Redefining Asceticism

While I was reading Marx’s Economic and Political Manuscripts of 1844, my attention was drawn to a particular passage in the section entitled “The Meaning of Human Requirements.” In this section starting on page 95, Marx draws certain similarities in the lifestyle of the worker and that of an ascetic. I become more and more convinced with every reading of this passage that Marx meant it this comparison as a sort of satirical criticism, but yet, I still believe the comparison is worth examining to see what Marx truly meant.

The practice of religious asceticism has been around for a long, long time. Asceticism has adopted many methods to detaching from the world and has managed to transcend the boundaries of religion; ascetics can be found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and many other religions. The ultimate goal of the religious ascetic is to become unattached to the material world and its desires. They give up all luxury and often many of their needs. They will live on very minimal food, just enough to survive, will spend long amounts of time in meditation, and have very little possessions, if any. They detach themselves from family and friends and many live in isolated places or wander from place to place. Some have even developed self-mutilation tactics in order to detach themselves from the world and their bodies. The Buddha even practiced extreme asceticism before his enlightenment (which he ultimately determined to be the wrong path for reaching nirvana) and legend says at his most ascetic stage he looked like this:

Marx says the worker in the capitalistic economy becomes an ascetic because he is forced to live on very minimal means. In fact, living at the lowest possible level of life, which he denotes simply as existence, has become the standard, he argues. Capitalism “changes the worker into an insensible being lacking all needs,” (95). The goal of the capitalist ascetic, he claims, is to increase capital. So in order to have more, the worker lives on less and saves. Marx says, “The less you eat, drink, and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public-house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save—the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour—you capital,” (95-96).

It became clear to me that this was probably satire at the point that Marx calls political economy “the most moral of all the sciences,” (95). This aside, I believe this comparison is a poignant one to describe the mental state of the worker. While the religious ascetic denies himself to reach god or enlightenment, the worker denies himself to increase capital. I’d suggest here that the worker comes to view his capital with such importance that it becomes like a god to him. Everything in his existence becomes second to this ultimate goal, even his own needs, not just his desires. Capital is god.