Friday, November 18, 2011
"[Communism] is a Humanism"
In class yesterday, we talked about how Marx investigated the event of alienated labor. To sum up his points, in a system of capitalism, labor is disconnected from nature, human beings are objectified in producing the products of labor, humans lose that free conscious activity which defines humanity, thereby alienating them from their labor, and labor sustains the concept of private property. Now...I mudt say that I agree with Marx's argument. Of course it would be easy to disagree, being that we are all, currently, alienated from our labors and thus serve as members of the ill-protected proletariat. Yet, when Dr. J mentioned in class that things like Unions are put into place BY the bourgeosie in order to, basically, give the proletariat a false sense of protection, it made me think about Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism. Let's think about it. In a strange way, they are amking the same essential points. Sartre dealt with the idea of Bad Faith. He says that all humans are freedoms, and thus have the ability to transcend most facts of their situation. Furthermore, in order to be Actually Existing Individuals, we must be aware of this transcendence instead of living our lives in Bad Faith. Only when we become aware can we be classified as Actually Existing beings. Marx is saying something similar here. The proletariat are essentially not freedoms because they are being objectified through the products of their labor, thus alienating them from their labor. Furthermore, they are living in Bad Faith, convincing themselves that they are the owners of their property when they are actually not. Only when there is a deletion of the concept of private property, and the proletariat gain a sort of class consciousness (or unified knowledge of their ability to transcend their situations), will they be able to live in a more fair, communist society. In both cases, people must acknowledge their own personal freedom in order to live "the good life." So, in this case, like existentialism, doesn't that kind of make communism a humanism
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Ivy,
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good, thought-provoking post. Although it’s always tricky to try and compare/reconcile two very different philosophies like Sartre and Marx, I think you bring up some interesting points. Marx is claiming that capitalism constantly evolves to prevent people from being aware of their classes and class conflicts. This does seem very similar, as you said, to Sartre’s claim about recognizing/accepting our “essence” as freedom and the responsibility that comes with that. If you really want to make the connection between the two stronger, you could say that capitalism is an economic form of Bad Faith. Although, this is admittedly just imposing Sartre onto Marx and capitalism. But I think capitalism as Bad Faith is an interesting concept, since it does intend to avoid the facticity of our (economic) situation, while simultaneously preventing us from transcending it anyway.
I think you drew some interesting connections between Marx's ideas on alienated labor and Sartre's on freedom and transcendence. It's interesting that these two philosophers can superficially discuss such different topics (Marx focuses so heavily on the system of capitalism while Sartre's concentration is on more personal perspectives) but areas of overlap like those you discuss can still be found. I agree that the formation of class consciousness is a kind of transition from bad faith to awareness of transcendence. The proletariat live in patterns of bad faith, accepting the alienation of their labor as inevitable, something out of their hands entirely. It is only when they achieve class consciousness, a recognition of their own powers as the majority over the bourgeoisie minority, that they can revolt and create a more equitable system. Fundamentally, they must realize their ability as pour sois to transcend the current facticities of their society. Sartre intended his theory to apply to individual humans, and indeed, class consciousness is nothing more than a collection of individual realizations of freedom and transcendence.
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