Ideas, Action, and Alienation

At first glance, it seems to me that capitalism should be the realm of the actors, while communism the realm of idealists. After all, capitalism is that construct in which individuals are pitted against themselves in a competition to accumulate labor in the form of money. It is this very competition, however, which ultimately devalues action. Competition pushes toward greater efficiency, which is realized in the form of specialization or division of labor. The laborer's work becomes increasingly worthless, but perhaps more importantly, dehumanizing. Profits are afforded the wealthy, who finance the brutal capitalist mechanism. However, there is still profit to be garnered to those with ideas. In a capitalist society, ideas, rather than physical strength or dexterity, are of greatest value to the individual.

As an individual who has always valued mind over body in a rather abstract sense, this should be appealing. However, after reading Hegel, I am far more swayed by Marx’s talk of alienation. There is something incomplete about merely conceptualizing the world’s most profitable products or systems. Marx would suggest it is the lack of participation in what makes one human.

Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.

When production is separated from conception, ownership becomes complicated or ambiguous. Oddly enough, this is the case in capitalist societies rather than in Marx’s ideal communism. When man is not alienated from his labor, but instead produces on his own, ownership would seem clearer. In the more ambiguous ownership characteristic of capitalist society, I argued earlier that thought appreciates while physical labor is devalued. Ultimately, this seems a product of metaphysics; thought or conception is acknowledged as preceding production, and thinkers become in essence owners of an essential factor of production. The thinker then removes himself from the actual creation of his idea, separating himself from its reality. One question I have not yet answered: is someone who conceptualizes in a capitalist economy (perhaps an inventor, designer, or entrepreneur) alienated from their work? This remains tied to that question that haunted some of us in class: are intellectuals part of the bourgeoisie? Was Marx?

I suppose this post became more exploratory than explanatory, but I would like to discuss the questions I raised with you all.