PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF HUMAN LABOR

Dr. Manuel B. Dy, Jr.

The topic of this paper is propelled by the many social issues plaguing the
country today: the numerous strikes of workers, teachers included, against
management; the increasing rate of unemployment with the accompanying
growing demand for higher wages; the dichotomoy between the so-called white-
collared jobs and blue-collared jobs, and the predominant attitude of looking
down upon the latter; the industrialization gap between the urban and rural
sectors, resulting in the migration of workers in cities, and the ethical dilemma of
the lagay and pakikisama system that goes with the bureaucracy of large
institutions. Overshadowing these issues are still the conflict of ideologies,
capitalism versus communism, individualism versus collectivism, and the
problem of objectification, depersonalization or functionalization of the worker in
a highly technological industrial set-up. The latter carries with it the dichotomy of
work and leisure or play, of labor and contemplation.

It would be much easier to tackle these social issues separately and propose an
appropriate solution, but that, I feel, would not be solving the problems at their
root: I agree with Pope John Paul II that the social problems of man today are
related to work and the key to their understanding is the dignity of labor. The
dignity of labor, however, cannot be seen merely from an economic point of view
it is properly speaking, a philosophical and technological question.

I shall not begin with a definition of work for the notion of work has undergone a
long evolution in the history of civilization. Rather, my intent is precisely to trace
this evolution of the notion of work in history and to link this with a philosophy or
philosophies of man.

I think this is one way of finding the philosophical basis of the dignity of labor,
and the first step in clarifying the social issues related to work.

The presupposition of this paper is thus in line with what John Paul II said in his
encyclical Laborem Exercens: "The sources of the dignity of work are to be
sought primarily in the subjective dimension, not in the objective one."

Historical Valuation of Work

It seems that primitive man knows no specific value for work. Living in an
undifferentiated world, where everything is thought to be under the control of
the hidden forces of nature or gods, primitive man hunts and gathers food to
keep himself alive. But more than mere security, man works in order to offer
sacrifice to the gods. The switch from food gathering and hunting to agriculture
and cattle breeding is prompted more by the desire to offer to the gods a more
worthy sacrifice than by the motive of security of life. Barter assumes a symbolic
significance that transcends mere necessity: an exchange of selves in a mythical
bond.

For primitive man, work is not to change and manipulate the world but to
appease the gods through ritual and magic.

The greeks are said to have initiated the breakthrough from the primitive world
of myth and magic to the world of reason. Logos governs the cosmos, and man is
supposed to discover this order in the universe by contemplation. Man is
different from the brute animal because of his capacity to perceive order, form,
harmony in the cosmos. Thus the ideal is to philosophize and to take part in the
activities of polis, the city, by the standard of arete, excellence, harmony of the
whole man.

The Greeks consequently cut off work from the sacredness of nature and made it
profane. They now look upon it as fitting only for the slaves and the animals.
Citizenry is divided between the free and the unfree, with the free men living on
the work of others. The notion of work follows the Greek notion pf Logos. Work is
not supposed to disrupt the order of nature but to harmonize with it, Thinking.
Mans dignity lies in his own ability to stand for himself, to acquire mastery over
nature and his own passions. Here we have a notion of man as a subject but a
subjectivity imprisoned in itself.

The intrinsic value of work reaches its culmination and exaggeration in Marxs
thought. For Marx, through labor, man confirms his own being as a species-being.

...the practical construction of an objective world, the manipulation of

inorganic nature, is the confirmation of man as a conscious species-being,
i.e., a being who treats the species of his own being or himself as aspecies-being,
(p.102)

For Marx, man is not merely a natural being: he is also a human natural being
(p.103). For this, he means to say that is a being who treats himself as the
present, living species. Man is the only being who can make the community his
object both practically (in labor) and theoretically (in reflection). The theoretical,
i.e., intellectual work, however, is simply an abstraction of the practical. This
ability of man to make himself and his humanity his own object proves the
universal and the freedom of man. Through labor, man shows the practical
universality of his being -by making the whole nature his own inorganic body, as
a direct means of life and as the material object and instrument of life-activity
(p.100).

Thus, for Marx, man is man because he can objectify himself through labor. By
making a chair, for example, man is as it were transcending himself, making
himself (as individual and as species) an object of himself (for-itself) by means of
nature; thus asserting his being as a free being. So, the chair becomes an
expression; externalization and realization of mans species life, an embodiment
of mans creativity. We see therefore the human stamp in the chair: nature
becomes humanized, reflecting mans being as man, as species being-creative,
free, universal.

Originally, the natural is not necessarily human. Neither objective nature nor
subjective nature is directly presented in a form adequate to the human being.
(p.183) The natural only becomes human for Marx when it assumes a social
dimension.

As society itself produces man as man, so it is produced by him. Activity and

mind are social in their content as well as in their origin; they are social activity
and social mind. The human significance of nature exists for social man, because
only in this case is nature a bond with other men, the basis of his existence for
others and of their existence for him...the natural existence for man has here
become human for him. Thus society is the accomplished union of man with
nature, the veritable resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and
the realizes humanism of nature. Is not enough, therefore, to simple interact with
nature. When man Produces, he must produce for society and with the
consciousness of acting as social being. Only then is the work human, and the
object, a human object, a social object. Only then does man not become lost in
it. Man becomes a social being, an society a being for man in this object.

Marx does not make a distinction between individual human life and the species-
life. Although man is unique individual, he is equally the whole, the ideal whole,
the subjective existence of society as though and experience. Even when man
does a purely scientific work, an activity that may be done without direct
association with other men, he is still engaged in a social activity. Language itself
is already a social product. The individual himself is the social- being (p. 130).
Man as a species-being is man s\conscious not only of himself as an individual
but also of his own species and of his own being a member of his species. And it
is in labor that man actively manifests his being a species-being, through his
work upon objective nature, man relates himself with other man-not only in the
sense that he needs 5the help of other to do the work but also because he
produces universally; he takes upon his work the whole of nature and humanity.
His work can be called human only when he goes beyond considering the mean
of his individual subsistence to include the community. A human work thus is
truly communal in nature and purpose, and the real human being is one who has
re-incorporated in himself the social.

Work and Man in the Technological Era

The exaggeration of Marx in making all human realization governed by labor is
understandable in the context of the dehumanization of the worker in the
capitalistic system predominating in his time (and in our time?). Aside from the
problem of alienated labor attributable to capitalism, history has given rise to a
new phenomenon technological work. The present age is technological, and to
the extent that technology has dominated mans thinking and behavior, it has
aptly been called technocracy. Ours is an age of machines and computers, of
mass communication, video, print and telecommunication; of energized land,
sea, and air travel. Technology has no longer just transformed nature; it has
forced nature to reveal its secrets. Thinking that it is unformed and disorderly,
man has interfered in nature, creating an artificial world of machines and
computers. Rather than merely conforming to his given surroundings, man has
made the earth become; he has in a sense created his own world of structure
and institutions. While before the natural need of man determined productions,
now man produces to stock and to create a demand by means of advertising.
Intellectual activity has itself become work, for in order to survive, the technico-
economic order needs constant growth through inventions and this requires
rational planning, market strategies. Man has indeed become truly productive.

Much of what Marx says of work and man are true in the technological era:
modern work is mastery over nature, humanizing nature and realizing man as a
species-being. Work has become very important that it now determines where
man is to live it has mobilized man to overcome spatio-geographical limitations,
and yet there do exist the negative aspects of contemporary labor: the
anonymous ties of urban life, the identification of the person with this function,
the drudgery of repetitious specialized labor, the bureaucracy of institutions in
short, the functionalization and depersonalization of the person.
It seems that work is not the only for man to realize himself. It seems that mans
work has come to assume a quasi-independent existence, threatening to swallow
man.
At this juncture, we need to see work and man then from a new vantage point,
from a viewpoint that overcomes the dualism of matter and spirit, body and soul,
physical and spiritual.

Indeed, insofar as man is body, he is limited, he needs to provide for his physicl
well-being. He has to struggle against nature. But man's body is none other than
his subjectivity, his spirit embodying itself. Man as incarnate subjectivity
manifests his interiority, his freedom and rationality, not only in work but also in
word. Word, is as much an embodiment of man's subjectivity as work, but with
the advantage of providing a more total grasp of the world than work, modern
work. As Paul Ricoeur says, word can provide a corrective for work, taking forms
as seminars and "tsismis" for functional workers.

As embodied spirit, when man works, he wrests a surplus from nature. Modern
work has reached apoint where man is able to wrest this surplus from nature,
leaving room for other modes of self-realization of work concerned with
"production". By his rationality, man transforms nature in order to build-up forces
for higher purposes; this surplus becomes leisure, the basis of culture, as Josef
Peiper would say.

Modern work has shown that besides productive labor, there is something more
(surplus) to our earthly existence. It is not enough for us to have food, clothing,
and shelter. In the way we cook and prepare our food, dress ourselves, build and
decorate our houses, we exteriorize ourselves, manifesting our personalities and
culture. We cannot work eight days a week, especially when work is too
specialized and boring, we seek for leisure and play, to be with our friends and
families, to simply take nature as it is and not as a means --- in short, to be just
ourselves.

The danger is to make everything of human existence work. To work is a way of

realizing oneself but not the only way. There is a counterpart of work, other ways
of self-realization, call it leisure, word, contemplation, culture. In a sense, modern
work is becoming leisure, but there will always be an aspect of "toil," whether
manual or intellectual labor. Modern work can also be contemplation and culture.
They can no longer be separated. When modern man works, his activity aims at
the world to change it, resulting in a product which man can use to perfect
himself and for his fellowman. Yet, this activity also aims at man himself,
expressing and communicating himself, resulting in a sign in order to speak of
human existence to his fellowman in communion. Every product is a sign to
some extent, bearing the stamp of interiority of the person.

Produce in accordance with the standards of every species, and also with the
laws of beauty. Man then is free in the face of his product. He is not completely
identified with his work. Man can make his life activity itself an object of his will
and consciousness (p.101). His own life becomes an object for him, and thus his
labor is a free activity.
From Marx, human labor is a process between man and nature, a metabolism of
some sort established by man which man himself regulates and controls. Man
transforms the earth by work, but by changing nature, man also changes himself:
he develops powers, abilities lying dormant in his being-he develops himself. The
development of work is likewise the development of man.
The development of labor is the process of production. Strictly speaking, only
man can produce. Man produces when he utilizes mechanical, physical, and
chemical forces to make instruments, tools, and machines which are extensions
of his body. Work develops as man evaluates his labor by the perfection of the
means of work. Human civilization, thus, is to be judged not so much by the
things produced as by the complexity of the means of productions.
Human labor is productive only when man uses tools. But the use of tools imply
division of labor. The hammer is a tool for the carpenter only because someone
else makes the nails. The division of labor, however, makes man interdependent
with fellowman. Thus, productive labor makes man social, makes people work for
one another. Work makes man a fellowman.
This human co-existence in work also provides an interconnection in mankinds
history. Every generation finds at its disposal the means of work produced by the
preceding generation and leaves behind certain means of production that will
serve as the starting point for the future generation. Thus history becomes
common history through work.
Consequently, for Marx, work is not simply a means to a goal outside; rather,
work is an end in itself, a value in itself. It is not surprising then, that Marx is
against working for the sake of a wage and the capitalistic system that makes
work and worker a commodity in the market. Work cannot be simply reduced to a
means to live. In fact, man lives in order to work, for work is the way for man to
realize his true humanity.

Implications in the History of Work

The history of work indicates a change, an evolution of an understanding of man.

Human nature may be said to remain essentially the same throughout history;
nevertheless, man's understanding of himself develops. And this can be seen in
our historical sketch of the valuation of work.

It is doubtful whether primitive man has any unique understanding of himself or

his humanity as a value outside that of the tribe he belongs to and the gods that
the tribe worships. His work is all part of sacred nature, his activity not dissimilar
from the beings around him. His humanity is but the outcome of mechanisms,
processes and forces in the cosmos.

The Greeks look down upon work and contrast it with their ideal of
contemplation. While man indeed may be a part of nature, he is no insignificant
part for his rationality makes him different from the beast and liberates him from
the finitude of nature. It is the contemplative activity that man's dignity is to be
found, but not in work, for work is servile. The true man is the free man, free
from the servitude to nature.

Christianity in the Middle Ages begins to appreciate the value of work as an

imitation of God's creation but it is not unaware of the toil involved in the work of
the craftsman. Work is still contrasted with study, with rational activity. Work is a
noble duty insofar as it reflects man as a creature of God and a member of the
Christian community. Nevertheless, the dignity of man lies in his being created in
the image and likeness of God, which is to be found in his rational soul. As an
activity of a rational animal, man's duty to work is to serve as a means to attain
his final destiny - the Beatific vision of God.

The cult of work in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries brought about by
the gradual rise to capitalism gives us a view of man as a controller and master
of nature, because of his independent
Notwithstanding and because of the many kinds of work, the value of work lies in
the worker, the dignity of man as an embodied person, free, communicating
(social) and one in the diversity of his acts.
Alienated Labor

ALIENATED LABOR by Karl Marx

The Worker and His Product
We shall begin with a contemporary economic fact. The worker becomes all the
poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases on power
and volume. The worker becomes an even cheaper commodity the more
commodities he creates. As the world of things increases in value, the human
world becomes devalued. For labor not only produces commodities; it makes a
commodity of the work process itself, as well as of the worker and indeed at the
same rate as it produces goods.
This means simply that the object produced by mans labor-its productnow
confronts him in the shape of an alien thing, a power independent of the
producer. The product of labor given embodiment in a material form; this product
is the objectification of labor. The performance of work is at the same time its
objectification. In the sphere of political economy, the performance of work
appears as a material loss, a departure from reality for the worker; objectification
appears both as a deprivation of the object and enslavement to it; and
appropriation of the product by others as alienation.
The reduction of labor to a mere commodityin short, the dehumanization of
work- goes so far that the work is reduced to the point of starving to death. So
remote from life has work become that the worker is robbed of the real things
essential not only for his existence but for his work. Indeed, work itself becomes
something which he can obtain only with the greatest difficulty and at intervals.
And so much does appropriation of his product by others appears as alienation
that the more things the worker produces, the fewer can he possess and the
more he falls under the domination of the wealth he produces but cannot enjoy-
capital.
All these consequences flow from the fact that the worker is related to the
product of his labor as to an alien thing. From this premise it is clear that the
more the worker exerts himself, the more powerful becomes the world of things
which he creates and which confronts him as alien objects; hence the poorer he
becomes in his life, and the less belongs to him as his own. It is the same with
religion. The more man puts into God, the less he retains in himself. The greater
the worker's activity, therefore, the more pointless his life becomes. Whatever
the product of his labor, it is no longer his own. Therefore, the greater this
product, the more he is diminished. The alienation of the worker from his product
means not only that his labor becomes an impersonal object and takes on its
own existence, but that it exists outside himself, independently, and alien to him,
and that it opposes itself to him as an autonomous power. The life which he has
conferred on the object confronts him in the end as a hostile and alien force.

Let us now look more closely to the phenomenon of objectification and its result
for the worker: alienation and, in effect, divorced from the product of his labor. To
understand this, we must realize that the worker can create nothing without
nature, without the sensuous, external world which provides the raw material of
his labor. But just as nature provides labor with means of existence in the sense
of furnishing raw material which labor processes, so also does it provide means
for the worker's physical subsistence. Thus the more the worker by his labor
appropriates the external, sensuous world of nature, the more he deprives
himself of the means of life in two respects: first, that the sensuous external
world becomes progressively detached from him as the medium necessary to his
labor; and secondly, that nature becomes increasingly remote from him as the
medium through which he gains his physical subsistence.

In both respects, therefore, the worker becomes a slave of things; first, in that
labor itself is something he obtains- that is, he gets work; and secondly, in that
he obtains thereby the physical means of subsistence. Thus, things enable him to
exist, first as a worker, and secondly, as one in bondage to physical objects. The
culmination of this process of enslavement is that only as a worker

Can he maintain himself in his bondage and only as a bondsman to things can he
find work.
In the laws of political economy, the alienation of the worker from his product is
expressed as follows: the more the worker produces, the less he has consume;
the more value he creates, the valueless, the more unworthy he becomes; the
better formed in his product, the more deformed becomes the worker; the more
civilized his product, the more brutalized becomes the worker; the mightier the
work, the more powerless the worker; the more ingenious the work, the duller
becomes the worker and the more he becomes natures bondsman.
Political economy conceals the alienation inherent in labor by avoiding any
mention of the evil effects of work on those who work. Thus, whereas labor
produces miracles for the rich, for the worker it produces destitution. Labor
produces palaces, but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty, but it cripples
the worker. It replaces labor by machines, but how does it treat the worker? By
throwing some workers back into a barbarous kind of work, and by turning the
rest into machines. It produces intelligence, but the worker, stupidity and
cretinism.

The Worker and the Process of Production

Thus far we have considered only one aspect of the alienation of the worker,
namely, his relationship to the product of his labor. But his estrangement is
manifest not only in the result, but throughout the work process-within
productive activity itself. How could the worker stand in an alien relationship to
the product of his activity if he were not alienated in the very act of production?
The product after all is but the resume of his activity, of production. Hence if the
product of labor is alienation, production itself must be active alienation-the
alienation of activity, the activity of alienation. The alienation of the product of
labor merely sums up alienation in the work process itself.
What then do we mean by the alienation of labor? First, that the work he
performs is extraneous to the worker, that is, it is not personal to him, is not part
of his nature; therefore he does not fulfil himself in work, but actually denies
himself; feels miserable rather than content, cannot freely develop his physical
and mental powers, but instead becomes physically exhausted and mentally
debased. Only while not working can the worker be himself; for while at work he
experiences himself as a stranger. Therefore only during leisure hours does he
feel at home, while at work he feels homeless. His labor is not voluntary, but
coerced, forced labor. It satisfies no spontaneous creative urge, but is only a
means for the satisfaction of wants which have nothing to do with work. Its alien
character is revealed by the fact that when no physical or other compulsion
exists, work is avoided like a plague. Extraneous labor, labor in which man
alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Finally, the alienated
character of work for the worker is shown by the fact that the work he does is not
his own, but anothers and that at work he belongs not to himself, but to another.
Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of human imagination, of the human
brain and heart, is seen as a force outside the individual reacting upon him as
the alien activity of gods or devils, so the workers labor is no more his own
spontaneous activity; but is something impersonal, inhuman and belonging to
another. Through his work the laborer loses his identity.

As a result, man-the-worker feels freely active only in his animal functions

eating, drinking, procreating or at most in his dwelling and personal adornment
while in his human and social functions he is reduced to an animal. The eating,
drinking and procreating are also genuinely human functions; but abstractly
considered, apart from all other human activities and regarded as ultimate ends
in themselves, they are merely animal functions.

Productive Activity as Mans Essential Humanity

What happens in the end is that man regards his labor hi life activity, his
productive life merely as means of satisfying his drive for physical existence.
Yet productive life is the real life of the species. We live in order to create more
living things. The whole character of the species is evident in its particular type
of life-activity; and free conscious activity is the generic character of human
beings. But alienated labor reduces this area of productive life to a mere means
of existence.

Among animals there is no question of regarding one part of life as cut off from
the rest; the animal is one with its life-activity. Man, on the other hand, makes his
life activity the object of his conscious will; and this is what distinguishes him
from animals. It is because of this free, conscious activity that he is a creature of
his species. Or perhaps it is because he is a creature of his species that he is a
conscious being, that he is able to direct his life-activity; and that he treats his
own life as subject matter and as an object of his own determination. Alienated
labor, reverses this relationship: Man, the self-conscious being, turns his chief
labor, which should express his profound essence-into mere means of physical
existence.

In manipulating inorganic nature and creating an organic nature and creating an

objective world by his practical activity, man confirms himself as a conscious
creature of his species, that is, as a member of his whole species, a being who
regards the whole of mankind as involved in himself, and himself as part of
mankind. Admittedly animals also produce building as do bees, ants, or beavers,
their nests or dens. But animals produced only for their own immediate needs or
for those of their young. Animal production is limited, while mans production is
universal. The animals produced only under direct compulsion of direct physical
need, while man produces even when free from physical need, and only truly
produces and creates when truly free from such need. Animals produce or
reproduce only themselves, while man reproduces the whole nature. Whatever
animals produce-nests or food- is only for their own bodies; but mans creations
supply the needs of many species. And whereas animals construct only in
accordance with the standard and needs of their kind, man designs and produces
in accordance with the standards of all known species and can apply the
standards appropriate to the subject. Man therefore designs in accordance with
the laws of beauty.

Thus it is precisely in shaping the objective world that man really proves himself
as a creature of his species; for in this handiwork resides his active species-life.
By means of mans productivity, nature appears to him as his work and his
reality. The true object of mans labor therefore is the objectification of mans
species life- his profound essence; for in his labor man duplicates himself not
merely intellectually, in consciousness, but also actively, in reality;

And in the world that he has made man contemplates his own image. When,
therefore, alienated labor tears away from man the object of his production, it
snatches from him his species-life-the essence of his being- and transforms his
advantage over animals into a disadvantage, insofar as his inorganic body,
nature, is withdrawn from him.
Hence, in degrading labor- which should be mans free, spontaneous activity- to
a mere means of physical subsistence, alienated labor degrades mans essential
life to a mere means to an end. The awareness which man should have his
relationship to the rest of mankind is reduced to a state of detachment in which
he and his fellows become simply unfeeling objects. Thus alienated labor turns
mans essential humanity into a non-human property. It estranges man from his
own human body, and estranges him from nature and from his spiritual essence-
his human being.

Mans Alienation From Man

Let us now see how alienated labor appears in real life. If the product is alien to
me, if it confronts me as an alien power, to whom then does it belong? If my own
activity belongs not to me, but is an alien, forced activity, to whom does it then
belong? It must belong to a being other than men. Who then is this being?
Is it the Gods? In ancient times the major productive effort was evidently in the
service of the gods- for example, temple building in Egypt, India, Mexico; and the
product of that effort belonged to the gods. But the gods were never the lords of
labor. Neither was nature ever mans taskmaster. What a contradiction it would
be if a man- as he more and more subjugated nature by his labor, rendering
divine miracles superfluous by the wonders of industry- if man were then to
renounce his pleasure in producing and his enjoyment of the product merely in
order to continue serving the gods.

Hence, the alien being to whom labor and the product of labor belong, in whose
service labor is performed and for whose enjoyment the product of labor serves-
this being can only be man himself. So, if the product of labor does not belong to
the worker, if it confronts him as an alien power, this must mean that it belongs
to a man other than the worker. If the workers activity is a torment to him, it
must be a course of enjoyment and pleasure to another man. Neither the gods
nor nature but only man himself can be this alien power over men.

Let us consider our earlier statement that Mans relation to himself first becomes
objectified, embodied and real through his relation to other men. Therefore, if he
is related to the product of his objectified labor as to an alien, hostile, powerful
and independent object, then he is related in such a way that someone else is
master of this object someone who is alien, hostile, powerful and independent
of him. If his own activity is not free, then he is related to it as an activity in the
service, and under the domination, coercion, and yoke, of another man.
The alienation of man from himself and from nature appears in his relationships
with other men. Thus religious self-alienation necessarily appears in the
relationship between laymen and priest or since we are here dealing with the
spiritual world between laymen and intercessor. In the everyday, practical
world, however, self-alienation manifests itself only through real, practical
relationships between men. The medium through which alienation occurs is itself
a practical one. As alienated labor, man not only establishes a certain
relationship to the object and process of production as to alien and hostile
powers; he also fixes the relationship of other men to his production and to his
product; and the relationship between himself and other men. Just as he turns his
own production into a real loss, a punishment, and his own product into
something not belonging to him; so he brings about the domination of the non-
producer over production and its product. In becoming alienated from his own
activity, he surrenders power over that activity to a stranger.