Sam Wittmer<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Two men sit at the bar, each contemplating his respective drink.\u00a0 Across from the two, in a booth on the other side of the dark room, a group of factory workers sits down.\u00a0 It is the end of their day; the workers are tired men, wearing rags and clearly exhausted, but nonetheless making jokes and laughing.<\/em><\/p>\n Karl Marx:\u00a0 This is truly a sad sight.\u00a0 I know the pain that those ironworkers and smelters must be feeling.<\/p>\n Adam Smith: Why do you say that?\u00a0 Surely they have jobs and are able to provide for their families.<\/p>\n M:\u00a0 Ah, but you must see that these men are a broken people.\u00a0 They are the proletariat of London.\u00a0 They face constant exploitation from the bourgeoisie, who care for nothing but producing more and more.\u00a0 The modern Bourgeois, forged in the wreckage of feudal society, now oppress these wage-laborers and treat their personal worth as simply an exchange value.<\/p>\n S:\u00a0 Well, that is very strange of you to believe.\u00a0 I think of it as somewhat of a\u2014how do I put this? \u2014Oh, I know\u2014an invisible hand! This new division of labor that we now see greatly stabilizes the economy and increases production and advances technology.\u00a0 With each one of those factory workers creating a single part of a product, they are able to produce faster, greater quantity and greater quality of products.\u00a0 Thus, we must allow as much production as the markets will allow.<\/p>\n M:\u00a0 But this division of labor has made the workingman expendable, and his masters view him as having a low exchange value.\u00a0 The reason for this is that division of labor creates workers who are easily replaced by others, therefore the factory owners may pay their workers only enough to keep them alive\u2014in this way they survive only to produce more for the bourgeois owners, and have no humanity.<\/p>\n S:\u00a0 Let me continue on the invisible hand controlling the markets in relation to this previous statement.\u00a0 Those workers will not work if they are not being given fair compensation.\u00a0 This is also how the economy works\u2014people will not buy a product if it is not a fair price.\u00a0 Producers must be fair in their trade, for the market will not allow it to be otherwise.<\/p>\n M:\u00a0 The people in fact do not <\/em>have a choice of how they live.\u00a0 Their sole property is their own physical labor, and this they sell to the bourgeoisie and become commodities.\u00a0 The proletariat will overthrow these chains of capitalism because conditions will simply be too terrible to bear.\u00a0 The proletarian revolution will bring about a Communist society where all property is held by the state with centralized production.\u00a0 All will earn the same.<\/p>\n S:\u00a0 If all people are to make the same and also have no personal property, then for what will they work?\u00a0 Innovation will come to a standstill, as incentive is no longer present.\u00a0 Furthermore, why do you think that these people will be able to get along?\u00a0 No one will be in charge if they are all equal.<\/p>\n M:\u00a0 They will in fact all be the proletariat and have an abundance of goods.\u00a0 When there is no want of food and shelter, there will be no strife.\u00a0 History is the history of class warfare\u2014the tale of one group oppressing another.\u00a0 This revolution will effectively eliminate the need for class struggle because there will be no classes.\u00a0 As for order, it will be a democracy controlled by the people.<\/p>\n Plato: (lurking in a dark corner of the bar) <\/em>But lead to tyranny, Democracy must!<\/p>\n S:\u00a0 Who was that?<\/p>\n M:\u00a0 I do not know but I believe it is our cue to leave.<\/p>\n S:\u00a0 Indeed.\u00a0 Well I believe I will see you again next Friday, Karl?<\/p>\n M: Ah, of course Adam, I do enjoy our conversations.<\/p>\n They exit.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sam Wittmer \u00a0 Two men sit at the bar, each contemplating his respective drink.\u00a0 Across from the two, in a booth on the other side of the dark room, a group of factory workers sits down.\u00a0 It is the end … Continue reading