ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

“And finally, the division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him, instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.”

Talking within the context of private property and division of labor, Marx explains how people can become enslaved by their lifestyle depending in what kind of division they work. While people work within the context of a larger group and that group within the community with other groups, they work under their ideology to fulfill material needs like private property. Similar to a family with hierarchical structure, each member works with the others, thus dividing labor. In the case that members of labor fall into a structure without common purpose, they will naturally be enslaved by their work as their freedom is limited by others within the structure. The more divided labor becomes, the more people depend upon one another and are restricted.

At the point that a person only knows one specific task, he or she must rely on others for support. Apart from the system, the labor has no use and therefore a person must do the work continuously. Such a restriction on the laboring individual is found today in the instance that work is found in only specific regions where the individual is forced to live. A farmer must live in a rural area where there are spaces open to harvest enough to supply his or her whole income. On the other hand, the farmer must live close enough to a shipping route or market to find means to distribute the produce. Once labor is divided, it cannot live without any of its parts and they all work involuntarily with each other for survival. The truck driver cannot live without the farmer and vice versa. Without a bureaucracy and a common goal, uncontrolled division of labor in society reduces the livelihoods of people solely to their work.

An economic identity is the characteristic of an individual within the context of society. By living a purely inward lifestyle, all labor is for self-support, and on the flip side, a purely outward lifestyle consciously supports growth of the community. On this topic, I can imagine a conversation between John Locke and Bernard Mandeville. They would probably agree that a slight inward sense of identity with personal incentive is necessary to fuel the system overall.

Examining the inward identity, it is necessary that individuals have personal goals in order to survive. Locke, in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, states that if man did not work the land to make it private and thus remove it from the commons, then “if such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him”. Private labors make survival possible and make use of that which was once worthless. Likewise Mandeville, in his The Grumbling Hive, introduces the reader to a thriving society in a beehive but at the cost of “Millions endeavouring to supply; Each other’s Lust and Vanity”. By each working for their own gain, the bees create a complete economy as they “Convert to their own Use the Labour; Of their good-natur’d heedless Neighbour”.

However, too much inward identity causes a corrupt and unhealthy economy. This begins with a “desire of having more than man needed” and thus “alter[s] the intrinsic value of things” (Locke). When people try to hoard and reallocate goods at an inflated cost, they throw the system off balance, away from the natural state God had put it in to provide equal opportunity for all. It is when the system becomes this way that the lower class is taken advantage of, “urg’d by meer Necessity; [They] Were ty’d up to the wretched Tree; For Crimes, which not deserv’d thar Fate; But to secure the Rich and Great” (Mandeville). By preserving the equality of all, Locke and Mandeville envision an orderly society formed by naturally organized cooperation.

GerhardtT_MP2Draft1  This is my rough draft

I would like to discuss the economic profile of Debra in “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” as she presents an interesting twist to a seemingly perfect system presented in the Bitchun society. While the system of Whuffie is meant to level the playing field so that anyone may live happily, successfully, and participate as a citizen, Debra demonstrates that there still exists the desire to break out of this uniformity to become the wealthiest and respected person. Nobody in the society should have any need to want seemingly infinite amounts of Whuffie, yet she still desires this. In a world of a very fluid economy with widely fluctuating currency for each individual, the citizens of the Bitchun society are responsible for their actions all of the time.

Here, working in the Magic Kingdom, Debra has the opportunity to flex her innovation and tech-savvy muscle to get what she wants while bringing in the most entertainment and excitement any park fan could want, rewarding her greatly along the way. In the long run, her plan may fizzle out and become stale like the Epcot project as Julius points out, but during her immediate lifetime, the Whuffie is too easy to take to pass up.

Debra brings out an interesting point of view of this utopian society by showing a dark side to a seemingly foolproof economy. Anyone with enough Whuffie already has an advantage in the system to take more as she/he is already high respected by everyone in a society where Whuffie “is everything”. By seeing this through, it is still possible to be selfish and thrive despite possible destruction to the historical world-wide attraction, Disney World. By analyzing Debra in the context of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments by looking at her “fashion” and “wealth”, I can show how she easily commands attention and gets her way, possibly causing “corruption of our moral sentiments” and altering a historical landmark forever.

“And finally, the division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him, instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.”

Here Marx is saying that society divides labor naturally which in turn also divides people from one another. By dividing labor, men become focused only on their own work and happiness instead of the well-being of the social group they live in. When people can do many different activities rather than a single one all of the time, it is possible for society to work towards a common goal and benefit.

Furthermore, division of labor even causes careers to enslave people. This implies a never-ending cycle of work without rest for simple self-sustainment. While a specialized occupation seems at first to be beneficial for the individual, it becomes inescapable. There is no happiness or feeling involved in the labor.  We need a sense of common interest in order to avoid enslavement by our labor.

This point that Marx makes implies a kind of cause and effect relationship. By working under the division of labor for our “particular” interest, we cannot avoid becoming enslaved by our labor. It is only when we combine the goals of particular and “common” interest that we can avoid becoming “exclusive” in our work and flourish as a complete society. When labor becomes very specialized for one purpose only, it takes advantage of the system by becoming most efficient for generating personal profit. More specialization allows people to work more independently from one another, not needing to face one another personally, but in a way that they can take advantage of each other to be most productive. It is not possible to avoid this downward spiral into one’s self, but rather it is necessary to get at the root cause of such “exclusive sphere of activity”. Here, the root is the mentality of the labor, the purpose and motive.

See my major paper 1 attached here in .docx (GerhardtT_RoughDraft.docx) and .pdf (GerhardtT_RoughDraft.pdf)

I would like to write about why labor value is difficult to establish using Addison’s “Spectator 160” and Smith’s “Theory of Moral Sentiments” to claim that there are actually two main decisions make when valuing labor. One decision, as Addison alludes to, deals with how useful the labor is for society as he discusses the two types of geniuses. The other decision, as Smith describes, deals with how highly we regard the actual person performing the labor. Where these paths cross to produce labor that is both useful to society and performed by a well recognized person, we tend to value labor very highly. However, most of the time labor does not fall at the upper end of each of these categories, but somewhere in the middle of each. It is when we weigh the two together that we become uncertain about the value of labor output by an individual.

This topic is interesting to me because we rate the value of others’ labor constantly in our purchases and hiring of services, and the decision can still be challenging due to any existing uncertainty in the value. The implications of our decisions are large, having impacts on the free market economy we are immersed in, yet the decisions we make can hang on a thread of certainty as we rate the labor needed to produce our desired product or service. The value placed on different types of labor determines payment, recognition from society, and social status. These are important factors to consider in any career choice, and greatly affect the economy and the lives of those in it.

Based upon these early ideas, I would like to claim that labor is difficult to establish because we are conflicted by our perceptions of what labor actually produces and who is doing it.

Labor must have some purpose, a means for an end, but is there always an end? In a sense labor defines us, characterizing our value to produce a good or service. Whether for the employee, the employer, or both,  value is never enough and the more diligence and skill we show to improve this value, the more is expected, teasing us to be more productive. Today we can see this with the growth of technology designed to make life easier. Instead of our gadgets facilitating the work so we can accomplish the same or better work in a shorter time, we find that there is always something more innovative and long hours still prevail.

Similarly, Stephen Duck uses “The Thresher’s Labour” to portray a never-ending workday to support a family by meeting the demands of his master. However, despite all the back breaking work day after day, the master scorns the threshers by yelling “Why look ye, Rogues! D’ye think that this will do? Your Neighbours thresh as much again as you” in lines 76 and 77. Each morning the threshers go out to the field with renewed strength and heads held high, work straight through the day except for lunch and occasional rainstorms,  and finish the day as unrecognizable figures with heads slung low. According to Duck, they have spent themselves completely for their work. Yet despite all this toil the master is still unsatisfied, comparing the yield of his farm to his competitors. It is likely that the others masters repeat these same words to their employees, driving them to produce more. This tease becomes a symbol of the constant push for better quality and more efficient work that follows on into today’s society. As we strive to become more valuable the bar raises higher indefinitely.

Economic identity is an important factor to consider when living in any community. People can either choose to live with an outward lifestyle to support the community, inward for self support, or a mixture of these. I can imagine a conversation between John Locke and Bernard Mandeville regarding the types of economic identity and which is best.

I feel that these men would agree that it is necessary to have an outward sense of economic identity, that each of us are tied to one another and must consider our own earnings, leisure, spending, property, services, and products of labor in the context of our neighbors. By taking as much as we need to live and sharing with others, the greatest happiness can be achieved. Locke points out that we should each own property with as much labor as we put into it, showing a sense of personal ownership. However, Locke also points out that we  should live in a way that is considerate of others so that we may all have a share and no property is wasted or spoiled, like the laziness and greed found in Mandeville’s beehive early on. Likewise, Mandeville shows us with a beehive how a bustling society can become strongly unified once it realizes the need for a common goal and well being, suggesting that a society will naturally be outwardly focused if a moral compass is in place. While both men hint at a governing body to preserve the rights and property of the people, their writings would suggest that they believe each person can have a unique and personally chosen role while still supporting the community. There isn’t pure socialism or anarchy in either Locke or Mandeville’s vision of an orderly society, but a naturally organized cooperation.

I would like to discuss Addison’s Allegory of Public Credit and the opposing words “decay” and “revive” used to describe the varying state of the virgin of the Great Hall.

Described as beautiful, a valetudinarian,  and timorous, the woman reacts to any bad news or phantoms by decaying from her health to take the form of a skeleton. Here, Addison shows how fragile the woman/credit is and how she/it can go from splendor to ruin quickly and easily. This contrasts with the way I normally think of decay, as a slow process of losing strength and viability. Such a state implies that the woman is weakened to the point of death, putting public credit in danger of collapse.

Instead of remaining withered, Addison describes the woman’s immediate revival back to full health upon arrival of the specters. Here he shows how the woman/credit may be weakened by conflict, but can return to her/its former self within a short time when given the right conditions. It is interesting that this revival brings about her exact state of health as is was before, whereas revival can imply a chronic weakness following the recovery. This hope for a reliable public credit is what brings about such joy as Addison sees her come back to life in the presence of the specters.

These words “decay” and “revive” are interesting in this text because they oppose one another, emphasizing the fragile state of public credit. While the woman can be in a very healthy state at one point, the next she could be very near death, and she jumps between these quickly. While credit can decay quickly, it is very important that she is able to revive quickly from even the worst antagonists.