Fetishizing Our Lives Away
As of today, the first paragraph under festishism in Wikipedia reads, "A fetish...is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent value or powers to an object."
One of the fundamental deformities Marx talks about is the way we've made money (accumulated capital) into a fetish. In a sense, we see our own power as something alien to us. Lebowitz explores various aspects of this here.
Lebowitz writes:
How capitalist production deforms workers
50. Think about the situation of workers in capitalism. As we have seen, the goals and authority of capital rule the process of production. Further, workers produce products which are the property of capital. But, workers don’t recognize those products as the result of the activity of working people. On the contrary, machinery, technology, all “the general productive forces of the social brain”, appear to workers as capital and as the contribution of the capitalist. Those products, further, are turned against workers and dominate them—they become the power of capital. What has happened? Simply, Marx explained, because the worker has sold his creative power to the capitalist, that power now “establishes itself as the power of capital, as an alien power confronting him.”
I remember this older woman working at a McDonald's one day who was joking (half-joking) that the managers were setting up the security camera so that, if she were robbed, they'd get some nice film of her but nothing of her robbers. Of course, her managers were more concerned that she'd take money from the till than they were anyone was going to rob her, right? That was the point of her joke.
That camera itself is a product of the collective work of laborers just like that woman, and that product is being trained on other workers for ensuring that every penny the capitalist makes stays under the control of the capitalist.
On one hand, this idea of the worker being alienated from what her hands have made takes the form of the dangerous machine that takes workers lives in Stephen King's "The Mangler." In a more overtly political way, the anti-riot personnel carriers and weapons used to put down worker demonstrations are all products actually made by workers. On another level, this alienation of the product from the labor explains why a worker can be fined a million dollars for file sharing despite the fact that her actual contribution to wealth may be abstractly counted as millions of dollars of social labor for which she is unpaid--the amount of money she is underpaid on her job, the support services she offers for her family that allow her to work, the incalculable services she provides to her neighborhood and community on a daily basis. Capitalism turns virtually everything we do into the private property of those who cut our checks. And even if it is not threatened, capitalism will turn those products into weapons to be used against us.
51. The world of wealth, that world created by human activity, faces the worker “as an alien world dominating him.” For workers in capitalism, producing is a process of a “complete emptying-out,” “total alienation,” the “sacrifice of the human end-in-itself to an entirely external end.” And what is the result of this “emptying-out,” this impoverishment in the process of producing? We try to fill the vacuum of our lives with things—we are driven to consume (consumerism). How else can we do this but with money, the real alienated need that capitalism creates?
Money is a commodity that symbolizes a certain value for labor at any given time, and most of us work all the time for precious little of it. We like to have things to show for our money as well, so we collect stuff--I-Pods, Kindles, DVDs, whatever. When we have nice things, we look like, and may even feel like, we're doing all right, even though we're less than two paychecks from the street. Ironically, when Americans hear the term "private property" in relation to capitalism, they think of this list of personal property that stands as our concession prizes for not having a stake in the system. We tend to be bribed to a comfort level where we won't resist the system in large numbers, which may be the greatest genius of the capitalist system.
Other ways that capitalist production deforms people
52. But that drive to “consume, consume!” is only one way that capitalism deforms people. In Capital,Marx described the mutilation, the impoverishment, and the “crippling of body and mind” of the worker “bound hand and foot for life to a single specialized operation” which occurs in the division of labor characteristic of the capitalist process of manufacturing. Did the development of machinery rescue workers under capitalism? No, Marx stressed, it completes the “separation of the intellectual faculties of the production process from manual labor.” “In this situation, head and hand become separate and hostile,” “every atom of freedom, both in bodily and in intellectual activity” is lost.
There's a Springsteen song called "Youngstown," about a steelworker more or less singing to his blast furnace. He tells her he's "sinking down," but he takes pride in his work at the same time, seeing himself in the next life, working the "fiery pits of hell." I think, in many ways, it's a song about the struggle involved in the "emptying out" described above.
53. But, why does this happen? Remember that the technology and techniques of production that capital introduces are oriented to only one thing—profits. Since workers have their own goals and struggle for them, the logic of capital points to the selection of techniques that will divide workers from one another and permit easier surveillance and monitoring of their performance. The specific productive forces introduced by capital are not neutral—they do not empower workers and allow them to develop all their capabilities (mental and manual). On the contrary, “all means for the development of production,” as Marx stressed about capitalism, “distort the worker into a fragment of a man, they degrade him” and “alienate from him the intellectual potentialities of the labor process.”
I was just joking with a co-worker earlier today about how, since I've taken a job in my school that allows me to pursue more of the social justice concerns I have, I've in many ways been deprived of my personal strengths--because of the dynamics in my relationships with co-workers in the new department, because of the cultural climate of our institution that becomes more entrenched with every attempt to change it, because of the way the very creation of this job places the person trying to change the institution outside of the role in which real change can be made. It's almost funny to me to see that reflected in Lebowitz's comments about the nature of the system and its effect on our capabilities.
I think it's important, crucial to recognize that capitalism is not neutral. It is a system organized around taking the power of workers and turning it into tools to be used against them. It works because it makes a religion people refuse to question. We wind up worshiping wealth, i.e. stolen labor. This, in turn, shapes every aspect of our lives and virtually every detail of the environment in which we try to work.
That's some kind of deformity.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
While I Was Sleeping.....
We received two important posts from Isaac on the previous section of Lebowitz. He raises some important questions that I think we should address before we move forward. I'd love to hear some commentary from others who are following this blog, and I promise to get rolling at a more constant pace very soon.
Summer's been tough, but I'm finding my way.
Danny
Summer's been tough, but I'm finding my way.
Danny
Friday, June 5, 2009
Beyond A Rigged Game
Overcoming Divide and Conquer Strategies
Lebowitz writes:
The reserve army of labor
45. If productivity increases dropped from the sky, the falling cost of producing commodities could permit workers to buy more with their existing money wages; in this case, workers could be the principal beneficiaries of productivity gains. But, they don’t drop from the sky; to the extent that productivity increases are the result of changes initiated by capital, the effect is to increase the degree of separation among workers and thus to weaken workers. For example, every worker displaced by the introduction of machinery adds to the reserve army of labor; the unemployed worker competes with the employed worker. Not only does the existence of this reserve army of unemployed workers permit capital to exert discipline within the workplace but it also keeps wages within limits consistent with profitable capitalist production. Displaced workers, for example, may find jobs—but at much lower wages.
This last line is an important principle in Marx, a point he argued over and over again. In capitalist society, people believe this myth that the loss of a job is an opportunity for something else out there. And, certainly, that kind of luck can happen for individual people. But the nature of the system is that people are not going to be laid off to increase profits and then find they are, as a group, even the majority of the group, going to make more money in their new jobs. As a class of people's positions are devalued by the system, their new toeholds in the system are, in the main, going to be of less value.
I've seen this illustrated over and over again, admittedly anecdotally, in my experience. For every person I know who lost a job and found something better, I can list a dozen others who are either not fully employed or who have had to adjust to a lowered standard of living. Of course, as we've seen the loss of industry in the Rust Belt and in Southern California, in particular, we've seen lots of high dollar jobs disappear. The service industry work that has taken its place has been generally at lower wages with less security. At some point, the evidence of recent history outweighs (and validates) all the proofs Marx could muster.
46. The same thing is true when capital moves to other countries or regions to escape workers who are organized—it expands the reserve army and ensures that even those workers who do organize and struggle do not succeed in keeping real wages rising as rapidly as productivity. The rate of exploitation, Marx believed, would continue to rise. Even with rising real wages, the “abyss between the life-situation of the worker and that of the capitalist would keep widening.”
This is some acknowledgment of the points Isaac made in his last post. Not only have nationalist union slogans failed workers worldwide, but it's clear that Lebowitz recognizes that the worldwide market for capital ensures that organized labor (as it exists) cannot win in the long run. And note that he quotes Marx--"the life-situation of the worker and that of the capitalist would keep widening." This is why Marx saw capitalism collapsing and, ultimately, a need for revolution beyond a moral choice regarding the exploitation of the worker.
The next session takes this point even further and deals with the point more explicitly. And this is not simply Lebowitz's updating of Marx. It is Marxist theory as opposed to the doctrine of another era or the program of a political party from some past era.
Exploitation is not the main problem
This concept rallied workers to build trade unions and gain reforms, but the deeper issues become more clear every day.
47. It is a big mistake, though, to think that the main problem with capitalism is inequitable income distribution—i.e., that the basic reason that capitalism is bad is that workers receive less income than they produce. If this were the only problem, the obvious answer would be to focus upon changing the distribution of income in favor of workers, e.g., strengthen trade unions, regulate capital through state legislation, follow a full employment policy (that reduces the effect of the reserve army)—all such measures of reform would shift the balance of power toward workers.
Again, as I noted in my response to Isaac's post on the previous section, these were adequate strategies for an era of expanding economy. Today, as worldwide globalization begins to find its limits and as once prosperous economies begin to collapse, none of this reform has any leverage. Some say there are no more reforms left in the system. It's easy to see that there aren't enough reforms left to get at the hemmorhaging of jobs and the value of labor being driven down to zero. (I'm not saying it's there yet; I'm not saying we'll ever be so labor free as to get there; I am saying that's the direction.)
48. But only for the moment. Because it is essential to understand that capital never sleeps. It never stops trying to undermine any gains that workers have made either through their direct economic actions or through political activity. It never stops trying to divide workers, to turn them against each other, to intensify work, to drive wages down. Even when workers have had the strength to make gains (as in the period after the Second World War), capital looks upon those gains as temporary barriers to go beyond. It uses its essential power to decide how to invest and where to invest in order to regain the offensive (as it did in the so-called Golden Age). That inherent power of capital put an end to the “welfare state” and the “import-substitution” models that were introduced in many countries as a basis for economic development.
Again, this analysis is classic Marxism, and it further underscores why the trade union movement is inadequate to face the new era. Many of us may still be in unions (I certainly am), and I will not quit fighting for what ground we are able to hold on that front. At the same time, I have to go outside of my union structure and work with others--adjuncts, part-timers, the unemployed, students, etc.--to explore the potential for new organizational structures. And whatever my union does, it will strategically only be on the right side of history if it keeps these potential alliances in mind. My guess is that it will eventually end up very clearly on the wrong side of history, and then I'll have to cast my lot with those it's fighting instead of the real power trying to divide and conquer.
As far as I'm concerned, this is when the analysis begins to get really interesting--when we are forced to talk about strategy for dealing with new conditions in the context of this history and theory.
49. The problem is not that gains in reducing inequality and exploitation are only temporary. Whether workers’ wages are high or low is not the issue—any more than whether the rations of slaves are high or low. Rather, we need to look at the process of capitalist production itself—to see the nature of the workers that capitalism produces.
What I like that Lebowitz is doing here is that he is establishing the necessity of this analysis for understanding just what we are up against and what we must do.
To sum up--
For most of us, the loss of a job will lead to a lower income and less job security;
Globalization only means that the gap will continue to rise between those workers who continue to be employed and the handful of people running things;
Capital tirelessly (systematically, not even consciously) organizes offensively against workers--to pit them against each other and to turn each worker victory into a "temporary barrier" before it regains its offensive;
None of this can be changed by simply reforming the system.
As we move through this, I find myself wishing that we were digging into more of the math that drew these conclusions. Much has been done over the past 150 years or so, but one thing we can continue to do is offer our own perspectives, experiences and anecdotes that validate and/or challenge these conclusions. Eventually, I'd like to take this discussion into the methodology itself, but maybe we get some of the way there by simply talking about our experiences and insights.
Your thoughts?
Lebowitz writes:
The reserve army of labor
45. If productivity increases dropped from the sky, the falling cost of producing commodities could permit workers to buy more with their existing money wages; in this case, workers could be the principal beneficiaries of productivity gains. But, they don’t drop from the sky; to the extent that productivity increases are the result of changes initiated by capital, the effect is to increase the degree of separation among workers and thus to weaken workers. For example, every worker displaced by the introduction of machinery adds to the reserve army of labor; the unemployed worker competes with the employed worker. Not only does the existence of this reserve army of unemployed workers permit capital to exert discipline within the workplace but it also keeps wages within limits consistent with profitable capitalist production. Displaced workers, for example, may find jobs—but at much lower wages.
This last line is an important principle in Marx, a point he argued over and over again. In capitalist society, people believe this myth that the loss of a job is an opportunity for something else out there. And, certainly, that kind of luck can happen for individual people. But the nature of the system is that people are not going to be laid off to increase profits and then find they are, as a group, even the majority of the group, going to make more money in their new jobs. As a class of people's positions are devalued by the system, their new toeholds in the system are, in the main, going to be of less value.
I've seen this illustrated over and over again, admittedly anecdotally, in my experience. For every person I know who lost a job and found something better, I can list a dozen others who are either not fully employed or who have had to adjust to a lowered standard of living. Of course, as we've seen the loss of industry in the Rust Belt and in Southern California, in particular, we've seen lots of high dollar jobs disappear. The service industry work that has taken its place has been generally at lower wages with less security. At some point, the evidence of recent history outweighs (and validates) all the proofs Marx could muster.
46. The same thing is true when capital moves to other countries or regions to escape workers who are organized—it expands the reserve army and ensures that even those workers who do organize and struggle do not succeed in keeping real wages rising as rapidly as productivity. The rate of exploitation, Marx believed, would continue to rise. Even with rising real wages, the “abyss between the life-situation of the worker and that of the capitalist would keep widening.”
This is some acknowledgment of the points Isaac made in his last post. Not only have nationalist union slogans failed workers worldwide, but it's clear that Lebowitz recognizes that the worldwide market for capital ensures that organized labor (as it exists) cannot win in the long run. And note that he quotes Marx--"the life-situation of the worker and that of the capitalist would keep widening." This is why Marx saw capitalism collapsing and, ultimately, a need for revolution beyond a moral choice regarding the exploitation of the worker.
The next session takes this point even further and deals with the point more explicitly. And this is not simply Lebowitz's updating of Marx. It is Marxist theory as opposed to the doctrine of another era or the program of a political party from some past era.
Exploitation is not the main problem
This concept rallied workers to build trade unions and gain reforms, but the deeper issues become more clear every day.
47. It is a big mistake, though, to think that the main problem with capitalism is inequitable income distribution—i.e., that the basic reason that capitalism is bad is that workers receive less income than they produce. If this were the only problem, the obvious answer would be to focus upon changing the distribution of income in favor of workers, e.g., strengthen trade unions, regulate capital through state legislation, follow a full employment policy (that reduces the effect of the reserve army)—all such measures of reform would shift the balance of power toward workers.
Again, as I noted in my response to Isaac's post on the previous section, these were adequate strategies for an era of expanding economy. Today, as worldwide globalization begins to find its limits and as once prosperous economies begin to collapse, none of this reform has any leverage. Some say there are no more reforms left in the system. It's easy to see that there aren't enough reforms left to get at the hemmorhaging of jobs and the value of labor being driven down to zero. (I'm not saying it's there yet; I'm not saying we'll ever be so labor free as to get there; I am saying that's the direction.)
48. But only for the moment. Because it is essential to understand that capital never sleeps. It never stops trying to undermine any gains that workers have made either through their direct economic actions or through political activity. It never stops trying to divide workers, to turn them against each other, to intensify work, to drive wages down. Even when workers have had the strength to make gains (as in the period after the Second World War), capital looks upon those gains as temporary barriers to go beyond. It uses its essential power to decide how to invest and where to invest in order to regain the offensive (as it did in the so-called Golden Age). That inherent power of capital put an end to the “welfare state” and the “import-substitution” models that were introduced in many countries as a basis for economic development.
Again, this analysis is classic Marxism, and it further underscores why the trade union movement is inadequate to face the new era. Many of us may still be in unions (I certainly am), and I will not quit fighting for what ground we are able to hold on that front. At the same time, I have to go outside of my union structure and work with others--adjuncts, part-timers, the unemployed, students, etc.--to explore the potential for new organizational structures. And whatever my union does, it will strategically only be on the right side of history if it keeps these potential alliances in mind. My guess is that it will eventually end up very clearly on the wrong side of history, and then I'll have to cast my lot with those it's fighting instead of the real power trying to divide and conquer.
As far as I'm concerned, this is when the analysis begins to get really interesting--when we are forced to talk about strategy for dealing with new conditions in the context of this history and theory.
49. The problem is not that gains in reducing inequality and exploitation are only temporary. Whether workers’ wages are high or low is not the issue—any more than whether the rations of slaves are high or low. Rather, we need to look at the process of capitalist production itself—to see the nature of the workers that capitalism produces.
What I like that Lebowitz is doing here is that he is establishing the necessity of this analysis for understanding just what we are up against and what we must do.
To sum up--
For most of us, the loss of a job will lead to a lower income and less job security;
Globalization only means that the gap will continue to rise between those workers who continue to be employed and the handful of people running things;
Capital tirelessly (systematically, not even consciously) organizes offensively against workers--to pit them against each other and to turn each worker victory into a "temporary barrier" before it regains its offensive;
None of this can be changed by simply reforming the system.
As we move through this, I find myself wishing that we were digging into more of the math that drew these conclusions. Much has been done over the past 150 years or so, but one thing we can continue to do is offer our own perspectives, experiences and anecdotes that validate and/or challenge these conclusions. Eventually, I'd like to take this discussion into the methodology itself, but maybe we get some of the way there by simply talking about our experiences and insights.
Your thoughts?
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