Nazi Labour Camps and Capitalism

Capitalism, in its ideal form, is an economic system meant to give consumers the opportunity to become producers of a product and sell goods to consumers without much government involvement. In practice, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim can attest to this economic system’s ability to benefit an opportunistic minority, while it disadvantages the majority, especially the working and lower class. These three classical theorists have varying views in what way capitalism ensnares the poor and how to break the recurring cycle, but all three theorists believe that capitalism benefits few and subjects the majority to a dependence on consumerism and the endless cycle of materialism and a lack of money. In “Fight Club”, the Narrator finds that his identity

2. On page 12, the narration changes. Why might it be necessary for someone else to begin telling Janie’s story now?

Workers in Packingtown were subject to conditions similar to slavery. Sinclair describes the situation explaining that “they were tied to the great packing machine, and tied to it for life” (Sinclair 94). Most of the workers could not escape the grasps of the Beef Trust, a monopoly on the beef industry that was above even the law. They were forced to work in dangerous and filthy conditions, earning barely any compensation for their work. All of the workers were seen as “cogs in the great packing machine,” replaceable and cheap (Sinclair 74). By objectifying their workers as simply moving parts to a machine, employers could find moral high ground in the poor and inhumane working conditions, and they could replace old and damaged “parts” with new ones without so much as thinking about what they had done for that worker. Sinclair hoped to promote Socialism with these depictions, spending the last few chapters of the book detailing how Socialism could fix all of the problems detailed in the beginning. His ideas of “‘Communism in material production, anarchism in intellectual’” were never realized in the United States (Sinclair 291). He believed that people should be given equal resources and then allowed to have as much intellectual gain as they wanted. The general public did not respond to this argument. They saw the problem in a different perspective, blaming not capitalism but

“…Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same

As Sinclair’s standpoint for Socialism proves not to be as convincing as what was hoped, the style of writing proves to be successful in exposing the truth of the meatpacking industry. A combination of the reporter-style third person narrative and the abundance of factual information dug up by Sinclair gives the book the shocking reputation that it has earned. “To this part of the yard [the fertilizer room] came all the ‘tankage’ and the waste products of all sorts; her they dried out the bones,--and in suffocating cellars where the daylight never came you might see men and women and children bending over whirling machines and sawing bits of bone into all

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle discusses the evils of capitalism in a meatpacking sector of Chicago, also known as Packingtown. It was evident that Sinclair did not support a capitalist form of government. His socialist political beliefs certainly impacted the style and content of The Jungle. Sinclair strived to exploit the Chicago meatpacking factories and educate his audience of the dangers that a capitalistic government could have on European immigrants and public safety. While Sinclair was exposing the evils of capitalism, the public was disturbed by the gruesome details, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit in the stomach.” By exposing the despicable methods of food production and lack of personal hygiene within the factories, Sinclair unmasked the effects of a capitalist government during the early 1900s, revealing his socialist opinion and forever changing the nature of meatpacking industries.

in Europe had harsher persecutions that led to murder. Over six million people were killed during this time. These deaths define two-thirds of European Jewry, and one-third of all world Jewry.

Sinclair describes the power structure within the meatpacking industry as, ”the Beef Trust … was the incarnation of blind and insensate Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs; it was the Great Butcher-it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh. (Sinclair,137)” Through this metaphor Sinclair illustrates the unsanitary, unsafe, and merciless conditions the workers of the meatpacking industry were subjected to both on the job and in every other aspect of their daily lives. All while the upper class spends enormous amounts of money without taking in to consideration the miserable lives the lower classes are forced to live. In The Communist Manifesto Marx states, “No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so thus far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc. (Marx, 18)” In essence, the capitalistic power structure not only exploits the proletariat in the work environment but also in every other financial aspect possible including securing basic needs like housing, food and clothing and no where is this more apparent than in the town surrounding the meatpacking plants of

Eleven million people died during the Holocaust of these eleven million people 2.4 million died from medical experiments conducted by German forces. These experiments were conducted mainly for three reasons. The first of which was to help the Germans gain knowledge that would help them better understand things that would have been viewed as threats or weaknesses to their military (Holocaust Museum). For example the Germans knew little of hypothermia and the weather located on the eastern front, so freezing experiments were conducted at Auschwitz concentration camp where most of their medical experiments occurred (Remember ). The second reason the Germans did medical experiments was to further their knowledge on how to pharmaceutically

Capitalism is an unnatural perversion of society in Marx and Engel’s The Communist Manifesto. It is constantly consumptive, unable to exist without further expansion. It warps society through its exploitation of labor and the class that provides it. The Communist Manifesto goes beyond just a sociopolitical critique of capitalism, and adds otherworldly, almost Gothic elements. Repeated supernatural, fantastical language reinforces the idea that capitalism is an illegitimate twist of the natural state of human affairs.

At the beginning of the century people thought that killing people,and torturing them like they did with the jews was correct to do.I think that people need to respect others, for everyone have the right to belief in a different religion,or a different political belief.In the past years different thinks had happen for example the nazi trapped the jews on concentration camps.

It is hard to imagine what living life in constant fear of death and arrest would be like, knowing that any slight slip in actions or speech could result in the end of one’s life as they knew it. Eugenia Ginzburg is an active communist member who finds herself on the wrong side of this situation. Arrested for over exaggerated claims of being a trotskyist terrorist, she is immediately thrust into a spiral of events that will dramatically change her, her ideals, and the entire state of communism. However, while in the prisons and labor camps it is interesting to note how her perceptions of life and reality change, including her affiliation to the state. This naturally begs the question; How do Ginzburg's perceptions of Communism and the Stalinist regime change throughout

Were it a testimony to the rigors and cruelness of human nature, it would be crushing. As it is, it shatters our perception of man and ourselves as no other book, besides perhaps Anne Franke`s diary and the testimony of Elie Wiesl, could ever have done. The prisoners of the labor camp, as in Shukhov?s predicament, were required to behave as Soviets or face severe punishment. In an almost satirical tone Buinovsky exclaims to the squadron that ?You?re not behaving like Soviet People,? and went on saying, ?You?re not behaving like communist.? (28) This type of internal monologue clearly persuades a tone of aggravation and sarcasm directly associated to the oppression?s of communism.

Karl Marx’s critique of political economy provides a scientific understanding of the history of capitalism. Through Marx’s critique, the history of society is revealed. Capitalism is not just an economic system in Marx’s analysis. It’s a “specific social form of labor” that is strongly related to society. Marx’s critique of capitalism provides us a deep

     The Communist Manifesto was written by two world renowned philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This book was produced in an era of great suffering and anguish of all workers in a socially distressed system. In a time when revolutions were spreading through Europe like wildfire, Marx organized his thoughts and views to produce the critical pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto”. Marx’s scrutiny illustrates his belief that unless change is to occur the constant outcome will repeatedly remain uniform. This is a novel that displays the differentiation between the Bourgeois and the Proletariat. Class relationships are defined by an era's means of production. Marx’s