A Marxist View On Capitalism

Luc Nguyen May 7, 2009 Media Analysis Plight of Coal Miners Marxist Essay

They say history often repeats itself. Throughout history, humanity has always fought each other over issues of equality. Thus, life and the fight between the haves and the have-nots have always been a constant struggle. “Union Chief: Mine safety still lacking,” written by James R. Carrol, and “U.S. blames mine owner for death of coal miner,” by Steve Twedt are two examples of the problem of inequality. Barbara Koppel’s documentary film Harlan County, USA reveals the coal miner’s struggle to rise up against the capitalist system. Harlan County, USA and the coal miner’s struggle for equality is evidence that only by taking matters into their own hands could the proletariats achieve equality. The problem with capitalism is its power to prevent equality for the masses and enforce inequality. With a system that favors the elites, those born with more wealth and instilled with better education, how can those less fortunate hope to climb the economic or social ladder? How can we believe that everyone is equal when for the majority it is impossible to survive alone? According to Ruth Sidel in “Toward a More Caring Society” how can anyone make it alone when they had “women beside them every step of the way…to iron their shirts…cook their meals…and soothe them at the end of a hard day?” How can men or women, find equality in the job market and be “competitive in the field” and be the “kind of parent they hope to be” without physical or material support? Our capitalist belief of letting the rich prosper while the poor get poorer is neither fair nor moral and does not provide equality for the majority. So, the only logical solution is to provide constraints or a definition of a descent means of living.

According to Mathew Rothschild in “Our Sinful Economy” to have a more just society we need to have a “floor of decency” a “guaranteed annual income.” Yet in Harlan County, USA that is exactly why the coal miners are on strike, petitioning, remonstrating, supplicating, and fighting for their freedom against oppression and slavery and why some of them lost their lives. It is because of the capitalist system, favoring the rich capitalists, those mine owners “who seem to view penalties as just another cost of doing business” according to Carrol that the coal miners had to exhaust every measure of their civil rights and even resort to arms to achieve equality. The problem with capitalism is that it causes people of different classes to make unfair compromises and favors the haves while oppressing the have-nots into an inevitable and inescapable turmoil. Those who own businesses will naturally give their inheritance to their offspring, while those who own nothing will eventually pass on their debts to theirs. What this does is lead to a society ruled by class, and where class is determined by ascription, where nobody is equal, and where the idea of equal opportunity, an idea founded by our founding fathers does not exist. According to Jean Baker Miller in “Domination and Subordination,” Dominants like capitalists, those superior in class, gender and wealth are determined by “what experts call ascription – that is birth defines you.” However, such a state where people’s social status is determined by birth, equality does not exist, and thus exists a state of endless struggle. We can see an example of this in the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. In Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore Alice struggles to make a living on her own and is clearly oppressed by the men in her society because of her ascription. Born as a woman and with few supports, she struggles to make an honest living and support her child at the same time and is forced into making unwanted compromises of giving up her career as a singer and becoming a housewife. Alice “[had] to make substantial compromises, scale down [her] ambitions” and “not be quite

the kind of parent [she] hoped [to] be” to “live productive rewarding lives” according to Ruth Sidel in “Toward a More Caring Society.” It is because Alice is born of a lower social class, a subordinate social class according to Miller, that she lives on the unhappy end of the social ladder and has to make unfair compromises. In a true classless society, where necessities are provided, one could be what they wanted to be without the need of making unwanted compromises. However, in a capitalist state, this is not possible because providing others with necessities is argued to diminish quality. Furthermore, why would capitalists want to share and redistribute their wealth when the goal of capitalism is to amass as much wealth as possible? Therefore, we can conclude that those with power, capitalists and dominants alike will naturally do whatever is in their power to reserve their powers for themselves. Miller explains that, “There is, for example, no notion that superiors are present primarily to help inferiors” or to “end the inequality” but to do “the reverse” which is why to end the disparity, one must take matters into their own hands to achieve equality. In one scene of Harlan County, USA as one coal miner was talking to a police man, he expressed his grievance saying that “they don’t want us to ever retire, which is why we’re on strike” and one old man in the beginning of the film who says “if you stick to your senses, your organization, and your solidarity, you could defeat them” is proof that only by taking action could anything be achieved, including equality. Capitalism causes maldistribution of wealth, and according to Rothschild, maldistribution of wealth is why “our economy is a sin.” Rothschild claims that, “We have a plutocracy in this country” and would say that, “the greater sin is not gluttony” but “the lack of opportunity.” The cause for such an economy is due to the idea of laissez-faire; the belief that the economy works best without government interference to maximize the benefits of the individual, which is the root idea of capitalism and the American Dream of making it on your

own. This dream is becoming more of a myth because it is not possible to achieve by many. Instead, such an idea causes people to live in poverty, and make unhealthy choices since people need supports to thrive. The idea of individualism would cause people to fall underneath the “floor of decency” as seen in Richard Brooks film In Cold Blood. The two main characters in the film In Cold Blood are Dick and Perry who are two ex-convicts who struggle to survive in a capitalist country. It is because the two ex-convicts are not provided with a “floor of decency” or a basic means of living, and oppressed by their class that they were forced to commit heinous crimes which Rothschild would explain as an example of how maldistribution of wealth is sinful. While Harlan County, USA does not go to the extreme of murder, the coal miner’s perseverance through abuse, agony, and death for the sake of liberty is better than death and is evidence that the proletariats did have to do something to achieve their demands towards equality. The problem with capitalism is that it is a system, set up to make men fight amongst themselves and become a less caring society by tipping the modes of production and exchange balance. Much like mercantilism, capitalism favors a specific group of people of wealth. Like mercantilism which was a system used by Great Britain to oppress the colonists using tariffs and strict regulations, capitalism is a system used to favor the wealthiest in a society. Capitalism serves to create a plutocracy, favor the elites, and help those who are good at making money, even better at making money. The goal of capitalism is to maximize profit, and to do that one must maximize production and minimize cost. It establishes a “society based on commodity production” and where a person’s social value is based on money since “money determines value” according to Marlene Dixon “Marriage: Genesis of Women’s Rebellion” peoples values become centered on money and not on each other. In a society in which people simply do not

care about one another, morals consequently deteriorate and chaos, murder and senseless fighting ensues. Like In Cold Blood the murders of Dick and Perry, the Revolutionary War due Britain’s system of mercantilism or the many deaths of the coal miners are just only three examples of a state without morals or why Rothschild would explain why “Our Economy is a Sin.” Capitalists just value money over the life of one petty coal miner. They simply do not care about the life of another because there are so many lives for them to take. What harm would it do to a capitalist if it lost one coal miner if it could simply replace that lost one with another one? Evidently capitalists like the coal owners do not care about the other miners even though they’re also people since they “failed to observe basic mine safety practices and violated critical safety standards” according to Twedt resulting in a miner’s tragic lost of life. So the only solution is to make the capitalists care, by taking away the entire labor force from the capitalists, the bourgeoisies, the mine owners and by organizing and creating unions could the proletariats hope to force the capitalists, the bourgeoisies to care and achieve equality. The problem with capitalism is that men are not angels because in the Federalist #51 “if men were angels, there would be no need for government.” Men desire power, and once achieved, they desire to maintain it. They’ll use whatever means at their disposal to preserve their power. Capitalists being dominants in the financial arena will “usually define one or more acceptable roles for the subordinate” according to Miller essentially enslaving them, and have them do their bidding. In a traditional song “Coalminers” it is said that “they” referring to the mine owners “will slave you until you can’t work no more” and “for a dollar in the company store for that is all they pay” which is “barely enough to get you one meal at McDonalds” according to Rothschild which is why men need laws, rules, and regulations from a government to uphold equality and freedom and to prevent mine owners from exploiting their laborers. It is

because capitalists do not care about who they exploit, they “abuse and hurt” and “take our very lifeblood…our children’s lives” that taking action is a necessity since “there is no retreat but in submission and slavery” like Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech. It is time we wake up, and see just what the capitalist system has done to you and me. No, longer can we expect to receive benefits, a guaranteed minimum wage, or true equal compensation for our labor while “lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope.” It is because men are not angels, nor will they ever be, that the true evil resides in all of us, and that we all have desires. It is because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely and that is why we must have a government with a truer more just conscience than our own to govern us. We cannot rely on our superiors to automatically give us equal compensation for our labor. So, Harlan County, USA’s thirteen month successful strike, and the coal miner’s struggle towards equality is evidence that only by taking action into their own hands with a willingness to sacrifice life and limb were they ever able to purchase the priceless gift of liberty. It is because capitalism is flawed and causes people to become immoral and causes a maldistribution of wealth that people must take action to correct such an imbalance. The coal miner’s success in obtaining their demands through taking action is proof that only by taking matters into their own hands could they move toward equality. Without action, nothing is achievable, and as long as there is class, there will always be a struggle between the haves and have-nots. Such an endless struggle is why history will always tend to repeat itself.