Capitalism is an economic system. It’s a way to distribute property. As a distributive paradigm it’s designed by people and implemented by states. Capitalism is not a law of nature or rule of the universe; it’s one among many ways to distribute resources. Societies decide to be capitalist. They may do so because they think it’s highly productive, efficient, or just. But they choose to be capitalist, and this choice is reflective of that society’s values. So what is it they chose to be when they decide to be capitalists?
First, capitalism is a way of distributing property, specifically the “means of production”; that is, the factories and manufacturing sites where all goods are made. For example, the Once-ler owns the means of production of Thneeds. He owns the factory, equipment, land the factory sits on, the Truffula tufts, and even his relatives’ labor. The Once-ler is a capitalist, and understanding his relation to his factory, employees, and society will help us understand capitalism.
The Once-ler owns his Thneed factory. He has invested his own time, money, labor, and ingenuity into building and biggering his factory until it’s productive and profitable. The Once-ler opened a Thneed factory in order to make money. His original investment paid out, and the profits he made were reinvested in his factory to bigger it and increase production in order to make more money, and so on indefinitely, or so he’d hope. There is nothing controversial here, or seemingly problematic. People own their businesses and run them how they see fit in order to make money, which everyone needs. They produce goods and/or services, sell them, and collect the money. Likewise, in so doing they provide the consumer with everything they need or want, even if they don’t know they need it or want it, like a fool Thneed. So where does that leave the rest of us? After all, we can’t all own a factory.
Well, beyond Thneeds, our food, shelter, clothing, medicine, health care, and every luxury or leisure item are produced by private individuals or corporations who own the means of production and from whom we must buy them. And you need to buy some of these things, unless you’re completely self-sufficient. But for those of us who aren’t or can’t be self-sufficient, we need to buy these things; we need them for survival, and we need money to do so. Where do we get money? Assuming we’re not independently wealthy, don’t own a factory, or have opulent and gracious parents or beneficiaries, we’ll get a job.
Luckily, jobs are as bountiful as factories. So we can knock on the Once-ler’s door and ask if he needs any more knitters, and hopefully he can look past his nepotism and hire an outsider. Or if you desire a more adventurous line of work, you could beg Morris McGurk to give you a role in his Circus McGurkus. I’m sure old Sneelock would welcome some help. Hopefully, someone is hiring. If they are and we’re lucky enough to get a job, we know the arrangement. We’ll sign a contract wherein we sell our labor power in the form of productive time to our employer, be it the Once-ler or McGurk. He will pay us a wage. Or maybe even a salary, which is just a wage without the possibility of overtime. We can then use this money to pay bills or buy whatever we needed or wanted the money for in the first place. So we’ll all become wage laborers, members of the working class, the proletariat. We’ll work for a paycheck, which means for the majority of our lives we’ll do what someone else tells us to in order to earn enough money to keep ourselves alive and hopefully happy or at least distracted, so we can go back to work and do it all again, day after day, week after week, year after year. Even if we’re thrilled to do the things demanded of us, say knitting Thneeds, we’re compelled to do so because we need the Once-ler’s money. And if we leave the factory we’ll need to find a new employer since we will still need money. So we can’t escape the fact that we will work for somebody else for the rest of our lives; capitalism is built on this relationship. You can’t have capitalism without wage laborers.
To a modern reader this situation looks normal, and maybe even natural or inevitable. For Marx it wasn’t so. Capitalism was a relatively new invention, and one that could and should be altered. According to Marx the economy and production itself should serve the interests of the people, not vice versa. At the root, it’s about human well-being and flourishing; that is, living well. People need to produce so that their needs are met. People need things and can produce things well and efficiently in groups, but production should be geared toward usability. We should make what we need so that we can all have a good quality of life. But in capitalism we don’t produce for need; we don’t make things because they are useful. Think Thneeds! Instead, things are produced simply to be sold, so that producers can accumulate more money, bigger their businesses, sell more, and so on. We don’t make things to satisfy real human needs—things are made to be sold, because wealth is what drives capitalism, not well-being. Production is dictated not by what people need but by what they can be sold.
Consider again the ridiculous Thneed. It is ridiculous; no one needs a fool Thneed. It’s a thing that is made only to be sold. If there is no market for it, the Once-ler will manufacture one through ingenious marketing. He’ll make sure you know you “need” a Thneed so he can sell you one. I’m sure he could find plenty of clever advertisers who could prey on some latent insecurity to motivate you to buy a couple. Imagine how much money you could make from selling pill-berries to Gertrude McFuzz and her friends or how much money Sylvester McMonkey McBean does make selling and removing stars. If the Once-ler, or any capitalist, can convince someone they “need” their product, then they’ll be able to sell it. He could, and we do, sell just about anything this way from new fashions to makeup to superfluous gadgets whose sole purpose seems to be distraction. Production is geared toward selling and meeting artificial demands, not the satisfaction of real human needs.
Pontoffel Pock, Who Are You?
To oversimplify, under capitalism workers are forced to sell their labor in order to buy necessities. And to add insult to injury, their work is often unfulfilling, dull, and mostly pointless. Take Pontoffel Pock, for example. In the animated story, “Pontoffel Pock and His Magic Piano,”1 alternatively known as “Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?,” we’re introduced to Pontoffel Pock, a bumbling doofus who just can’t get things right and wishes to get away from it all. Ultimately, he gets his wish when a fairy, McGillicuddy, gives him a magic piano that takes him all over the world.
Pontoffel Pock’s troubles begin at Gicklers Dill Pickle Works. Pontoffel Pock wants a job in works, and he gets hired. And the job seems simple enough. His training consists of a twenty-second song introducing him to his job, “Just pull on the pull’em and push on the push’em and the pickles go into the jars” (Pock). Now imagine you’re Pontoffel Pock. Your job is dull, even if you like it. Pontoffel Pock wants this job and is very saddened when he loses it. But it is still undeniably dull. It dulls your mind and your senses. There’s no room for development. And you are stuck here so long as you need a paycheck, insurance, or what have you. To leave the job is to leave behind your ability to make a living. Most people can’t afford to do so, so they find themselves trapped in jobs that are unfulfilling, with no real possibility of escape. Like Pontoffel Pock they can wish, wish, wish to get away, but no McGillicuddy is going to award them a magic piano, so they’ll continue working as long as they can or are allowed to. But why is this so bad? We all have to do it, and it is just the way the world is, right? We can make do and enjoy what we can, like vacations, flat screen TVs, video games, sports. . . . But is this what life should be? Should life consist of working undesirable jobs for other people and merely tolerating it through the consumption of a few luxury items? If you want to understand why Marx is morally opposed to capitalism, you have to begin at the pickle works and with an understanding of what it is to be a human being.
For Marx, the essence of humanity is activity, specifically free, conscious activity.2 People are first and foremost producers; we can create and recreate our environment to suit our needs, and as an expression of ourselves. In this sense, Marx is indicating that the unique characteristic of humanity, its spe
cies difference, what distinguishes the human being from all other creatures, is that we can produce or create according to a freely chosen plan. In addition, our activity is inherently social. We produce in a community in order to not only secure our necessities but also to free ourselves up for leisure activities, and thus freer production. “[Man] only truly produces when free from physical need. . . .”3 Until our necessities are net, our needs dictate how we will produce. Once our needs are met we can produce freely.
Marx’s account of the role labor plays in human life is influenced heavily by the account of artistic expression given by G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831). Hegel writes: “[M]an is realized for himself by practical activity, inasmuch as he has the impulse, in the medium which is directly given to him, and externally presented before him, to produce himself, and therein at the same time to recognize himself.”4 Through the productive act in general, the individual expresses herself in the material world. One’s essence as productive is seen in the world of art perhaps more clearly than in the world of work, but both activities are productive, and thus both are, ultimately, expressions of oneself. Our labor expresses who we are, and through our products others recognize us. Marx states: “Suppose, we had produced in a human manner. Then each of us would have in his production doubly affirmed himself and the other. . . . Our products would be like so many mirrors, from which our essence shown.”5 If we all produced in a way that was expressive of our individuality, then our products would reflect who we are. Think about Dr. Seuss himself. In his artistic expression through his books you get a sense of who he was as an individual. His works are expressive of the man, Theodore Geisel. But for how many of us is this really the case? Not of Pontoffel Pock to be sure. How can one see oneself in or feel fulfilled if his life is devoted to filling pickle jars? And we don’t have time to begin to get into the demeaning, degrading, and objectifying job of Pontoffel Pock’s girlfriend Neepha Pheepha, the eyeball dancer for the king.
So Marx’s ethical critique of capital is grounded in his belief that one’s essence ought to equal one’s existence; that is, how one lives her life should be consistent with her essence as a free, productive being. Her labor, her productive activity, should be a free expression of her own consciously chosen life. Consider his example of the river fish from The German Ideology. “The ‘essence’ of the river fish is the water of the river. But this ceases to be its ‘essence’ and becomes a medium of existence no longer suitable for the fish, as soon as it is polluted with dyes and other wastes. . . .”6 The water is the essence of the fish, and when it becomes glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp and Schloppity-Schlopp it ceases to be the fish’s essence and becomes simply a medium of existence, one detrimental to the fish. Humming fish can’t hum with their gills all gummed, and so people can’t freely and consciously produce—that is, express their essence—if their work is coerced, chosen for them, and unhealthy. In a polluted river or pond there is a disparity between what the fish is and what the fish ought to be—between a fish being and a fish flourishing. Under capitalist production there is a disparity between the human being’s essence, free-conscious activity, and her existence as a wage laborer. One’s essential life activity becomes simply a means for life, a way of earning money so one can buy the necessities and maybe a few toys, not an expression of one’s individuality. Since capitalism does not allow for the free-conscious activity of the majority of human beings, it is a perversion of life, an unhealthy social structure. The result of living in such a “polluted” social environment is alienation, a constant state of dissatisfaction and discomfort, and the development of various coping mechanisms that attempt to make alienated life bearable.
He’ll Be Simply Delighted?
Workers who don’t control their work environment, who have no control over what they do day in and day out, tend to develop a kind of psychology wherein they dissociate themselves from their job; that is, they become alienated. In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx provides his most detailed account of alienation. But we only need a general overview.
When a worker sells his labor time, he alienates himself from his labor; it’s no longer his. His labor becomes foreign to him, something he does, but not what he is. Therefore, he no longer finds himself in the activity he performs, the activity that will occupy the majority of his life. When Pontoffel Pock sells his labor to Gil Gicklers at the dill pickle works, he dissociates his labor from himself. Pickle jar filling is just something he does, it’s not who he is. Yet he spends every day doing this one thing. Laborers exercise no, or very limited, control over the process of production. Labor is not expressive; it’s necessary and often undesirable. Really, how many people like to go to work? How many people, if they had their druthers, would continue doing their current job? For many, work is a necessary evil because work is not where they find satisfaction. And since many can’t find satisfaction in their jobs, they begin to identify with those functions over which they do have control. If one spends one’s life filling pickle jars, then off time is where he will find his true self. Marx believes that the worker will identify with those things he does have control over; satisfaction of basic animal urges such as eating, sleeping, or sex; his consumption patterns; and what he buys. “The result we come to is that the human being (the worker) feels freely active only in his animal functions, eating, drinking, procreating at most also in lodging, attire, etc., and in his human functions he feels like an animal. The bestial becomes human and the human becomes bestial.”7 Of course, Marx is not saying that these activities have no place in a full human life. Clearly, eating, drinking, and procreating have their place. Who doesn’t enjoy a round at the bar? But Marx’s point is that when these functions take on a character of being the sole focus, end, or purpose of one’s life, then we’re attempting to satisfy our need to be producers with ultimately unfulfilling activities or the mere acquisition of goods. You can’t buy happiness when happiness is only found in expressive activity, yet this is proletarian life. One copes with alienation through distraction; that is, through conspicuous consumption or filling one’s life with one idle entertainment after another. The individual becomes a consumer, not a producer, and so our existence fails to live up to our essence. This may work, for a while. We may be momentarily happy on the surface, but this is only so long as we can distract ourselves from the realization that our lives are not expressive of what we at root are. When this realization hits, it hits like a ton of bricks, and we cope the best we can with what is within our control, and red sports car salesman and plastic surgeons like Sylvester McMonkey McBean make out like bandits.
Just Pay Me Your Money and Hop Right Aboard
Consider the plight of both the Sneetches and Gertrude McFuzz. Dissatisfied with their respective lots in life they attempt to consume their way out of their misery. The Sneetches, originally the ones without stars but later all of them, believe that they must occupy a certain social position. The Sneetches without stars seek recognition; they want to be seen as equals to those with stars. But there is nothing they can do about this. They can’t make stars, they can’t take stars, it’s their lot in life to be “less than.” Thankfully, Sylvester McMonkey McBean offers them the opportunity to elevate their social status. For a nominal fee they can buy stars. Since they can’t actually do anything to make life bearable, to earn status as equals, they will buy it. Gertrude McFuzz is in a similar position. She wants to be accepted; she wants to be pretty and presumably liked by the other birds. But she only has one droopy-droop feather. She needs two, just like that fancy birdie, Lolla-Lee-Lou. Then she’ll be happy. Again we have a disaffected person who seeks acceptance, recognition, and affirmation. At first it appears that she is powerless. Then after she pleads with him, Uncle Doctor Dake reluctantly informs her about a pill-berry bush that will give her what she needs, more feathers. But he knows it’s a fool’s errand. “Such talk! How absurd! Your tail is just right for your kind of bird” (McFuzz). This is good advice against vanit
y and for self-esteem and a realistic and healthy body image. But Gertrude is having none of it. She knows what she needs.
With both the Sneetches and Gertrude McFuzz we see similar themes. People seek to be accepted as part of the group; we all want to belong. Often, unfortunately, being a part of the group means conforming to an artificial ideal, possessing the right things and being the right kind of consumer. Do you own the right star or number of feathers? So both involved parties consume in order to belong and eventually come to realize—because Gertrude becomes wiser, and contrary to common wisdom, you can teach a Sneetch—that consumption is not the answer. Consumption may seem to be the answer to the alienated mind that can’t find satisfaction or belonging in their work or endeavors, but nothing could be further from the truth.
One Marxist scholar, Erich Fromm (1900–1980), formulates the problem in terms of what he calls “normative humanism.” Fromm believes it’s the task of psychology to find the “inherent mechanisms and laws” of humanity. Although human essence is malleable insofar as it can be expressed in many ways, it is not infinitely so; there are limits. Fromm’s analysis of capitalism is based on how well it allows our essence to be manifested; that is, how well it allows us to express ourselves. Human beings all have the same needs, some of which are common among all animals and others that are specifically human. Among the former are hunger, thirst, sexual gratification, and sleep. However, there are other needs that are exclusive to human beings. Fromm lists these needs as the need for relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, a sense of identity, and a frame of orientation and devotion.8 All of these specifically human needs are satisfied through one’s relation to others and the world. We do need other people in order to truly be human, so it’s not irrational for the Sneetches or Gertrude McFuzz to seek acceptance or their place in the world, but it is unfortunate that they try to achieve this through consumerism. If only society had been organized in a way that allowed them to fully express themselves through productive activity instead of merely through consumptive habits. Consider each of the needs Fromm enumerates.
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