Labor

Marx’s Estranged Labor claims that society is divided into “property owners and propertyless workers”. He addresses the concept of a political economy which perpetuates greed and exploitation of wage laborers. He describes labor as an “alien” concept to the worker, in which man is coerced to work and does not know himself while he works. Division of Labor and Manufacture further reinforces the notion that laborers are slaves to capital, forced to work in order to survive but are only further oppressed by working. The Secret of Primitive Accumulation returns to the concept of political economy as a construct where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. He introduces the idea of “primitive accumulation” which divides the laborer and the means produced. Finally, in Classes, Marx presents the three main classes of a capitalist society: wage laborers, capitalists, and land owners. Their relationship is defined by wage laborers transformation of the means of production into capital.
I found Marx’s comparison of man, labor and nature in Estranged Labor to be unusual. I found it dramatic that he claimed man is only truly free when performing animal functions (such as eating, drinking etc.). Marx claims that labor is unnatural and forced for man, but I view work as a natural part of life. We must work to provide life essentials, such as food, for ourselves. Perhaps Marx is saying that only labor that is exploited by the bourgeois upon the proletariats is unnatural and forced.
Furthermore, I found Marx’s presentation of landowners as a distinct class in Classes to be surprising. From our previous readings of Marx, I gathered that he believed society to be strictly divided into capitalists and exploited workers. I would be interested in learning more about the role of land owners in Marx’s view of society.