Capital and Its Alientaiton

The four readings reflect Marx's view on the inequity created from division of labor. In "Estranged Labor," Marx lays out the ramifications in which capital production and the reification of objects have created workers to be alienated from their labor. Alienation or estrangement of capital divorces the relationship between worker and labor, which he emphasizes in "The Secret of Primitive Accumulation."

With alienation of labor and the division of labor, workers are susceptible to the exploitation of the ruling classes, thus creating further inequity in the factory. In addition, he mentions that division of labor also segregates and further stratifies elements that exist in the means of production.

In our current industrial phase, the location of proletariat is ambiguous. Division of labor is more abstract and stratification is further blurred from the peculiarities of the credit system and the false identification of the "middle class." Also, in the era of "information technology," reified process of capital in respects to information has no specific location and intellectual property rights further the ambiguity of the accumulation of capital, because the determining factor of exchange value is relatively determined.

Class consciousness is a farce in today's society. The accumulation of wealth could be solely relegated to credit, creating an artificial representation of labor. Also, before "Classes" is cut off, Marx brings the question of the stratified location of physicians and officials. In manifested "communist" societies, officials have the most power and are the ruling class. Though Marx does emphasize the "dictatorship of proletariat," the length and authority of the officials are undetermined.

If Marx was alive today, I don't how he would interpret the credit system and the labor in the technological centered society that is the most prevalent. With facets such as the internet and the digital era, labor has transitioned to a point that indecipherable but also increasingly more abstract.