Jimmy has devoted his life to his job of factory work. Jimmy puts bolts on engines all day, five
days a week. Jimmy devotes a third of
his day to installing these bolts. What
Jimmy is doing is alienating his labor from himself. Jimmy has to take time out of his personal
life in order to work at the factory. He
works there because he needs money to pay his bills. Jimmy has other hobbies that he enjoys doing
like making furniture. Furniture making
requires work, however since Jimmy enjoys making it and he owns the final
product, it isn’t considered alienation.
Alienation is where a person creates or help creates something and doesn’t
own the final product. Alienation also
refers to separating people from other people.
While working, Jimmy isn’t allowed to talk to his co-workers as his
production time would slow down. While
making furniture however, Jimmy may invite a friend over to talk about life. You can see the difference in engine making
and the furniture making. Jimmy doesn’t have
the freedom to do what he desires at the factory but while at home, he is free
to make his own decisions.
While
helping to create this engine, Jimmy has no ownership of it once it’s
completed. Instead he receives a
paycheck as a substitute to the engine. Jimmy
is also being exploited in the fact that the owner of the company is making a
profit off the engine. The owner has
never put a hand on the engine, let alone sees it, but he still owns it. Exploitation occurs when people take and own
things that they haven’t created and trade it for something. The owner here didn’t do any of the work, however
he is still considered the owner because he controls the money of the company. Jimmy is just a worker there who gets paid to
add to the owner’s wealth.
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Here's a picture of Jimmy's closest friends. Here you can see that they are working in a different factory and working all by themselves, however their co-workers are nearby. These people aren't interacting and instead have a heavy focus on their work, otherwise know as alienation.
Nice example. The three parts of Marx's theory is alienation from self, the product, and working. In your example, you explained how Jimmy suffers from two of the three types of alienation, since he enjoys the final product with the purchasing power created from his job. However, during his time at work, he is isolated from his coworkers and is unable to meet his full potential. His ambitions are stamped out by a capitalist system. I think you described Marx's theory perfectly. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThis example is exactly what Marx had in mind at the time he and Friedrich Engels were writing--factory hours were long and the pay was poor. The explanation in this blog makes Marx's four forms of alienation pretty clear; I wonder if the impact of alienation is really as bad at Marx makes it seem. For example, if someone completes a monotonous task for 40 hours every week and this person is removed from the product of their labor, their labor/work itself, their fellow workers and friends, and their own 'humanness' does it really matter? I've worked at a factory where the work was boring but the pay was pretty decent and everyone finished work by 2 pm. The parking lot was full of semi-expensive motorcycles and SUVs and the people generally left work in good spirits. Income inequality is still an important issue and CEOs are richer than ever; however, I think most people are fairly complacent in their work environment because they aren't completely alienated. If I can cook simple food for minimum wage at a restaurant and still think about the songs I'm going to write or the friends I'm going to hang out with after work, I'm not fully alienated from my species being. I also don't think most factories prohibit employees from talking to one another which means people aren't necessarily alienated from each other at work. This may not be the case at all factories/places of employment though. I think that if people have a boring work life but can escape from it, they can still be happy; however, I'm sure they would be happier if their work was meaningful to them too.
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