2nd marx

Joy Prior
Professor Lee
Karl Marx

Karl Marx predicted several items about capitalism in The Communist Manifesto their effect on the global economy. In this paper I would like to address namely mans alienation from his homofaber nature, how alienating factor work can be, and how the global economy increases alienation.
One of Marx concerns was the alienation that comes from capitalism. Personally I believe that factory work in any society is alienating, and not simply capitalism. Marx states that the bourgeoisie class, “It has resolved personal worth into exchange value.” The personal worth I believe Karl Marx is talking about is homofaber, or the idea that human beings are a “man who creates.” This word is taken from the idea of homosapiens which means man who thinks, and Marxist evolved the concept to mean that someone is only human is if they are creating. Factory work is alienating because it separates the worker from his personal worth by denying him his nature of creation. To do simply create what he thinks is best. For example in a factory that makes four legged chairs it does not matter if the worker thinks a three legged chair would work better, because he is bound by regulations to create a four legged chair. If you truly believe that humans are homofaber and that an assembly line makes it impossible for man to utilize his ability to create then the worker is not fulfilling their nature and consequently they are not obtaining their personal worth.
The purpose of a factory is to produce the most of a product at the lowest possible price. A factory in particular that I believe has been alienated is factory farming. Farms that have an influence in today’s economy do not have a few chickens, some cows, and a horse. Instead they are factory farms that produce as much of a specific product as possible. There are farms for specifically cows that produce milk, a different farm for cows that produce butter, and another farm for cows that produce beef. Marx believed that the bourgeoisie had “stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe.” Even the farmer is compelled to “adopt the mode of production,” to be competitive in the economy.
An example of how factory farms effect the global economy is when there was the mad cow scare in Europe. The bad beef was coming from a few isolated factory farms in Europe, but to ensure the safety of the American people our country canceled almost all beef trade with Europe. Not only that but the United States Government increased the requirements for beef. Although the Mad Cow scare was in a factory farm half way around the world Farmer in California had to altered their production to meet the demands of the United States government. The farmer is denied his ability to create his farm how he wants it to be. He can not create what he will call good beef, how he will create his beef, or what equals good beef because he is bound by the restrictions of the capitalist government. The purpose of this example is not to say that I want to eat beef that might give me Mad Cow disease. Instead I want to emphasize the idea that in our global economy beef production in Europe effects beef production in the Untied States, and the farmer feels more alienated from his homofaber as he complies to the demands and regulations developed in capitalism.