Alienation in the Post Cold War Era
Chapter 3
How Marx Traces the Roots of
Alienation to Capitalist Society
(page 4)
[Click here to go back to page 3.]
What happens in a reality in which dog eats dog? Or to put it somewhat differently, what happens in a society in which the most important thing is acquisition of money and things at the expense of people if necessary? In such society our consciousness or many times our deeper unconsciousness consists to a large degree of anxiety, disquiet, boredom, dissatisfaction, antagonism, and loneliness. Such pathos does not represent our human potential. It is the social garbage that is necessary to maintain in a society which is based on antagonistic human relations. This is why Marx writes that: “It [money] transforms real human and natural faculties into mere abstract representations, i.e., imperfections and tormenting chimeras”. The garbage in our mind — the constant worries, thoughts, and insecurities — come from our inability to use our full human feelings and creativity; to feel deeply and to experience deeply. This garbage exists within us because in capitalist society humans relations are enslaved by money which is the universal representation of all commodities including the human commodities. In essence, human relations are transformed into relations between commodities that can be bought and sold on the market with the power of money.
But humans cannot behave like machines or commodities without the degradation of human qualities: through blunting the mind and the heart with imaginary feelings and passions. On one hand, our daily life is dominated with negative feelings of anxiety and insecurities from living in a society that is based of antagonistic human relations. On the other hand, people believe that the illusory features of capitalist society give us strength. Many people are driven to become successful, acquire power, property, money, and things to demonstrate their “success”. Marx says that all this is illusory, and it comes at the expense of our real humanity. The success, power and material privileges that capitalism provide for successful people from the ruling classes and middle classes, comes at the expense of the human potential. This is why Marx writes that “it [money] transforms real imperfections and fancies, faculties which are really impotent and which exist only in the individual’s imagination, into real faculties and powers.” Those with power and success cannot eradicate the feelings of anxiety and doubts when they are alone, separated from the “security” of success; the success, power, and the acquisitions of material things does not overcome people impotence and aloneness; such feelings exist as long as people remain weak and empty human beings. As long as money and capitalism hinder us from developing our human potential, we can only become slaves of our false conditionings, what Marx calls impotent faculties.
What Marx wrote about the 19th century apply more than ever to people in today’s capitalism. We are driven more than ever by the deadness of money and greed. Just observe a person in a Dot-com company or a similar “hot” and “growing” corporation. The greed for money, success, and comfort is the main motivation in life for many professionals and managers. Most of these people have a dull relationship with themselves and hostile relationships with others that is dominated by the mistrust in a society in which success, and the accumulation of money and property at the expense of others if necessary is the motto for life. Many of these people are so wired to the materialist life of success that they lose many of their humanistic feelings. As we explain throughout the book, they become a commodity and an investment for success, that is, their head and feelings reflect the value of the dollar and its social fluctuations at the particular historical time. For a young person, for example, the story of success must follow constant time on the internet and, checking his/her e. mail even on vacations. Such a person would feel anxious and deprived when they are removed from the internet for any prolonged period of time. Their “humanity” is associated with the abstract relationships with others via the internet — their road to success and a comfortable material life reflects the social value of money as it drives people today. We expend on this throughout the book.
The Egoistic Person and Money
Another example is work. Many people are driven to work long hours. They become workaholic, because they believe that they need money to have “fun”, live a comfortable life style, buy the fastest new computer and car, go on pleasure trips, etc. These are all fantasies of a weak and insecure person. A simple psycho-analysis is likely to reveal that behind the drive to work constantly, consume, and have a busy life with “fun”, exists a very insecure personality. Such a person uses long hours of work, and the escapes of gadgets and “fun” as a way to avoid deep human contact. Thus constant work in combination with superficial entertainment and consumption become alien powers that enslave these people and suppress their humanity.
The possession of an illusory ego is essential for people who suppress their humanity. Marx was able to trace the egoistic person[5] into the capitalistic root of his/her ego-centrality. A person who sees others as mere objects to satisfy his/her caprices treats others as commodities. The inclination to dominate and abuse others is the way in which such a person deals with alienation:
“Alienation is apparent not only in the fact that my means of life belong to someone else, that my desires are the unattainable possession of someone else, but that everything is something different from itself, that my activity is something else, and finally (and this is also the case for the capitalist) that an inhuman power rules over everything. There is a kind of wealth which is inactive, prodigal and devoted to pleasure, the beneficiary of which behaves as an ephemeral, aimlessly active individual who regards the slave labor of others, human blood and sweat, as the prey of his cupidity and sees mankind, and himself, as a sacrificial and superfluous being.”[6]
This is a curious passage. It battles the standard myth of the mainstream propaganda about what is a human being. Various schools of bourgeois philosophy and psychology contend that human beings are naturally “evil” and exploitative toward other human beings. We suppose to be ego-center beings that see others as a well to satisfy the uncontrolled thirst and greed. In contrast to this fixed and ahistorical conception, Marx traces the roots of the egoist personality to the person’s alienated existence under capitalism. He contends that such people suppressed their humanity to become “something different — an alien being that is ruled by inhuman power.”, that is, the capitalist society produces human beings that are ruled by the commodification of their humanity, by inhuman power . It is this alienation from their humanity — their inability to connect to others through love, solidarity, and productive life — that is behind the development of the ego-centered person. The ego-centered person see everybody as a foe that needed to be dominated, tamed, exploited or consumed. Marx also points out that such people hate themselves at the bottom. They treat themselves and others as “sacrificial and superfluous being”.
This is a fundamental personality that is essential for all class societies. It was in particular strong personality in the early days of capitalism. With the development of the highly competitive “free markets” global capitalism, the ego-centered person is returning to the scenes with a full blast. It is important to emphasize that Marx associated the creation of such personality with the suppression of non-alienated human qualities. Marx understood that such ego-centered personality emerges pre-dominantly from the ruling classes and the middle classes, who develop their alienated ego around the possession of things and properties:
“The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being.”[7]
Thus, the less you express your life as a free and loving human being who is capable of bonding with the human community and nature, the more you need to possess things, consume things, and rely on a fake ego to accomplish it. This is the essence of the having personality. All the goods and possessions in the world, of course, can never fulfill the inner emptiness of such a person. Thus he/she needs to booster their weak ego by domination and power over others, and by creating around themselves and others fake wants and desires that accompany the lust of power and domination. Marx made the connection between such a personality of the ruling classes and the social world that they rule. You need such a personality to possess others, to oppress, exploit, and conduct wars with mass killings. But at bottom you are a very alienated being who needs the above destructive behavior of the capitalistic social ego to escape the contradiction between your alienated social self and your potential humanity: the deeper self.
For Marx, ending capitalist class society and its alienating social prisons is the only way to stop the domination of society by such ego-centered people. The alternative is the establishment of an egalitarian, rational society that does not need the idolization of money and the inhuman exploitative relationships. Only when we free ourselves from such alienating system, can human relationships be based on love that come from the non-alienating productive work and human relations in general. Only in such environment we can break the curse of commodification in human relations and become who we could be by developing our human potential.
[Click here to continue to page 5; click to here to go back to page 1.]
[5] The egoistic person from Marx and our point of view is a person who needs to satisfy his/her needs without regards and in many times at the expense of others; hence the tendency of the egoist person to exploit and use others.
[6] From Karl Marx Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, quoted in Marx’s Concept of Man by Erich Fromm, page 151, emphasis in original.
[7] Ibid., page 144, emphasis in original.