needs and the higher, human need to labour freely and consciously, into an unfree, "animalistic" activity (62). In this case, the labour that the worker is accomplishing, is merely a means to satisfy other needs rather than being something that the worker finds pleasure in and says that "the external nature of work for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own but another person's, that in work he does not belong to himself but to someone else" (62). Since the worker is not labouring for himself, but rather, for someone else, he is experiencing a fundamental "loss of his own self" (62) according to Marx.

The third form of alienation concerns the spirit of the worker who is alienated from his “human essence” under capitalism (64). According to Marx, this form of alienation arises from the first two forms and “makes species-life the means of individual life” (63). This is problematic because material production is supposed to be part of our freedom since man is a part of nature in his view. Capitalism threatens this connection because forced wage labour alienates nature from humans and humans from themselves, and thus, “alienates the species from [them]” (63). Marx says that “In taking from man the object of his production, alienated labour takes from his species-life, his actual and objective existence as a species. It changes his superiority to the animal to inferiority, since he is deprived of nature, his inorganic body” (64). According to this part of his theory, we are unique because we labour in a way that other animals do not, that is, freely and consciously, and as a result, “free conscious material production is what defines our species being” (Livingstone). Capitalism exploits this uniqueness by separating humans from the product of their labour, and consequently, “the worker sinks to a lower, and lower, and lower level, and they themselves essentially become a commodity” (Livingstone). Once they have reached this stage of alienation, they are at greater risk of being exploited within the capitalist system. In Marx’s view, laborious activity is intrinsic to man's human nature, but capitalism exploits this laboriousness by employing humans in activities that give them no pleasure or fulfillment. And because Marx does not consider this forced labour to be a genuine form of self-expression, these humans are forced to satisfy this need outside of work to make up for the countless hours of internal deprivation that they experience in the factory.

The fourth type of alienation is what Marx refers to as “the alienation of [humans] from [humans]” (64) which occurs when the labour is no longer the practical social activity that it was meant to be, but rather, a mere commodity that is provided in compensation for a wage. Marx argues that this conversion disrupts man’s relationships to other men because it forces them to be in competition with each other rather than in collaboration with one another as they would naturally be in nature. He says that “in the relation of alienated labour every man sees the others according to the standard and the relation in which he finds himself as a worker” (65). He means that once humans are reduced to a mere tool of production, it impairs their ability to see other humans as they truly are.

To illustrate the difference between free and unfree labour, I will now present you with an example of unfree, “forced labour” followed by an example of free, “unforced labour” as it is understood by Marx in this discourse. As you will see, the first example depletes the human spirit and cripples the soul, while the second example lifts the human spirit and energizes the soul. Imagine an industrial waste sorter. Not the machine itself, but the living soul whose main job is to remove contaminates from wastepaper after it has been portioned onto a conveyor by a drum feeder. This labourer never interacts with the front loader operator whose main job is to scoop and dump wastepaper into the infeed bunker. He never sees the wastepaper passing through the other machines that follow his step or the quality control checks performed by other labourers standing by at other conveyors in the factory. He never interacts with the truck driver who hauls the sorted mixed paper to the paper mill to be repulped and made into recycled paper. He never sees the finished product and he has no control over what is done with it, therefore, he is alienated from his product of labour. The working conditions are isolated, smelly, loud, and monotonous and earn the worker just enough money to pay for his rent and enough food to survive. The job is so tedious that the worker often dissociates from what he is doing. With nobody to interact with, the worker spends countless hours daydreaming about non-work-related things while on the job because he takes little to no pleasure in the work itself. Moreover, the worker is only one minor step in the process of recycling paper, and thus, cannot easily take pride in his labour. Since the labourer works alone, he is alienated from other workers except for some occasional, and often verbally abusive interactions with his boss who has a habit of belittling him. In Marx’s view, this would be an example of unfree labour because the worker is alienated from other humans, from himself, from that which he is producing, and from the activity of production in labour, and is, thus, experiencing all four forms of alienation simultaneously.

Now, imagine a student who struggles with verbal communication but is nevertheless passionate about educating others. Since this student is best able to communicate her ideas through non-verbal methods such as writing, she decides to design a non-profit website through which she may share her post-secondary education and ideas freely with others, and more generally, because she finds joy in the “labour” of writing. For this student, writing is, by far, her favourite form of self-expression, therefore, all the time that she spends blogging on her website, does not even feel like “work”. Not only does this student take pride in her labour, but she also has a deep connection with the topics that she writes about, and thus, maintains a liberating sense of unity with her writing. But best of all, that which she produces is hers insofar as she takes full ownership of her reproductions and has complete control over her project and its contents. She decides how it will be viewed and shared and can claim the writing as her own. This is an example of joyful, unforced labour that we may categorize as “free” because it is free of exploitation and alienation. Motivated by love and the love of knowledge (as opposed to letter grades and/or money), the labour belongs to the writer who is in control of it, hence, the beautiful symbiotic relationship between man and his labour is being both energized and celebrated in this case.

As we can see, for Marx, there is no gray area with respect to labour. In his view, one is either engaging in “forced” or “unforced” labour which means that the student enjoying what Marx would refer to as "free labour" in the second example, is not making any money from her beautiful free labour and, therefore, must additionally engage in some form of paid labour so that she may support herself, mustn't she? Moreover, can we accept the limits of this sort of black and white categorization in the modern world that we live? Is it fair to make any generalizations when it comes to “labour” given the spectrum of labour that now exists in capitalist societies? Marx also insists that humans produce genuinely when they are free of physical need while neglecting to account for their spiritual and intellectual needs which prompts us to ask: do workers have a healthier relationship with their wage labour when they are receiving spiritual and intellectual nourishment outside of work which they can then incorporate into their workday? Do labourers labour more, or less freely when they have a firsthand connection to God and/or other sources of divinity? Do they labour more freely when their reason/rationality is fully developed? These are questions that Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts do not attend to, and may, therefore, be an incomplete framework from which to think about labour and political economy. And although we are thankful for Marx’s passion about holding capitalists accountable for their actions and the working conditions of their labourers, Marx’s theory in this text does not elucidate the spectrum of labour that now exists in some nations that have taken thoughtful steps to protect wage labourers from facing exploitation or other demeaning conditions that could arise under capitalist power in the workplace.

Sincerely,

Heather

Note: This post was inspired by a scholarly lecture "on Marx, Engels and Communism" presented by Dr. David Livingstone, seminar discussion on this text with my wonderful LBST370 classmates facilitated by Dr. Warren Heiti, the novel Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, and the song "How bad can I be?" by Ed Helms and the Lorax Singers.

Works Cited

Livingstone, David. “Lecture on Marx, Engels and Communism.” LBST370, 6 February 2024,

Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo.

Marx, Karl. Selected Writings. Edited by Lawrence H. Simon, Hackett Publishing Company Inc.,1994.