Commodified Labor Power

“to a mere money relation,” (Marx and Engels [1848] 2013:35]. Marx, saw the tear down of the old as the only way for the bourgeoisie to survive. Periodically, a crisis occurred where productive forces threatened their conditions and bourgeoisie would have to bring in new productive forces and destroy the old. Marx believed that these changes to technology and productive capacity were the main influence on how society and the economy were organized. The bourgeoisie had to push for the modern world to quickly and continually develop to protect capitalists’ monopolies. However, constant development caused continual disturbances of social conditions by breaking down stable aspects of human life. Capitalist used their power to push the world to advance so that they could prosper with no concerns to the possible effects on the economy, which would have been most detrimental to the proletariat. For Marx, this showed that capitalists’ self-interest pushed economic progress, which led to societal progress but also risked crisis. Capitalism not only affected society through the creation and separation of social classes but also in influencing societal progress and social relations.

When Americans today consider the term “slavery,” they recall a dark time in their nation's past, when an entire race of people were subjugated solely for the color of their skin, a travesty of civil rights that progressive thinking has striven to heal, insofar as paving the way to the election of an African-American president. Slavery is an antiquated practice from a draconian past, and it has no relevance in this modern, enlightened age. What Americans fail to comprehend is that slavery is not only alive and well, but thriving, and fueling the global economy at the expense of human lives. The International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency dedicated to protecting the human rights of laborers world-wide, estimates that

Slavery lives on all era in world history till lately, but its life has not constantly had the similar economic trait. Two questions ought to be answered to properly examine any definite cause of slavery: (1) what further systems of labor live in the civilization also to slavery? And (2) what system of labor is leading? In this manner we can make a difference among ancient slavery (e.g., in Greece and Egypt where free farmers live together with slaves, but slavery was leading) and antebellum slavery in the United States (which live together with free farmers, but was conquered by the industrially-based capitalism of the urban North). The past dominance of capitalism in the United States made antebellum slavery the most uncivilized system of slave work. Not

From the very beginning of recorded history to up until near modern times, there has been a systematic exploitation of human labor. This exploitation primarily occurred in two ways: serfdom and slavery. Most people are familiar with slavery as it was the more common practice especially in North America post-colonization. However, the more common practice throughout Europa and Asia was serfdom. A slave is somebody who’s life has essentially been purchased, their body was given a numerical value and somebody bought it.

Capitalism refers to an economic system whereby ownership of as well as investment in the means of production is made by private corporations or individuals to whom wealth accrues since they own the means of production. Society morphed from the feudal system to a bourgeois one that did not eliminate class antagonisms (Marx and Engels para 8). Instead, “it has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones” (Marx and Engels para 9). At best, the capitalist society that emerged in place of the feudal system merely served to abridge class antagonism by erasing multiple hierarchical classes and replacing them with two classes, the proletariats and the bourgeoisie (Marx and Engels para 10). The bourgeoisie refers to the wealthy class who own the means of production and can, therefore, accumulate incremental wealth by subjecting the proletariat into endless labor. On their part, the proletariat does not own the means of production and are forced to sell their labor cheaply to earn a living, ultimately sustaining the capitalist machinery.

The Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) had brought about significant changes in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transportation and technology and subsequently established an era of unprecedented economic growth in capitalist economies. It was within this era that Karl Marx had observed the deprivation and inequality experienced by men of the proletariat, the working class, who had laboured excessively for hours under inhumane conditions to earn a minimum wage while the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class, reaped the benefits. For Marx it was this fundamental inequality within the social and economic hierarchy that had enabled capitalist societies to function. While Marx’s theories, in many instances have been falsified and predictions

Enslaving a person is an action that is essentially deemed unethical and criminal in many countries, including the United States. However, at one point in American history, the exploitation of slavery was considered acceptable and licit. The existence of slavery was justified by the massive positive benefits reaped by the American economy, particularly in the South from 1619 to 1851 (Horton 7). In an economy so excessively dependent on the use of slaves, the abolition of slavery created fear of severe turmoil in the South, but did not actually cause this turmoil or occur.

In Capital, Karl Marx reveals the ugly truth that capitalism lays on the foundation of class exploitation. Without such exploitation, there is no profit to be made and capitalism will cease to exist. Capitalism, which relies on the reproduction of capital, creates and concentrates wealth to a small portion of society’s population while reproducing poverty and widening the size of inequality.

From the first voyage of the Middle Passage, American slavery has been dependent on the systematic depletion of human beings as economic assets. This commodification process persisted throughout the course of slavery, solidifying slaves ' role as property in America. Rooted at the very core of slavery, capitalism motivated whites to view the enslaved as property, rather than humans, to protect their economic interests. In order to accumulate slaves into the capitalist system as commodities, whites deprived slaves of their humanity. Similarly, the economic promise of slave reproduction inclined slave owners to enforce blacks ' status as commodities to increase their wealth

Slavery, polygamy, and incest are some of the deepest exploitations. They do not destroy our freedom, unlike murder (Goodman, 2010, p. 90). Slavery you are kept alive, and even given false promises (i.e. living, employment, safety). As of today, slavery has been abolished. There still is slavery that is happening today, but is often slips under the

Domestic servitude is known as people working as maids, servants, house keepers and those that care for the elderly and the ill. These type of people usually live in a workplace that is informal or in living quarters. They usually don’t share with other workers. During Domestic Servitude slavery is not just in towns, cities, or states. Some of the products that we see in our daily lives are made by slaves. Amanda Kloer states “Human trafficking isn’t just in your town, it’s in your home… victims are forced to make many products we use every day according to productsofslavery.org.” (Kloer 1). Most people in our country do not realize that products that they have worn, touched or seen has been made by a slave. Normal products, such as rice, chocolate, fish or coffee have been made by trafficking victims. Jewelry, athletic shoes, or cotton might have been made by slaves. Rugs, fresh flowers a cell phone or either consumer goods, there is a possibility that slavery is in our every day

After completing the short quiz on slaveryfootprint.org, I discovered that I have 57 slaves working for me. At first, I was shocked by the number, but then it made sense. The fabric in many of my clothes, the materials in my iPhone, and the food I consume daily have all resulted as a product in slave labor. This week’s readings and the websites confirmed that modern-day slavery is an ongoing issue that continues to spread around the world, becoming difficult to locate and eliminate in many ways. Many people relate the sex trade with human trafficking or modern-day slavery, but slave labor exists in other real-life settings. There are more slaves today than ever before, particularly 27 million, and their labor continues to exist in the supply

Marx’s theory of alienated labour is structured around a class-based system. It is vital to acknowledge that Marx’s evaluation of the capitalist system is based focused the Industrial Revolution a century and a half ago, and therefore must be kept somewhat in that context. Within Marx’s simplified capitalist society model, one class of people own and control the raw materials and their means of production. They are referred to as capital, bourgeoisie, or the owning class. The capitalist does not just own the means of production, but also all the items produced. By virtue of their ownership of production property they receive an income and earn a living from the operations of their factories and shops. The owning class owns the productive resources, though they do not usually operate the production means themselves.

According to Stephanie Smallwood, the commodification of people occurs when “[people] are turned into objects—when working, by selling their labor on the market to an employer.” Today, it is illegal and dehumanizing to sell people into the market of slave labor and view them as means of commodifying value. However, during the 19th century antebellum America, black bodies were commonly used as profitable objects of commodification. “Slave ownership is the most profitable investment in the nation next to land ownership, with 60% of the nation’s wealth invested in the agricultural south”(Rousseau 70). In account to the high demand of labor, dehumanizing was at its peak of acceptance. Black slaves were consequently deemed the lowest race in society. “Southern blacks, because of their helpless legal and inconsequential social positions, thus became prime candidates for inhumane treatment” (Savitt 120). A white owner’s was able to do what they wished with their purchase, no matter how brutal and inhumane. Slave owners wished to have the best workers on their plantations, so when purchasing a slave, many factors had to come in mind. Black slaves and their physical features represented, to a slave owner, what they were capable of. Commodification was primarily driven by economics where as Stephanie Smallwood states, “economic exchange transformed independent beings into human commodities whose most ‘socially relevant feature’ was their exchangeability.” The economic growth in the

At this juncture in Capital, Karl Marx introduces a conceptual problem investigating whether the formula of capital reached its current description from a series of natural and inevitable phases in human history. Marx contends capital to be unnatural and its current state to ascend from human-made historical and social economic systems. Despite this, the Neoclassicals and Neoliberals of current mainstream economics trust that this formula for capital has been how humans operate and have always operated (w source?). Marx’s development into this definition serves to be historical and abstracted through the concrete measurements from the circulation of capital. Marx illuminates capital’s unnatural characterization via The General Formula of Capital (or the Self-Moving Substance that is Subject) to uncover precise complications and contradictions. As a result, Marx derives a solution engaging evidence clarifying this mode of circulation as historically specific to capital and cannot be explained as a natural product of human nature.