Work, Civilization, and Realization of Humanity

Karl Marx believes that animals are not distinct from their life activity, and that what distinguishes man from animals is that he, instead of being the same as his life activity, treats his life activity only as an object of his will and consciousness. Yet private ownership of means of production (land, machine, raw material, etc.) leads to alienation of labor, which makes work as a life activity that is anti-human. Thus he advocates communism, which gives an end to alienation of labor by letting every man share the ownership of means of production. In this way work as a life activity agrees with man’s will and allows man to realizes his humanity. Sigmund Freud believes that civilization is a process in which man never fully exercises his will as he always has to make compromises between his will and need. Work itself is a compromise between man’s need to survive and his instinctual inclination for pleasure. It is also hardly possible for man to stop pursuing the private occupation of means of production because of his immutable inclination to aggression. Thus Freud thinks communism is an illusion. Admittedly, the failure of the communism in Soviet Union proves that communism is infeasible. However, this signifies that the activity of production should not be founded upon full satisfaction of man’s inclination to aggression and upon extreme exploitation of workers, but should be based on both efficiency and fairness.

Marx, in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, argues that private ownership of means of production is the fundamental cause of alienated labor. Private ownership of means of production results in the separation of capital from labor, which are both factors of production. Workers, who own nothing but labor, are...

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...ies form a mechanism for the government to act in the best interest of the nation as opposed to the party in administration.

Civilization is a product of men’s speculation for their best interests. But it is paradoxical that calculation for pleasure does not necessarily lead to more happiness: the pursuit of the best interests results in not the satisfaction of instinctual inclinations but the renunciation of instinctual inclinations. It seems that happiness is not equal to interest; that happiness is instinctual while interest is civil; and that the realization of humanity is not the pursuit of happiness but civilization itself. The world eventually is moving from inhumane capitalist society toward one that pays more attention to human rights and people’s livelihood. Civilization is man’s product, and we should believe in its mechanism of realizing humanity.