2. In her discussion of
Labor, Arendt pays respect to Marx, but says she will be critical of him. Why
does Arendt challenge the significance of Marx’s vision of the growing power of
the working class.
Marx and Arendt both address the concept of labor, and the
ability of humans to perform it. Marx goes further, however, to discuss how
labor can be alienating, removing the laborer from their essential purpose,
other people (due to competition), and the product itself. He advocates for a
class revolution of the proletariats against the bourgeoisie and take demand
freedom from the oppressive class. Arendt, however, argues tat a class
revolution would not be as liberating as Marx suggests. She introduces vida activa, which consists of labor (to
sustain biological life), work (to transform the earth into the artificial
realm), and action, where action is the engagement in social activity,
including politics and relations. She champions, very similarly to Aristotle,
participation in politics as the highest form of action, and believes action to
be the superior choice to overthrowing the bourgeoisie.
I agree with the distinction made above. In addition, more generally speaking, I think some of Arendt’s conceptions about work and labor can actually fit into Marx’s framework of labor as a whole. Arendt’s biggest criticism of Marx lies in the distinction she makes between labor and work. Because she sees these two concepts as drastically different from each other, she opposes Marx’s attempt to conflate the two. But is the sole act of creating subcategories of labor enough to count as a critique of Marx’s idea? Arendt makes the claim that the mere separation of her categories are more accurate than Marx’s, but it would not be farfetched to imagine the categories of ‘labor’ and ‘work’ that she poses are mere extensions of Marx’s own view of labor. Though this dichotomy created allows Arendt to claim that labor is a cyclical and natural activity, while work is an worldly and unnatural activity with an end and a beginning, it doesn’t necessarily follow that this is against Marx’s view of labor.
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