An Alien Existence
Capitalism has alienated us from both the natural world and our own labour. We have always engaged in some form of labour (also known as production) to meet our needs, whether it was through hunting, gathering, farming, building shelter, child rearing, education etc. However, under capitalism, the means of production — the land, resources, tools, wealth and technologies we use to meet our needs — are privately owned, and as a result of privatization, we have lost our ability to meet these basic needs ourselves. Unless you have the wealth that allows you to own your home, or own your own business, most of us are forced into working in return for a wage (also known as wage labour). Hopefully this wage is sufficient to cover the cost of our needs, such as buying groceries and paying rent, but for many people that wage is barely enough to get by. Since wage labour is the primary means by which we meet our basic needs under capitalism, this means that many of us are forced into working meaningless (or alienated) jobs just for the sake of earning money to cover the basic costs of existence.
Many people will argue in favour of capitalism, because they feel that it’s a positive sign of progress that we live in a society with a greater variety of consumer goods, more wealth to purchase said goods, and less physical hardship when compared to previous generations. This may be true on one hand, but this idea of progress comes with its own associated costs — costs that often go ignored by the mainstream. Yes, there may be more material wealth than ever before in human history, but just because the average has gone up, doesn’t mean that this wealth is equitably distributed among individuals in our society, as more and more of that wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. And yes, our days may be less physically strenuous, as most of us no longer have to struggle [directly] with nature to meet our needs, but I feel that this culture of convenience has only exacerbated the feelings of alienation we experience both at work, and in our limited free time away from work.
If we can imagine back to the days of hunter-gathering, pastoralism, or early agriculture and compare that to today, yes, we may have had to work long days in order to feed ourselves, but that’s not so different from how life looks today. Except instead of working to plant, grow, harvest, hunt, and/or preserve our own food, now we work all day at [oftentimes] meaningless jobs so that we can then go and purchase food during our limited free time. All while others — the owners of capital — get to profit from our labour. Capitalists profit from our exploitation and we get a wage in return. A wage that we have to spend in order to meet our genuine human needs, which then increases the profits of capitalists even further. We no longer labour to build our own shelter, we work so that we can [hopefully] afford to pay for shelter. Shelter which is likely owned by somebody else (i.e., a landlord) who gets to profit off our need for housing, all because private ownership gives them the exclusive right to change rent in exchange for shelter. We work 40 or more hours per week, every week, not to feed ourselves directly, but to increase the profits for capitalists, while we are paid a pittance in return, in the hopes that this pittance can cover the basic costs of living.
At least in our past, when we had to labour all day to meet these basic needs, we were connected to both the natural world and with the products of our labour. We had a direct relationship with the land and the natural world, and understood how we could use that relationship to help meet our needs and the needs of our community in ways that might reduce suffering and make life easier for all. We owned the fruits of our labour because our work directly supported ourselves and our communities. Whereas now, work has lost all meaning because we have no agency or control over what we do, why we do it, how it gets done, and who gets to profit from it? We have no agency or control over how we spend our time, because we exist purely for the sake of profits.
Even as we invent new technologies that are intended to make work easier (or more efficient), they often don’t actually reduce the burden of work. We are still forced into working the same number of hours, for the same wage in order to feed ourselves. All the technology has done is force us to find newer, more meaningless tasks so that we can fill our weekly quota to avoid starvation. Technology should liberate us and enable greater free time, but instead it only makes the situation worse, destroying once meaningful work in return for greater profits to the owners of business all in the name of efficiency and competitive advantage on the free market.
As a result, convenience, idleness, and the amassing of material possessions is now seen as the ultimate example of living a good life. But I would argue that this good life is a hollow manifestation of free time, and a product of the alienation we experience under capitalism in all aspects of our lives. That’s because the limited free time we are given — away from wage labour — now exists solely for the sake of consumption. Our available free time (or non-working time) has become empty leisure time, which we can only fulfil or engage with through spending and consumption.
We now have limited time in which we are supposed to squeeze socializing, education, exercise, healing, rest, recovery, travel etc., and almost every one of these activities have been commodified into consumptive behaviours under modern capitalism. Watching movies and TV on streaming services, online shopping, gym memberships, exercise classes etc., all of these activities require our spending from the limited wages that we receive in return for our labour. Our free time exists for the sake of consumption and the acquisition of material consumer goods. We spend our meagre wages during our free time, which makes us even poorer, while making others richer, all while we could have just been working together to directly feed ourselves, shelter our communities, and educate one another, if the means of production were publicly available for us to do so.
I think that there’s merit to the idea that some labour — democratically deliberated, unalienated labour — might actually be enjoyable, fulfilling, and meaningful to participate in. Especially when that labour is done as part of a community that is working together to ensure that everyone’s needs are being met in an equitable way. We also need the freedom to find out what that labour looks like for each and every one of us, whether it’s through producing food, building shelter, creating artwork, providing education, healing others etc. This is what unexploited labour could look like outside of capitalism, but I think that many people struggle to imagine what their life would/could look like if they weren’t constrained by wage labour and the alienated lifestyles we currently tolerate.
Yes, I recognize that growing our own food takes time and effort, but I would rather do that than stare at a screen all day while someone else profits from my labour and I struggle to feed myself with my earnings. I would rather just grow the food. Now apply this to infinite other professions or activities we undertake. We should be able to meet our needs in an equitable and sustainable way through fulfilling labour, but under capitalism that’s never going to be a viable option because capitalists dictate how we spend our time and use our resources based on what’s likely to be the most profitable for them, as opposed to what’s beneficial for society as a whole.
