One of my oldest and bestest mates in the world remains a Commie from our uni days. He even still works in a far-left trade-union. I am not, despite writing a very sincere and – dare I say – brilliant honours thesis on Marxist economics. Though I still believe very much in the importance of class-struggle and other cognate Marxian concerns.

But about ten years ago, I tweaked as to where my mate and I took different roads. I do not see “exploitation” in the same wicked way that Marx – and my mate – do. I see it more neutrally as “leverage” that can benefit both parties. Sure, as the examples above attest, Kist “exploitation” can still enrage, but it is not necessary to the system keep on keeping on.

Where my mate had a big draw in of breath, a skull of the schooner, and a shake of the head was when I followed with I don’t think that extracting surplus value necessarily has any ethical/moral import. Sure, it CAN; but it needn’t, and again Kism can funtion without this understanding of the extraction of surplus value.

One of the most telling aspects of Marx’s Judeo-Xian metaphysics is this fear of change – expressed in his notion of constant crisis. Marx, like John Donne, longs for the tranquility “in the fullness of time”, and employs all sorts of theory and social agents to bring on the Second Coming. Perhaps he wanted to stop the cry of the lambs ringing in his ears? We read this Judeo-Xian eschatology now in the bourgeois-left critiques of the so-called GFC, by the likes of John Quiggin. A few huge banks failed, there was a weekend or so of drama, but nothing big really happened, and even it did, who wants life to be a constantly self-replicating version of Groundhog Day?

Give me colour, movement, and dynamism, or give me death!

1844 doc: shorthand for Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Marx born in 1818 (26 yo in 1844)

there seem to be a number of problems taking the 1844 (young marx) as definitive, some of these relate to “young marx” and some are more general, relate to any marx
- translation German to English, this is often mentioned in footnotes by the translators themselves
- language also changes over time (eg. fetishism has sexual connotations today but according to the wikipedia page on Marx in his day meant something made by people which people believed had power over them)
- marx was more mature when he wrote Capital (Volume one, first published 1867), he had developed his concepts further
- his closeness to Hegel’s thought in 1844 and the potential audience influenced by Hegel (young Hegelians waned later)
- revolutionary ferment of 1844 which ebbed later, the language used in revolutionary times tends to be more radical / polemical / urgent
- the subsequent reforms of capitalism – in marx’s time (young or old) there was no welfare state, safety net for unemployed

I’ve read part of the 1844 manuscript (Estranged Labour section) and reread Chapter 1-4 of Capital: The Fetishism of Commodities, also 1-3 The Form of Value and some other material as well

Capital is much more grounded in a thorough analysis of commodities (use value, exchange value and value) and the different forms of value – commodities are not clearly identified and analysed in 1844 (just products of labour)

Some of the extreme statements in the 1844 document about the conditions of workers are not found in these sections of Capital – (I haven’t read all of Capital yet so they maybe there in later sections), statements like these, read original for context :
XXII para 7: the worker becomes poorer the more he produces (repeated in para 9)
XXII para 9: to the point of starving to death

XXIII para 6: deformed worker, barbarous worker
XXIII para 7: hovels, deformity, stupidity

These descriptions would have been true for that time but Marx’s later analysis was a more generalised analytical critique of capitalism, not so much the specialised case of early capitalism which ground workers down in a uniform, barbaric fashion

In Capital the word alienation can be read as “sale” (as in sale of labour power) whereas in the 1844 doc it can be read as psychological alienation.

Well, does sale of labour power lead to psychological alienation? Yes, as can other aspects of a weird system. Although this is true the way I read it is that that is not the main point of Marx’s later writings, rather he systematically unravels all the contradictions of capitalism and where they lead to.

1844 doc has a 4 part summary of alienation:
1) alienation from object,
2) alienation from the act of labor,
3) alienation from speciesbeing (man qua man), and
4) alienation from others (man from man).

In Capital this 4 part summary is replaced by : the social relations between workers takes the form of social relations between products. This is repeated in many different ways some of them poetic. My shorthand for this is “commodity rhetoric”, need further elaboration and reading of the original in full carefully.

On the other hand the religious analogy or metaphor of 1844 is repeated in Capital. ie. man creates gods in his imagination which have relations with each other (like greek gods) and people; commodities are like that too

I read that the 1844 doc was not actually published until 1932, ie. after Marx died Engels did not see it as a priority to publish, nor did Marx in his lifetime

At this stage my guess is that the 1844 doc ought to be treated as rough formative document that was more fully worked out later by Marx and there was a change in emphasis from something akin to psychological alienation to a more materialist analysis of the commodity and its forms

My analysis is incomplete at this stage but this might be useful for discussion

I’ve worked with people who, like you, generally enjoy their job but how common is this? If it’s the norm, then we’d better wait for ‘the big one’ to hit. I don’t have a firm view on whether the ratio of alientated to living labour increases or decreases with tehcnological changes that reduce the need for manual labour but it makes sense that people in such jobs would feel less alienated and are better off than those in process work. However, being less alienated can or might or will result in people wanting to be even less alienated.

As I understand it (in my limited way) the alienation of labour power, the exploitation of wage-labour, is what it’s about. In that sense, it’s all part of the same analysis. And yet, the feelings of alienation must have a separate existence, too, and that is why we can discuss it/them.

I made it clear in the article that “I’m no expert when it comes to theory”. I was probably hoping to learn more from the comments than I have thus far.

sixteeen seisures
& whadaysa get?
too many days alone
deeper in melancholia
so mister marx don’t you call me
coz i wain’t come coz i owe
mesel to the oligopoies revolution

Can we go back to alienation in this thread?

Which voice told you I said we have a monopoly here?

Being interested in ideas also means being interested in debate. Why don’t you try it?

B.

Bill, ditto the article by Terrell Carver.

Jim, the “auld prole” stuff does nothing for me. I was for too many years in a communist party where one’s views and criticisms were dismissed on the grounds of class background rather than on the basis of their content. I’m interested in ideas, discussing what it means to be left-wing in the C21st, practical issues, and sometimes theoretical questions like alienation. Neither Marx nor Lenin had working-class backgrounds. And, please, don’t make assumptions about mine – you may end up with egg on your face.

Barry