At creation, the world was meant to be a perfect setting. God had intended a blissful and everlasting life for every man and woman, with control and dominance over animals and all other creatures, following the Lord’s command to man to subdue the earth. But following man’s fall, occasioned by disobedience, God withdrew the privileges, and instead gave man a just reward for insubordination, summarised simply that man shall sweat and toil before eating; and for the woman, she shall feel the pains of child-bearing. Since God said it, it has remained so. The only way to escape it is to live according to His laws, so that at the end of time, the hope of life after death can be realised.
For man to sweat and toil, it presupposes that he must be busy with his hands, and, as most occasions demand, his head. The Bible says that there should be no food for a lazy man. So, man is made to work – whether he likes it or not. But how and where does he find it? He needs a roof over his head, food on the table, and clothing. He may have the physical energy, professional skill, or both, but may lack the financial muscle to be self-employed. Even when self-employed, one still has to wade through the labyrinth of competition, government policies and other challenges germane to one’s line of enterprise.
The world has moved from feudalism, an economic, political and social system that existed in Europe during the middle ages whereby noblemen gave out lands to labourers who were protected by the noblemen while they tilled the land, and rendered military and economic service in return. Hoes and machetes were in use then, being the level of technological development at that time. The output was more or less for self-sustenance and at best for communal consumption. Now, we have capitalism, a social and economic system where the ownership and control of businesses and industry is in the hands of private people, and for the sole aim of profit. The instruments for production are more sophisticated, and employment or engagement of workers is more economic than social and political.
However, capitalism, especially as practised by greedy business owners, has thrown up issues as abuse of dignity of labour, alienation and exploitation. These business owners with capacious pockets have abolished unionism in their work-places, leaving the workers with no strength for agitation, and permanently under threat of job loss. The conditions of service are unbearable, even as these men and women enjoy being referred to as slave drivers.
Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) remains the most critical of capitalism owing to the extreme obstacle to emancipation caused by the owners of businesses and industry in their fatalistic belief in the power of capitalism. This led to his propounding of the famous Historical Materialism theory, based on dialectical materialism, affirming that history is a process of conflicting opposites, especially social and economic forces. It holds that the class struggle will result in the overthrow of capitalism by the dictatorship of the proletariat, after which a classless society will emerge from the withering away of the state.
Much as the possibility of a classless society appears far-fetched, there is no doubting the tempestuous relationship between the capitalist and the labourer. Capitalism alienates the labourers because, according to Marx, “the wage labour system imposes its own tyranny on labourers by forcing them to do that which will pay enough to secure their subsistence on terms that are decided by the owners of capital. If the capitalist does not need labour, then the labourer has nothing to sell. If he does need labour then he can purchase it, and therefore direct the life of the labourer towards ends that are not really his. The capitalist fixes the terms of the labour contract and will seek to maximise the amount of labour power for the minimum return.”
The labourer is employed in the capitalist system as a servant of the machines he operates, and it is the machines that become most important because labour is easily replaceable, as a result of the low skills created by the division of labour. For Marx, labouring, which should be the most complete expression and fulfilment of our species-being, becomes something outside our control which tyrannises us, and which ultimately decides whether we live or die.
Capitalism is equally exploitative, as the capitalist is only able to function because he exploits the labourer by extracting Surplus Value from the labour power of the workers.
Surplus value is the difference between what the labourer creates through the exercise of his labour power and what the capitalist must pay to acquire that labour power. For Marx, the capitalist is not merely a mean-spirited individual constantly trying to drive down cost, instead he must exploit his workers by extracting surplus value to purchase and service the machines that labour depends upon. Surplus value is the key to capitalism. Though it is created by labour, it is controlled by the capitalist.
Marxism as a philosophy is adamant that only a revolution will solve the problem of class – between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat – because the relations of production in a capitalist society reflect the exploitation at its heart; therefore, freedom cannot be achieved by political or legal reform because politics, law and even religion are premised on exploitation.
Capitalists are no fools, and on daily basis struggle to exert more influence on the workers with threats of sack, redundancy, wage cut and career stagnation. The economic melt-down affecting many countries has more or less empowered employers to see themselves as merely “helping” their workers, considering the number of jobless people who are willing to work for even one-half of the wages of those currently employed. This situation is not helping the cause of Marxism in its belief that the dictatorship of the proletariat will overthrow the capitalist system resulting in the emergence of a classless society. Rather, capitalists all over the world now get involved in politics as the state woos them because of their enormous financial strengths to assist her in running some state-owned enterprises under the now-popular Public-Private Partnership (PPP).
Comparatively, it will be much wiser, easier and cheaper for the state to moderate the exploitative powers of capitalists by insisting on minimum standards of safety and welfare in work-places and the crafting of an enforceable modus vivendi between the capitalists and the labourers.