Capital Alienation and Its Impact on Workers
Recently, more and more workers have begun to reflect on their own situations. This reflection often starts with a kind of pain, which stems from the harm caused by “capital alienation”—a profound sensory recognition.
However, this reflection and perception of pain have not yet reached a theoretical level. Many people still do not understand why they are in pain, especially the process of how this pain is generated and transmitted. Studying this process is very valuable because it can help us better understand and change the current situation.
1. Productive Forces and Production Relations
For those who have read "Selected Works of Mao Zedong," the concepts of productive forces and production relations are not unfamiliar. Mao Zedong elaborated on this relationship many times in "Selected Works."
He emphasized: All things can be transformed into tools of productive forces. This point is very important but easily overlooked. Especially "all things," which means anything can be transformed into a tool of productive forces, including human spirit and personality. For example, some people sell their kidneys, and the kidney becomes a productive tool; some people sell their bodies, and the body becomes a productive tool; some people sell their power, and power becomes a productive tool. This transformation involves not only items but also human spirit and personality.
2. The Emergence of Capitalization and Mammonism
Marx pointed out that the essence of mammonism is the process of capitalization. To understand this, we must understand money. The original role of money was as a general equivalent, which itself was a commodity, such as sheep, copper, shells, etc., in the past. Gold and silver, due to their special properties, gradually became widely adopted. With the development of commodity circulation, situations where people sell without buying appeared. After selling their products, people did not immediately buy new products but stored money to buy what they wanted at any time. Due to the intermediary role of money, the essence of commodity exchange was broadened. People’s purpose in selling products was no longer to obtain another product but to obtain money. The more extensive the circulation of money, the broader the range of items that money can purchase, and the more prominent the importance of money becomes. This phenomenon is what "Das Kapital" describes as money becoming the representation of social wealth.
Since all things can be transformed into tools of productive forces to obtain money, conversely, in an unrestricted free market, money can buy everything. Thus, people's desire for material goods transforms into a desire for money, leading to mammonism. Obtaining and storing more money becomes a social phenomenon, the importance of money increasingly grows, and money possesses enormous social power. And money is private, so the "social power" of money is actually "private personal power," those who have money can exchange it for anything. "Money can make the devil turn millstones" is a reflection of this social power. Those who have a lot of money will capitalize on important things, and this process has no bottom line, no margin, and no time limit. The consequences are obvious.
(For example, Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition funds came from the Soviet Union. This money allowed the Northern Expedition Army to fight all the way to Wuhan, then reach an agreement with the Jiangsu-Zhejiang financial cliques, and obtain a large amount of capital from Britain, the United States, and Japan, becoming comprador capitalists, completing the integration of the Kuomintang and warlords. On the other hand, Mao Zedong's capital came from Jinggangshan and Yan'an, relying solely on the people. With this background, reading "On New Democracy" helps understand the blueprint of the state he intended to create.)
3. The Origin and Development of Capitalization
In the previous sections, we overlooked the most fundamental issue: what does capitalization mean, and how is capital generated? We can imagine a scenario where one party holds money or a certain amount of production materials and living materials, while the other party has nothing and has to sell their labor. They meet in a completely free market and engage in buying and selling labor (including everything the worker can sell). This is the starting point of capital. Our common job recruitment and job searching are the same.
How does capital develop? The output of workers, on one hand, as the product of the production process, is occupied by capitalists. The occupied products are transformed into capital and the means for capitalists to continuously extract surplus value. On the other hand, after each production process ends, workers leave the production process just as they entered it. They have nothing and have to sell their only labor to survive. After working for a year, the capitalist boss buys a new car, a new house, and marries a new wife, while you need to continue looking for jobs and worrying about potential job losses. This is the development of capital.
4. How to Change
In "Selected Works," Mao Zedong has already transformed into a doctor and prescribed solutions. One of them is to establish an intellectual team of the proletariat and proletarian culture.
What kind of culture do we need to create? It must be a culture that helps us destroy the exploitative economy and overthrow imperialism. Because there is a new democratic culture, there must be imperialist and feudal cultural forces. When we promote the idea that the people are the masters, the feudal landlords must promote the culture of Confucian revival, the culture of slavery, the theory of exploitation, and the great role of landlords.
Imperialists promote the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, "peace," and the culture of "good citizens." They promote international common culture, non-resistance, and surrender culture. Capitalists promote the culture of "blessing" from the capital, the culture that capitalists create the world, that capitalists feed workers, the culture of capitalist hard work and entrepreneurship, the culture of capitalist diligence and progress, the culture of capitalists creating history, and so on.
What should we do? We should promote the culture of people creating history, the culture of materialism, the culture of laborers, the culture of equality, the culture of socialism, the culture of eliminating social wealth gaps, and so on.
This struggle has never ceased. It existed in the past, exists now, and will continue in the future. Why do we emphasize culture? Because it is the closest to us, the most deeply felt, and the easiest to overlook.
5. Capitalism Turns the World Upside Down
The brilliance of "Das Kapital" is that it tells us how the world has been turned upside down.
Originally, labor created value, but the capitalist world turned it into capital creating value;
Originally, humans should control things, but capitalism turned it into things controlling humans;
Originally, workers and peasants supported capitalists, but capitalism turned it into capitalists supporting workers and peasants;
Originally, workers created surplus value, but the capitalist world turned it into capital earning profits;
Originally, workers created the material wealth, but capitalism turned it into this wealth not belonging to the workers but to a few capitalists;
Originally, it was the accumulation of blood and sweat of generations of workers, but capitalism turned it into the result of a few generations of effort by a few people;
Originally, it was the capitalist system and the capital class maintaining it that pushed farmers and workers into poverty, but the capitalist world turned it into the laziness and lack of progress of workers and farmers;
Originally, the benefits of labor should be enjoyed by all members of society, but the capitalist world turned it into the benefits belonging to the capitalists, while the risks are borne by the masses.
The brilliance of "Das Kapital" lies in its comprehensive and profound analysis of how capitalism turns the world upside down.
And the subtlety of "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" is that, based on Marxism-Leninism, it tells us how to turn the upside-down world back to its original state through revolutionary means. If “Das Kapital” tells us how capitalism turns the world upside down, then “Selected Works of Mao Zedong” tells us how to restore the world to its original state.
Based on the above content, workers can have a deeper understanding of their pain.