This or that?

In class on Tuesday, we discussed Marx’s concept of estranged labor. He believes capitalism is bad due to the fact that the class struggle between the owners of production and the workers leads to alienated labor. This means that the workers work for the owners to earn a wage which they then use to survive. This is in contrast to Marx’s communist society in which everyone works and produces, no one is subject to wages, and you take what you need to survive. Under capitalism, our relationship to the material external world which is required for production becomes an estranged and broken one. The workers relationship to their work and fellow workers is broken as well as to themselves. Supposedly, capitalism even destroys our sense of what it means to be human which Marx calls species-being.

Conceptually, capitalism appears to be a heavily flawed system while communism appears perfect. However, I believe each system has its own strengths and weaknesses. Realistically, countries become stagnant under communism. Without the presence of competition, innovation falls by the wayside. Without innovation, countries fall behind. The more important issue though is the morality of both systems. The main flaw of capitalism is that the proletariat is exploited and driven down to a mere subsistence level. Workers are treated as commodities versus being considered human beings. Private property becomes more important than the humans that produce it. Personally, I find this concept hard to believe. Obviously no one values any of their possessions more than a human life. However, coming from a family that has provided for me throughout my life, I do not think I’ll ever really be able to understand this concept. Do we all really value our possessions more than a human life? I hope this is not the case, but then again I am not the one to say.

It is hard to say which system is the better one. From a sort of macro point-of-view, you could say countries thrive under capitalism due to the competition of it. But it is the lack of competition that gives communism the edge. Humans are treated as such and everyone works and produces. I’ve been raised under capitalism so it is all I know. The way I look at it is the struggle to survive is innate and, therefore, we should live under a system which appeals to that. In a way, capitalism keeps us sharp and hungry while communism leads to passivity and laziness. It’s similar to an animal that is domestically raised. That animal was provided for and, if released into the wild, will not survive. In the end, capitalism may be the “darker” of the two, but I still believe it to be superior.