«What, then, constitutes the alienation of labor?
First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.» 1/3
«He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague.» 2/3
«External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Lastly, the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another.» 3/4
«Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of the human imagination, of the human brain and the human heart, operates on the individual independently of him – that is, operates as an alien, divine or diabolical activity – so is the worker’s activity not his spontaneous activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self.»
– Estranged Labour, in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx
As heard on Thinking Allowed, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b2kpm0
Problem still unsolved. Sadly, I had never heard of this passage before. That’s because I never managed to read much of Marx except for the communist manifest. But that quote totally resonates with me. And it’s inversion is what we see a lot of these days: people telling each other to do the things they love to do, to find a job that agrees with them. As if such a thing existed! If people do it for love, they’ll do it for free. That’s not work.
I don’t work for the love of it and earn something on the side, as if by lucky accident. I do it for the money.
And to think that we should love work is to think along the lines of Big Brother in 1984 by George Orwell. You don’t only get punished but you must want it, too.
Now, of course I am happy to have found a job that seems better to me than all the others given the money I earn, the people I work with, the flexibilities I am granted – but I am still alienated. This is not me.
@kensanata Marx was a precise observer of the situation of individuals in an industrialised society.
In most IT jobs today, even if we like the work, we're disowned of the results.
Don't know a way out. Without the funds available to the organisation I work for, and the collaboration with others working there, I know I wouldn't be able to build things at that scale.
And self-employment is not an answer either, since it would force me to do all the administrative work associated to that myself.
@galaxis My current answer is to simple work as little as possible. My job allows me to work 60% over the year and while that isn’t close to Keynes’ 15h, my 24h work week is pretty good already. Not everybody can afford that, of course, but I think that’s what we as a society should want. Except for the substitution effect where rich people are more likely to work longer hours. 🙄 http://www.businessinsider.com/john-keynes-predicted-15-hours-workweek-2015-8
@kensanata @bob Well aware of that. I'm doing network and virtualization infrastructure... But, for example, I didn't participate in a Hadoop project we did, in parts because I didn't like the business model of the customer (analytics for online games)...
@kensanata
I volounteered to take care of $X as a sysadmin, because it sounded like a lot of fun. It's for a non-profit foundation. I didn't expect to get any money for doing it. Only after I started, I learned I would be getting some money for it. It changed nothing. I'd still be doing it, even if I was to do it for free.
Also, I feel like those are my servers. Sure, I don't own them, but I also don't pay the bills. Otherwise, it's as if I was doing it for myself.
Is it work?
@Wolf480pl sounds perfect!
@kensanata I think there is room for some gradation here. Sure, my work is not all fun and play, but I do get to learn interesting things, and I approve of the overall goal of what we are doing, so it's not just the salary. Plus, there is the satisfaction of a job well done.
@kensanata And at the same time, my hobbies have reached a semi-professional level, where I actually sell the things that I made and could make money off that, while still having fun building them.
@deshipu Definitely a plus! Generally speaking I fear that money will poison the joy, though: if you sell it for enough money to make a decent living, there will be customers complaining, faulty products to return, competitors to worry about. Even if you are self-employed in an activity you call your hobby, the need for money will sour it. But that’s just my suspicion. It’s why I ask for no money for hobby stuff. I don’t want to deal with demands because that feels like work.
@kensanata That is probably true, and that's why I currently sell it for a price that covers the cost of the materials plus a small margin for replacements — I'm not actually earning anything on it, or even getting compensated for my time.
@kensanata On the other hand, if there was something like the universal income covering my basic needs, I could actually do it as my main occupation, and still not treat it as a job.
@deshipu @kensanata That's how I always did it too. As soon as I declared something as a hobby, I would never take money for the results.
There's just one major problem with that approach: other people.
If the output of the hobby is something that others rely on, they mostly don't care if you do it for the money or not. And you might find yourself in a position competing with others who rely on being paid for the work you're doing for free, creating conflicts.
@kensanata @galaxis I was very afraid of this happening, but so far people have been overwhelmingly positive and understanding, even when I was at fault (using wrong shipping method, having a bug in the library code, or once even having bad solder joints). It might be because I have only sold to around 200 people so far, or it may be specificity of Tindie where everyone are hobbyists — hard to say. I suppose sooner or later I will run into a "customer from hell", but that didn't happen yet.
@kensanata I'm countering this with a quote from the famous Zen Buddhist Sengcan:
"The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart;
If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease."
@steckerhalter Now you've alienated yourself from both work and leisure! 😂
@kensanata I've transcended it 😆
And for those of you that want to read the rest, here’s the link which I forgot to add to the quote. Sorry!
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm