| The
worker is the subjective manifestation of the fact that capital is man
completely lost to himself, just as capital is the objective manifestation
of the fact that labor is man lost to himself. But the worker
has the misfortune to be a living
capital, and, hence, a capital with needs,
which forfeits its interest and hence its existence every moment it is
not working. As capital, the value
of the worker rises or falls in accordance with supply and demand, and
even in a physical
sense his existence,
his life,
was and is treated as a supply of a commodity,
like any other commodity. The worker produces capital and capital
produces him, which means that he produces himself; man as a worker, as
a commodity, is the product of this entire cycle. The human properties
of man as a worker -- man who is nothing more than a worker -- exist only
insofar as they exist for a capital which is alien to him. But, because
each is alien to the other, and stands in an indifferent, external, and
fortuitous relationship to it, this alien character inevitably appears
as something real. So, soon as it occurs to capital -- whether from
necessity or choice -- not to exist any longer for the worker, he no longer
exists for himself; he has no
work, and hence no
wages, and since he exists not as a man but as a worker, he might just
as well have buried himself, starve to death, etc. The worker exists
as a worker only when he exists for himself
as capital, and he exists as capital only when capital
exists for him.
The existence of capital is his
existence, his life, for it determines the content of his life in a manner
indifferent to him. Political economy, therefore, does not recognize
the unoccupied worker, the working man insofar as he is outside this work
relationship. The swindler, the cheat, the beggar, the unemployed,
the starving, the destitute, and the criminal working man are figures
which exist not for it,
but only for other eyes -- for the eyes of doctors, judges, grave-diggers,
beadles, etc. Nebulous
figures which do not belong within the province of political economy.
Karl Marx: ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL MANUSCRIPTS, written between April and August 1844. SECOND MANUSCRIPT: The Relationship of Private Property |