Bolca Marx'tan sonra 3 not alabildim kendimce:
1. "Yabancılaşma"yı modern iş hayatında bilgisayarla insanın ilişkisi üzerinden inceleyebilirim pekala. Kim demiş servis sektöründe yabancılaşma yok diye.
2. Bir ürünün değeri onun içinde yer alan sosyal iş gücünün tamamı ise, bir taşlanmış kotun değeri içerisindeki tüm emeğin yanında bir de eninde sonunda insan hayatından oluşmaktadır. Marka değeri vs. dendi, marka değerini de yaratan işçinin kendisi değil mi? Benetton'ı bir kapitalist durup dururken tek başına bir anda yarattı ve sonra sadece işçiler benetton etiketini mi basmaya başladı? O yüzden mi onların emekleri ürünün değerine katılamaz? Absürd.
3. Marx feodalizmi de kapitalizmi de doğal bulmuyor ve kapitalistleri din adamları gibi "bizimki iyi bizden öncekiler bozuk" demekle suçluyor. Peki doğal olan ne? Sosyalizmde iş hayatı nasıl olacak? Biraz bunları hayal edeyim.
Bu 3 madde aşağıdaki ingilizce reaksiyon yazısının temel noktaları. Bunları burada paylaşıp paylaşmamak konusunda çok emin değilim ama eğer devam edersem 3 sene sonra bu şekilde akademik okuma ve yazmada nasıl, ne derece ilerleyebildiğimi basitçe görebilirim ve faydalı olur diye düşünüyorum. Üstelik yorum alabilirsem de pek şahane olur.
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From Economico-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
From the First Manuscript: ‘Alienated Labour’
From the First Manuscript: ‘Alienated Labour’
Karl Marx definitely divides society into two classes: property owners and propertyless workers and defines the private property as the central reason of political economy. After setting the first side of the alienation of a worker which is from (1) the products of his work, since the product is a result of production activity, he states that the (2) act of production is an active alienation. Plus, while most of us refer “satisfying physical/mental needs – such as socialisation – ” when we tried to find out the definition of work, the view of Marx is that the worker’s work is not voluntary, but a forced labour and for that reason it is not a satisfaction of a need but only a means for satisfying need external to it, furthermore a self-sacrifice.
Also he separates man from animal with the fact of conscious life activity and argues that the worker makes his life activity a mere means for his existence that leads to (3) alienation of a man from his own body, human nature, and (4) alienation of a man from (other) man. In conclusion, Marx puts the private property that belongs to someone other than the worker as a result of alienated labour. One could argue that alienation is mainly caused by routine work which was one of the consequences of mass production and division of labour, but I believe that the role of computers in today’s working life should be investigated deeply as a factor of alienation of millennium’s workers.
From Value, Price and Profit – 1865
According to Karl Marx, labour is the common element of all commodities and the measure of the value of a commodity depends on the social labour included in it and price is only the monetary expression of it. Therefore, accepting that the wages labourer is selling its value of labouring power to the capitalist and the value of a commodity is equal to the value of labour in it, he concludes that the surplus value, that is the profit of the capitalist, basically results from unpaid overtime of the worker. Marx states that the main aim of the capitalist had always been prolonging the working day and increase in wages should be considered in this dimension, so rise in wages should be equal to the rise in value of labour and would result in loss of profit rates of the capitalist. Therefore capitalist’s aim will always be lowering the wages and working class’s aim should be the destruction of the wages system in total.
Although supply demand curve and their intersection with the help of “so called” invisible hands tries to explain the price/value of a commodity in a more materially (mathematically) understandable way, it is my belief that defining the value of a commodity in means of value of the total labouring power in it is maybe more complex and abstract for today’s capitalist structure but more realistic. For example, I do not accept that the price of a stoned jeans that results to soon or late death of a worker involved in its production is not the price label on it but the life of a human being.
From Capital, Volume I – 1867
In this study, Karl Marx investigates the capitalist mode of production and the conditions of production and exchange corresponding to that mode and takes England as a base country while giving his examples. It is clearly seen that Marx accepts the industrial development as a progress and believes that all countries will reach this stage inevitably. While investigating the use-value he refers to quantity and quality of labour included in a commodity and again he never accepts the value of a commodity as something other than the labour-time socially necessary for its production. In the argument of use value he concludes that if a thing is useless, the labour in itself should be useless and should not be accepted as labour since it creates no value. He discusses exchange value of a commodity as a choice of expressing the value of one thing in terms of other thing(s) and explains that one commodity could have lots of exchange values. In this discussion he concludes that exchange relations between products are directly determined by the exchange of the labour time necessary. Finally, he states that the conversion of products into commodities is the conversion of men into producers of commodities and criticizes the economists for acting like theologians and accuses them for thinking that there are only two kinds of institutions and accepting feudalism as artificial and bourgeoisie as natural. I think this clearly brings into sharp relief that Marx is accepting neither feudalism nor capitalism as natural.
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I am quite not sure about sharing my reaction papers after submitting to my class but I think 3 years later this will be a good track to see the progress of myself in academic review/writing and also I'd appreciate if I receive some comments through social media.