As the bondsman creates more and more products with greater and greater sophistication through his own creativity, he begins to see himself reflected in the products he created, he realizes that the world around him was created by his own hands, thus the slave is no longer alienated from his own labor and achieves self-consciousness. The lord on the other hand has become wholly dependent on the products created by his bondsman; thus the lord is enslaved by the labour of his bondsman.
When you're the top it may seem like you are """in charge""" but really when you have sex and what you do is fully determined by the bottom.
At the end of the day you can only go as far as they want
I don't agree with the part where the bondsman achieves self consciousness through labor by being able to put on personal touches and the pure act of creation. Has an office worker achieved class consciousness by decorating their desk? Does an underpaid factory worker become unalienated because they see the cars they built around town?
I think I get what its supposed to say, but it seems reversed from reality(which I guess makes sense with the general statement that Marx and Engels put Hegel on his head).
Or at least its wrong about the bondsman being non-alienated just because "the world around him was created by his own hands" no matter his ownership and control of that world. Idk I guess being a useless Lord might feel alienating too but theres an easy solution to that problem.
Disclaimer, just my two cents with how I understand this stuff, which is pretty surface level, all things considered.
The alienation described by Marx and Engels comes from the Hegelian master/slave dynamic within a capitalist context of wages and profit-seeking, where the value of labor is divorced from the product of the labor in such a way that the maker/bondsman/worker does not receive the compensation his creation demands (the value of his labor). In this way, class-consciousness of labor is a collectivized equivalent to the self-actualized fulfillment that Hegel describes. Both outcomes result in the destruction of the position of the Master (Capitalist) in the social hierarchy.
Put broadly, whether you're talking philosophical or economical, the Slave exists just fine with or without the Master (as the Slave would produce for his own needs, even if the Master did not exist to demand production), while the Master cannot exist without the Slave beneath him in the hierarchy, no matter what the Master does otherwise. Slaves do not need Masters, but Masters need Slaves to observe their superior position in hierarchy. In a more pithy way, for the Master, Hell is Other People, and their only two options are to perpetuate the hierarchy forever, or witness the destruction of the self as the Master, and lower themselves to equal footing with those they once demanded reify their superiority. Obviously, that's an incredibly difficult thing for basically anyone in that position to accept without being forced to do so.
When it's said Marx put Hegel on his head it's meant that Marx empathized the material world (base) rather than consciousness (superstructure) as Hegel did.
![[NSFW sex/suicide] Hegels master/slave dialectic](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/dmqmZDFtJh.jpg){kind=link}
I... think I get it? :cat-confused:
I think I get it?
When you're the top it may seem like you are """in charge""" but really when you have sex and what you do is fully determined by the bottom.
At the end of the day you can only go as far as they want
I don't agree with the part where the bondsman achieves self consciousness through labor by being able to put on personal touches and the pure act of creation. Has an office worker achieved class consciousness by decorating their desk? Does an underpaid factory worker become unalienated because they see the cars they built around town?
From personal experience I can say "no".
deleted by creator
Ty for the context, context
I think I get what its supposed to say, but it seems reversed from reality(which I guess makes sense with the general statement that Marx and Engels put Hegel on his head).
Or at least its wrong about the bondsman being non-alienated just because "the world around him was created by his own hands" no matter his ownership and control of that world. Idk I guess being a useless Lord might feel alienating too but theres an easy solution to that problem.
Disclaimer, just my two cents with how I understand this stuff, which is pretty surface level, all things considered.
The alienation described by Marx and Engels comes from the Hegelian master/slave dynamic within a capitalist context of wages and profit-seeking, where the value of labor is divorced from the product of the labor in such a way that the maker/bondsman/worker does not receive the compensation his creation demands (the value of his labor). In this way, class-consciousness of labor is a collectivized equivalent to the self-actualized fulfillment that Hegel describes. Both outcomes result in the destruction of the position of the Master (Capitalist) in the social hierarchy.
Put broadly, whether you're talking philosophical or economical, the Slave exists just fine with or without the Master (as the Slave would produce for his own needs, even if the Master did not exist to demand production), while the Master cannot exist without the Slave beneath him in the hierarchy, no matter what the Master does otherwise. Slaves do not need Masters, but Masters need Slaves to observe their superior position in hierarchy. In a more pithy way, for the Master, Hell is Other People, and their only two options are to perpetuate the hierarchy forever, or witness the destruction of the self as the Master, and lower themselves to equal footing with those they once demanded reify their superiority. Obviously, that's an incredibly difficult thing for basically anyone in that position to accept without being forced to do so.
Yeah I don't know if I agree with it, I just think I get what he means.
When it's said Marx put Hegel on his head it's meant that Marx empathized the material world (base) rather than consciousness (superstructure) as Hegel did.