/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

In practical terms any mental health issue lefties want to blame on capitalism existing.

it's when you turn into a alien

>>2397179
alienation is when shawty won't put out

>>2397179
Okay, so imagine you work in a dildo factory building dildos. But due to the nature of capitalism you produce way more dildos in an hour than you could ever afford. Basically, you're getting fucked. The labor of the worker produces in the worker the lack of dildos which have been taken from the worker by the boss and it is this lack of dildos which produces in the worker the desire for the dildos. Production of dildos creates a demand for dildos through the robbing of the workers of the dildos. In the same fashion, advertising and the production of illusions creates in the producer of illusions the desire for the illusions taken from the producer. I actually don't think there's anything wrong with alienation and desire. It is this very sense of lack which pushes us forward. But this lack will push the workers forward to overthrow the capitalists, as the insatiable and unspeakable robbery of the workers produces in the worker insatiable and unspeakable desires which by its nature capitalism can never satisfy. Basically, capital is a cocktease and the worker is horny for revenge.

>>2397179
>Right, but then why are they ontologically bad?
not the Marxist position. Marxism is not concerned with moralizing the bourgeoisie. perhaps some vulgar Marxists talk that way for rhetorical purposes of outreach but if you read Marx carefully that's not what is happening. Marxism is focused on systems being necessary or unnecessary, not on them being "bad" or "good." Marxism holds that wage labor (and other forms of exploitation like slavery and serfdom) were at one point historically necessary to advance and develop productive forces, but that, after a certain point they become unnecessary and hold back humanity as a whole from achieving greater control over themselves and nature. Capitalism is no longer necessary not just for the proletariat, but for the species as a whole, because the bourgeoisie have already performed their historical role in overturning feudalism and unleashing socialize productive forces. Under capitalism production is already socialized but distribution remains privatized. Under socialism both are socialized.

<“No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society."
<Karl Marx, from the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)

<The slave system would be senseless, stupid and unnatural under modern conditions. But under the conditions of a disintegrating primitive communal system, the slave system is a quite understandable and natural phenomenon, since it represents an advance on the primitive communal system.
<Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism (1938)

Make sense?

>>2397179
>But isn't that the exact same process that the bourgeoisie operates in?
yup

>>2397559
> No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society."
> - Karl Marx, from the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)

So TBH I do wonder if we need to develop the productive forces more before socialism. It's more that we need to industrialize particular stubborn forms of labor than anything else IMO. IMO we need to industrialize domestic labor and abolish the family before socialism is truly possible.

>>2397179
>In this case, the bourgeoisie isn't bad
yeah
>Furthermore, if workers will rationally come to this own conclusion, then why even bother with a socialist revolution ? '
>this only seems to bring towards a social-democracy, not a marxist revolution.
because of the contradiction between competition technology and the profit rate. if you want to be more competitive you will rationally introduce technology that makes more stuff. but that means you get less profit per unit produced. for a while thats okay because you make more in absolute numbers by making more stuff but eventually you make so little profit that you cant pay workers enough to buy the stuff they make and then the economy collapses and people get thrown out on the street and starve to death.
>it feels to me that alienation just leads to social democracy: a system where the worker can choose where he sells his labor—to himself, to a cooperative, or to one individual.
what? why would it do that?

>>2397179
>I understand that under capitalism the proletariat essentially becomes production tools, which alienates them from their species-being, as they have no other choice given the necessity of selling their labor to live on.
is that what you understand alienation to be in general? what do you mean by species being and how is it related or lacked by having to sell labor?

marx also talks about being alienated from the product of labor.

if there were a hypothetical society where things are produced according to ability and distributed by need, then things would be produced directly for use instead of for profit and to be exchanged in markets. so then people wouldn't be alienated from the product of their labor.

it sounds like you are making a hidden assumption but i can only assume what it might be. it sounds like you are saying that you think marx believes alienation drives social change or something like that?

its sort of true but not directly. its not that people are alienated and so they feel sad and want to do something about it but more like the legal fact that the owners of capital also own what is produced by it and not the workers that actually produce it means that they dont have democratic control over society because the economy is privately organized. yeah people dont like not having control over their lives but that doesn't necessarily mean they will do anything about it. its more that as a consequence of the same thing that creates alienation, private ownership, individual capitalists acting rationally towards their own short term self interest towards profit will bring about their own destruction because of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. marx actually does say the bourgeiosie is as much controlled by capital as workers, because if they simply choose not to be cutthroat abusively exploitative someone else will, until the point that they become a monopoly and capture the regulatory state apparatus. its just a natural consequence of the structure of how capitalism works

>>2397564
> IMO we need to industrialize domestic labor
Angela Davis thought this would happen back in the 80s but it never did.

>>2397564
>IMO we need to industrialize domestic labor and abolish the family before socialism is truly possible.
What would that even look like?

I always thought alienation is mainly about commodities that are basically the same being made different through advertising and branding so different bourgeois can be selling the same commodity. But I am stupid and Marx did not describe it very clearly.

>>2397584
Plato's Republic but hi tech

>>2397588
alienation is about a few things, but one of the things it is about is the division of labor being so intense, that many workers or even "PMCs" don't even understand or see or consume what they are contributing to. Think of the cocoa farmers who will never know the taste of a piece of chocolate. Or even a software engineer who contributes back end code to a huge complicated classified missile system that he isn't even allowed to know the full details of. So what you have is a system where the workers are alienated from the product of their labor, not just by ownership, or distance, but sometimes even by knowledge.

pic rel

>>2397594
TL;DR the worker is like a cell in the larger economy. he serves a function but doesn't necessarily know what it really is. that's alienation.

Even porky is alienated from capital, because he accumulates more a larger fortune than he could possibly oversee by himself without huge teams of accountants and lawyers advising his every purchase. Even in terms of employing "productive capital" by "expanding production" the only end point is more surplus value. Some of it has to be spent on personal consumption. Yachts that you only go one 10 times a year at best and sit in the harbor the other 355 days, getting cleaned and maintained. Mansions for wintering and summering, some of which you never visit and are haunted by maintenance staff. You tell yourself it is for your children, but they are inheriting a fortune that is rapidly inflating, in a world you destroyed through pollution and war mongering… what is it all for really? Does capitalism even benefit the bourgeoisie anymore? Sure it gives them power over other people, and a very high standard of living, but it comes at the cost of their sanity, their humanity, and the future of their species. One must be totally naive or a complete sociopath to live like that care-free. Deep down many of them know the system doesn't work but they're afraid of fighting their own class. The class of people who can hire death squads.

>>2397559
I see, thanks for the effortpost. Did Marx ever write historical books on the transition of feudalism to capitalism or was this something he thought happened with the material dialectic without giving it much posterity ?

>>2397567
>what? why would it do that?
Because alienation is a lack of opportunity then in essence. The worker is forced to become a production tool to someone because he has no other choices then to adhere to the company's guidelines because of the necessity of work. On the other hand the bourgeois, which owns the means of production, doesn't have to work for necessity (other than ensuring that everything is running fine) and has the opportunity to exerce his labor where he wants. So to me, it appears that alienation only leads to workers co-ops or to a voluntary exchange of labor with someone. The market characteristics don't seem to be required to fade away to escape from alienation.

>>2397572
>then things would be produced directly for use instead of for profit and to be exchanged in markets. so then people wouldn't be alienated from the product of their labor.
Wouldn't that lead to the worker being alienated from his labor in the same way, except with the collective as his boss rather than a private individual ? He still wouldn't have control over his own labor and still would be a production tool for something subsequent to him.

>what do you mean by species being and how is it related or lacked by having to sell labor?
What it means to be human. Hegel viewed human as free rational agents. This meant that as rational agents the world would move in the direction of a rational state in which humans would be free under laws (this was the liberal state according to Hegel)
Marx on the other hand viewed it through material lens : the modes of production in which one belongs. The species being with marx is man's nature in relation to his material life.

>it sounds like you are making a hidden assumption
I might have not formulated it correctly in my OP but in essence it seems to me that the necessity of labor voids the marxist concept of alienation.
If someone has to work because of necessity, he will be forced to apply his labor somewhere. He will have to become a production tool, whether to himself or to someone else. In that sense, the bourgeois are just lucky people who created a business that made money and in which people could exerce their labor in exchange of using the facilities set up by the bourgeois. This is why I said earlier that in this case working for the bourgeois might be "irrational", but that it doesn't lead to an actual move away from alienation. It only leads to a problem of opportunity for the proletariat because he can only sell his labor to private individuals and not himself/co-op.

The bourgeois live with hardly any work living off the labor of the proletarians, what is so complicated about this that you don't understand?

>>2397679
>Because alienation is a lack of opportunity then in essence. The worker is forced to become a production tool to someone because he has no other choices
>the necessity of labor voids the marxist concept of alienation.
>If someone has to work because of necessity, he will be forced to apply his labor somewhere. He will have to become a production tool, whether to himself or to someone else.
Do you think having to hunt and gather food is alienation?

At no point does Marx say that alienation is "bad"

>>2397686
>Do you think having to hunt and gather food is alienation?
No but I think it follows the same scheme and that the concept of alienation doesn't actually bring about the need for a socialist revolution.

>>2397680
Because there's more nuance then simply that.
If someone creates a small startup company, works at that startup and invests capital to rent out some offices, computers etc. And then some engineer voluntarily decides to work there because the pay is good and because it corresponds to his aspirations, can you say it's alienation ?

>the boss profits off the labor of his workers
That's true, but given that he started the company, works there and reinvests the labor into improving the company, is that any different from a manager working for a state-owned company in a socialist country ? Alienation only seems to be "alienating" if the proletariat doesn't have a choice in where he wants to work. To "abolish" alienation, it seems more logical to give the proletariat real choices rather than purely abolishing the system altogether.

>>2397679
>Because alienation is a lack of opportunity then in essence
no, not really. there are enough examples up thread for what alienation encompasses and where it stems from and that it is no exclusive to workers.
>Wouldn't that lead to the worker being alienated from his labor in the same way
No. Or is it alienatin to you to bake a birthday cake for your friends or family to consume at a party?
>the modes of production in which one belongs
One does not 'belong' to a mode of production. Mode of production is the result of social relations. One belongs to a class which stands in relation to the other class(es).
>If someone has to work because of necessity, he will be forced to apply his labor somewhere.
Of course. The question isn't wether expenditure of labor is necessary to survive but wether expending labor to then having part of the product to be stolen by someone else, e.g. the bourgeoisie, is necessary. The answer, obviously, is: no.
>because he can only sell his labor to private individuals and not himself/co-op
Which is the result of the mode of production and thus the social relations we live under. Which is to be overcome. Furthermore, why should anyone 'sell his own labor to himself'? The goal is to de-commodify labor, not to make everyone a petty-bourgeoise.

It's been brought up and rejected but no one cares if they are "evil"
They could all be Saint Nicholas himself bringing gifts to all the good children every Christmas.
It makes no difference.
Capital operates autonomously (even tho it is neither a real thing nor an actor but try to stay with it) from the character of its "character mask"

>>2397702
>One does not 'belong' to a mode of production.
I meant it as descriptive, not prescriptive.

>Or is it alienatin to you to bake a birthday cake for your friends or family to consume at a party?
It is if I have no other choice then to do that

>Which is the result of the mode of production and thus the social relations we live under. Which is to be overcome
In that case couldn't a market-socialist regime or a plain social-democracy work therefore by giving the workers the ability to work for their own needs ?

>Furthermore, why should anyone 'sell his own labor to himself'?
Isn't that the goal ? To make people work for themselves ?

>>2397708
>I meant it as descriptive, not prescriptive.
Doesn't make sense either way.
>It is if I have no other choice then to do that
Okay, i specify: Is it alienating to you to bake a birthday cake for your mother out of your own volition without coercrion?
>In that case couldn't a market-socialist regime or a plain social-democracy work
No because in both cases the worker still produces commodities for exchange.
>Isn't that the goal ? To make people work for themselves ?
How is this achieved by exchanging one thing in your possession with another thing in your possession? How does an exchange of two commodities with yourself look like in reality?

>>2397712
>Is it alienating to you to bake a birthday cake for your mother out of your own volition without coercrion?
No

>No because in both cases the worker still produces commodities for exchange.
But why is exchanging commodities still be alienating ?

>How does an exchange of two commodities with yourself look like in reality?
Like a trade ? I make cakes, you need to buy some cakes for your birthday so you purchase them from me

>>2397560
>the hash form
Perfect

>>2397713
>But why is exchanging commodities still be alienating ?
Because, in the marxist sense, commodities are implicitly not produced to primarily satisfy a certain need but to realize profits via the exchange.
So yes, being self-employed or working in a co-op might be 'less alienating' than to be a worker in the cake factory of a bourgeois; however, since you or your co-op do not exist in isolation, you'd still have to adhere to 'market forces'. Be it a cake factory undercutting your prices by automating the process of cake baking, be it the landlord demanding higher rent payments, or be it that people want to consume cakes you yourself don't enjoy consuming and/or preparing. In both cases you'd be incentivized by external forces to change the way you bake cakes, which might lead to 'alienation'.

>>2397727
so to remove alienation we need to remove cash too ?

>>2397679
>I see, thanks for the effortpost. Did Marx ever write historical books on the transition of feudalism to capitalism
This is covered in Capital Volume 1, Part VIII: Primitive Accumulation, Chapters 26 through 33. Some reading guides actually encourage reading Part VIII first and then going back to the beginning (Harry Cleaver famously recommended this).

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm

Keep in mind Marx focused on Europe because that is where he lived and where he had access to research materials. He was very much a man of the 1800s.

>>2397730
basically yes.

>>2397679
>the bourgeois doesn't have to work for necessity
But they are also alienated.
>it appears that alienation only leads to workers co-ops or to a voluntary exchange of labor with someone
That might be the case but Marx does not argue that alienation leads to revolution.
>Wouldn't that lead to the worker being alienated from his labor in the same way
No because production for use is not alienation.
>The species being with marx is man's nature in relation to his material life.
For Marx man's species being is its uniqueness as a species of animal that can consciously and creatively change its environment through labor. So when he says capitalism alienates man from its species being hes saying it separates us from consciously and creatively changing our environment through labor by separating the worker from the product of his labor to sell it on a market.

The absence of capitalism, defined as commodity production for profit, and the transition to a state of post scarcity abundance of production directly for use enabled by technological means that facilitate such a social capacity, would not be alienating, because it would allow people to work according to their ability by choice and receive from it by need.

The only way I can think of that someone would think that is alienating is if they redefine alienation to mean having to work at all or if they think that a social community is some kind of imposition. Maybe you want to argue with Marx that humanities species being is actually just being lazy and that people dont like to work? I think most people tend to like working to a reasonable extent when they feel it is actually meaningful.

>>2397179
Compare motivation of workers who work for themselves and their craft and workers who have to work for money to support their families and nothing else. Capitalism is very inefficient in that it cannot fully tap into workers' creativity; slavery was inefficient compared to "free" rent-paying peasants in the same sense that slaves had no desire to work for anything more than bare minimum work they can get away with

>>2397179
>>2397536
>>2397550
>>2398611
lol at all the sociologist retards ITT trying to give a moral spin to a concept as simple as alienation

the alienation inherent to the specific form bourgeois property takes and its appropriation of surplus value, in creating a class of those who dont appropriate this wealth, yet are contingent factors in its production, creates the conditions for their overthrow by socialisation into common property

>>2398622
Moral spin? I'm giving you a practical understanding of how alienation works out in reality

>>2398658
>practical understanding
<erm its when people feel le sad
very scientific

>>2398658
You're both correct because alienation effects every facet of day to day life under capitalism most especially in the west

>>2398666
nice.

>>2398664
Are you arguing with the fact that people need to be motivated to produce better results?

>>2398622
> the alienation inherent to the specific form bourgeois property takes and its appropriation of surplus value, in creating a class of those who dont appropriate this wealth, yet are contingent factors in its production, creates the conditions for their overthrow by socialisation into common property
Yeah, capital is a cocktease and the workers are ready for murderfucking.

>>2397730
I mean this is a common take but personally I disagree. IMO the trade in the means of production leads to the commodification of workers which eventually develops into the managerial strata. Money itself is backed by the precarity of the unemployed. Anyhow I think that money will be abolished by the workers seizing control of the hiring/firing process. The wage slaves must seize control of the slave market (LinkedIn, the interview process in general and so on). Only then can we abolish money which is merely a facilitating tool for the trade in labor.