I believe that Andrew Niccol's film In Time is a great representation of Marx's "Estranged Labour" and its discussion of how the worker is treated. I think the part that most simply represented his writing is when Will Salas goes to work at the factory. There is a moment where he is manufacturing the time (I'm not sure of the word) devices. Marx discusses how the worker becomes a servant to the object they produce. When Will goes to "clock out" for the day, he is told that he did not meet the factory's quota and will not be paid in full. I think there is a direct similarity between the movie and the writing, because Marx discusses this very instance. "The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and size. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates." Even though Will's personal quota went up from the week before, he is still not meeting the factory's unrealistic standard. Therefore, he is deemed "less than", and not paid the full amount as he should have.
One thing that I think is also interesting that wasn't discussed in class, is the time period of Marx and "Estranged Labour". "Estranged Labour" was written in 1844, which is just after the Industrial Revolution, which was about 1760-1840. Technology was slowly coming around during the time that Marx wrote this. Workers were subject to extremely poor working conditions, and they were barely staying alive with what they earned. Similar to In Time, where in the less wealthy districts, it is very common for people to be running to their next destination and struggling to have the time to see the next day. While In Time is held in 2169, it is almost as if time and history have come full circle. All the while, these humans are carrying out their work, doing "human" functions, when in reality, they would love nothing more than to be at home, eating, sleeping, or procreating; serving "animal" functions.
I think "Estranged Labour" goes along with several other movies very well; my first two thoughts are Looper and Hunger Games. The Hunger Games series has the overbearing government where you're always being watched, there's districts with drastically different amounts of wealth. Both the series and In Time are about the revolution of the workers. The workers greatly outnumber the ones who hold the wealth, the bourgeois who own the factories, so who is actually genuinely surprised when they revolt and try to make things more fair?
What I find most interesting is that Marx only wrote about the problem and never mentioned a solution. I am sure he pondered it a long time but never came up with a sound one and I can see why. We have seen when people take the idea and go on with the idea of shifting the wealth around. If the poor overtake the rich and distribute the wealth, if they could distribute it in a fair way, which in such a large system is impossible, how would we go on making money in the system of labor already set up? Its the argument of paying someone to play basketball millions of dollars while a firefighter/cop/military are paid a working mans salary. Would we base income on importance of the whole good or would we try to pay everyone an average salary? We would lose drive to do anything and wouldn't have much to work up for if we all got paid the same. It would be estranged labor to a gigantic degree to where we all just a link in the system of monotonous value. We have to have those projects that keep us moving in life, the American Dream; which I now have come to the conclusion is that it is what you want it to be. An individual's American Dream where you accomplish what you want given these circumstances; not what the generalized opinion of it is. That is hard for people to do with such a system in place that demands so much in time to have a living wage but the idea of hard work rewarded is what drives us now, either monetary or just for accomplishment for ourselves. As crazy as it might seem but the idea of minimalist living seems to be what people are getting into recently and its gotten some attention with our generation with small one room houses for a couple and just buying what we need and taking delight in the small things instead of buying happiness. But it still backs the drive to do what drives you to work up just don't let it run your life as much. We find ourselves in a sticky situation, do we try to make the system work in our favor, which has worked and hasn't, or do we demand change and try to work it out not knowing what we all have to go through to get to the end result and the big question is, will it work and are we all going to be okay and functioning with whatever result of this combination of two styles of government.
ReplyDeleteI think the truest part of this is that the labor is more and more devalued. Inflation is a consistent force in the economy. As such a minimum wage is constantly being devalued. Law has to constantly adjust itself to keep up with the way minimum wage rises. This chart clearly shows that the actual value of minimum wage is always decreasing. The only time it improves is when a law is made to increase it.
ReplyDeletehttp://money.cnn.com/interactive/economy/minimum-wage-since-1938/
More succinctly, the amount of worth minimum wage had when it was set is already devalued by fifty-two cents compared to the 2013 dollar. Also our dollar was worth nearly eleven dollars in 1968. Since then the actual value of the minimum has been continually devalued since 1968. This is the basis of the idea that there will be a worker's rebellion. In a system set up to make things harder and harder for the worker, the proletariat will eventually no longer work. As Jess mentions this idea is more and more in movies lately. It is becoming more and more of a cultural idea to stop the way things used to be.
Not to be too tangential, but there are many ways that people have begun to take back power. One way is with the internet, allowing much more free idea exchange. Another way is with new technologies like 3D Printing. Prosthetics used to cost tens of thousand of dollars. Now they can cost under five hundred dollars.
“Anyone can get one of these hands — it doesn’t matter what insurance or health provider you have,” said Dr. Albert Chi, an assistant professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine. “To be able to provide such a functional tool for anyone with congenital hand or limb loss, it kind of brings you to tears a little bit.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/science/hand-of-a-superhero.html?_r=0
With 3D printing the individual can take the means of production away from the Bourgeoisie. The point of all this is that as people are increasingly able to make their own things the need for the Bourgeoisie will decrease. So while it can't be known for sure that there will be a revolt or revolution, it can be sure that there is increasingly self sufficient technology for everyday use that empowers the proletariat.