According to the German philosopher Karl Marx: The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save--the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour--your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being.
-from "Human Requirements and Division of Labour
under the Rule of Private Property" (1844)
This excerpt discusses what one may gain or lose while making choices between work and life, or between capital and self: the more one works, the more money one saves, the less life one has, and the more alienated one becomes. Do you agree with Marx? Is work necessarily alienating? Does the accumulation of capital necessarily lead to a loss of self? Or, is capital so crucial for one's survival that it is worthwhile to sacrifice life and self for more money? More fundamentally, what - if
any - differentiates "work" from other life activities? What could individuals gain from "work" and at what expenses? Couldn't "work" be part of life and a way to fulfill oneself? What makes a worker "unfree" and what may be required to transform "work" into unalienating experiences?
Write a well-structured essay to unpack or comment on the excerpt from Marx. You are welcome to include in your essay answers to any of the questions above or initiate your own dialogues with Marx. (100 points)
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