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 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 chieflabor, 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.