In class on Thursday we talked a lot about the idea of "estranged labor."Marx says that labor is estranged because capitalism takes the innate drive for labor and makes it dehumanizing. He believes that capitalist labor is dehumanizing because the richer will only get richer and fewer while the poorer will only get poorer greater. Instead of capitalism, Marx believes in communism. He thinks that every should be equal and have equal opportunity and equal amounts of money. He believes that one of the main downfalls of communism is the surplus profit because this is what makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. He also doesn't think that anyone should own private property which was one of the main topics of discussion on Thursday.
From our discussion in class I learned that private property is the only right that denies everyone but yourself ownership of something. I found this very interesting because I had never thought about how different this right was from all of the other ones. Personally, I have to disagree with Marx because I believe that having private property is essential to humans. I think that owning private property gives people individuality and the capability of making decisions on his or her own. For example, when I go shopping I get satisfaction out of knowing that I personally chose out an item and I paid for the item with money I had worked hard for. I think that I would be deprived of this satisfaction if I knew that I had to share everything. I also think that Will's point about owning private property for the comfort of knowing you will always have it is extremely important. I believe that sharing is something people do between those that they trust because they know that their private property will not be harmed.
In my opinion, the idea of not having private property is obscured. Imagine purchasing a new BMW and anyone, a 16 year old, a hobo on the street, a drunken college kid can decide they want to take a joy ride in your car and there is nothing you can do about it. There would be no point in purchasing anything anymore because you would not own it. It would make more sense to just borrow someone else’s. If there is no private property, there would be no such thing as stealing. Does that mean the government would release thieves from prison? If they robbed a bank but the money did not belong to anyone, what crime did they commit? Not having private property is a complex idea that I do not think Marx fully thought out. He was also unable to think about it from a 21st century prospective. I would not want to live in a country that does not practice property. The idea of private property is all I have ever known and I am not welcome to giving that right up. If that makes me selfish, I do not care.
ReplyDeleteI think that Marx's critique of capitalism is interesting when looking at just how strongly people feel about their assets. When someone denounces private property, people within a capitalist society practically shriek because they don't want people to steal from them. There is this inherent notion of, "If we did not work for our own items, then we would treat everything terribly." I do not believe people are so barbaric that if there were to be less private property, they would simply go around destroying everything. Look at the things we do share: public buildings, roads, street signs, etc. People do not go around destroying roads just because they do not have a sense of ownership over it. There is a shared gain from keeping the roads usable. This shared gain would extend to other things when each person is getting what he or she needs. We have all become so engrained to want everything to be ours, that we are ignoring the actual critiques Marx is making: just how badly capitalism causes a nation to be.
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