Philosophy 152 Philosophy of Human Nature Darwall Fall 1996 MARX II I Again, the characterization of capitalism: what characterizes captialism is not just the existence of economic markets, but the relationship that different individuals and groups have to the "means of production." Capitalism is defined by the interaction of three interdefinable concepts: capital workers capitalists Each requires the other two for its definition. E.g., capitalists are those individuals who own the means of production (capital) and purchase labor of those who don't (workers), in order to combine them to produce profitable products. No workers, no capitalists, and vice versa. Similarly, capital is not simply the means of production, but those means of production in relation to capitalists and workers. And so on. To get a feel for this compare a capitalist economy with one in which all firms are worker-owned. II Marx argues that a capitalist economy is characterized by various forms of what he calls "estrangement" or "alienation". Let's see what he means on p. 227. What does he mean by: "the worker becomes all the pooer the more wealth he produces . . . "? "the worker becomes an even cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates"? "with the increasing value of the world of things . . . the devaluation of the world of men"? "labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity"? the worker's product becomes something "alien""power"? "loss of realization for the workers"? p. 228: "the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects"? "objectification"? p. 229: "labor is external to the worker"? "only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself"? III An important theme here is that work under capitalism cannot be creative and self-realizing as the most valuable forms of human activity are. (Compare Aristotle). This brings us to Marx's claim that work in capitalism is dehumanizing, that it clashes with our "species being."