Marx's Perspective and Framework - Coursework Example

Marx's Perspective and Framework and the Massive U.S. Investment in Prisons and the High U.S. Rate of IncarnationYourFirstName YourLastNameUniversity Title

Marx’s Theory

Theory of Alienation

Today’s world is characterized by technological advancements inconceivable in the past; it is the age of genetic engineering, the internet and space travel. Butt, at no other time in the past, have it felt so helpless when confronted with the forces that have been created. The fruits of our hard work continue to threaten our survival; global warming, the arms race, and nuclear disasters. Today, there is the capacity to create sufficient to satisfy everybody’s wants on earth. But still, millions languishing in poverty and are ravaged by diseases (Alexander, 2014). Although there is power to handle the ordinary world, humanity is controlled by anxiety, as an economic slump and military skirmishes destroy lives with the seemingly tantalizing strength of natural calamities. The more crowded our towns become, the lonelier it feels.

Karl Marx had noticed these contradictions and noted at the time that on the one hand industrial and scientific which no comparison with any other in the past had been introduced. And that, on the other hand, there occur signs of deterioration that dwarfs the disgusts of the Roman Empire. Marx also observed that everything seemed to be accompanied by its opposite.

Alienated Labor

Marx superbly portrays the employee in a capitalist set up as agonizing from four types of indifferent labor. First, the worker is alienated from the product because as soon as a product is made it is taken away from the fabricator. Secondly, the production process is viewed as retribution. Thirdly, the worker, who as a human, fabricate thoughtlessly without taking into account the real human abilities, and finally from fellow humans, because of the manner of exchange process replaces the gratification of reciprocated needs. All the four categories would appear to overlap which is not a surprise in the view of Marx’s incredible procedural motivation in these theories.

Marx tries to use a Hegelian reasoning of groups of Economics, in an attempt to show that all the groups of bourgeois economics such as rent, profit, wages, and exchange are eventually arrived at from an investigation of the idea of alienation. Subsequently, each type of alienated labor can be derived from the preceding one. Non-alienated labor is defined in the context of having the direct producer gratification of the production as an indicator of the worker's powers and the notion that the production intention is to satisfy others wants, thus affirming the mutual dependence of human being. Our separate human powers and our relationship in the social set-up are highlighted here.

Marx alienation is not just an issue of subjective confusion or feeling. The connection between Marx’s initial examination of alienation and his future social theory is the notion that the alienated person is a toy of foreign forces, although these strange forces are as a result of human action. Our daily life is full of seemingly harmless decisions, but when they combine, they generate big social forces with catastrophic consequences. Marx views the institutions of capitalism as a product of human behavior that later comes to shape our future conduct and decide the options as dictated by our action.

For instance, for a capitalist to remain in business, they must use the worker to the legitimate limit. Even if they feel any form of remorse, the capitalist must play the role of the merciless exploiter. The worker is then presented with the choice to take the best job available because there is no has no other option. By doing so, strength is added to the same arrangements that coerce us. The desire to counter this situation and take control of the future is the principal supporting and inspiring fundamentals of Marx’s social analysis.

Why the Selected Topic is Relevant to the Theorists

In co-operating America, today; corporations can rent production factories in prison. Corporation could also hire prisoners to go to work at their factories. In most cases, private companies are operating prisons for profit, creating incentives on their side to have more people jailed (Friedman and Parenti, 2013). The government is making money as well, by operating factories in prison that run as multi-billion dollar businesses in all states and all over the federal prison structure, where prisoners are hired out to the big corporation by the state.

Before 1970, private corporations were not allowed to use prison labor due to the convict leasing and chain gang disgraces. In 1979, according to the US Department of Justice, Congress started a procedure of deregulation to enable the private segment to get involvement restored to its initial conditions, as long as certain circumstances of the labor market are met. About 37 states have passed laws that allow for convict labor use by private companies at an average pay of $o.93 to $4.73 per day in the past 30 years.

Large and powerful corporations have a hand in the growth of prison labor market. Companies such Motorola, Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Boeing, Texas Instrument, Dell, Honeywell, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Intel, 3Com, Lucent Technologies, Northern Telecom, TWA, Revlon, Target Stores and others in years between 1980 and 1994 are a clear illustration of such assumptions. Assuming that prison labor has risen since it is safe to say that profit has also gone higher.

Oil companies have not been left behind in the exploitation of prison labor. After the Deep-Water Horizon explosion that killed 11 employees and caused vast environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico, BP chose to contract Louisiana prison inmates to clean up the spill. Louisiana has the highest number of prisoners 70% of whom are African- American men. Residents who have greatly affected by the spill, and who desperately needed the jobs were mad at BP for choosing to use free labor. Private businesses have for a long time realized that prison labor can be as lucrative as factory workers in third-world countries (Ouellet, 2015). Escod Industries abandoned plans to set up operations in Mexico because it was cheaper to use prison labor than pay Mexican workers. Instead, they set up base in South Carolina

Marxists basically observe wrongdoing and aberrance as characterized by the decision class and utilized as a method for social control – on the off chance that one fail to adjust then he would be rebuffed. Establishments, for example, the police, the equity framework, jails and schools, the family and religion are there to urge people to accommodate their behavior. They contend that professional wrongdoings (which have a tendency to be perpetrated by the all the more intense in the public eye) are overlooked, while violations carried out by the less effective in the public arena, for example, robbery and road wrongdoing are focused on and seen as more genuine. Marxists would likewise posit that distinctive social classes are policed in an unexpected way, with the average workers intensely policed in the desire that they will be more criminal and accordingly raising the odds of their violations being distinguished.

Research Questions that this Topic Beg to Answer

What are the policies formed by the conspiracy of criminal justice system and private prison corporations to create and expand the number of prisons and prison in the United States? Does the private prison system offer better conditions than the public option? What are the significances of having big numbers of underclass citizens regularly through the penal system and who will otherwise have remained unemployed/underemployed for most of their adult lives?

What are The Research Findings?

After 30 years in operation, private penitentiaries in the US continue to experience more cases of violent acts such as assault, rape, and death; they also record higher level of reoffending rates than public prisons. Additionally, they have not demonstrated that they are cost-saving or even efficient as compared to public prisons. Even against this backdrop, private prison facilities continue to flourish in the entire United States. However, some states are terminating private prison agreements due to budget and safety concerns. The private prison industry is then fighting back by putting vigorous measures to keep their prisons full, because that how they measure profitability. As economics take center stage in private prisons, the safety of inmates and staff is relegated to the back banner. Private prisons employ fewer guards who are poorly paid and often less experienced. Private prisons are therefore more interested in the number of prisoners than their wellbeing. Private prison management does not invest in quality management or prisoners’ rehabilitations.

Presently, the private prison industry encompasses diverse activities, which include contracting of prison services, hiring out of prison labor and prison construction and management. From these findings, it will easy to understand why private prison industry player would prefer full prisons (Jeffries, 2016). While encouraging privatization of prisons the government uses the age old rhetorical argument that it’s trying to minimize interference, reduce cost and improve efficiency. Private prisons select the healthy inmates who would be easier to maintain and can earn them an income when contracted to work outside.

The official and corporate justification provided for amplified investment in prison construction; seem quite defective with observed results and the welfares of the public. The findings appear to be informed by private interests and political forces, using ideology to disguise their true motives which is to achieve their objectives. The trend toward harsher penalties against poor urban, especially the minorities and the ever-increasing construction of correction facilities, points to take care of the interests of two main interests at the same time. First, the politician would appear to be tough on crime and secondly, the sustained stream of low labor to the corporations put money in the pockets of the private prison operatives. The blue-collar job market is kept in check, and it offers a culprit to blame for all social ills as opposed to blaming the conspiracy of the business and political interests.

Further Research Questions

What kind of ideological systems are at work in the drive towards the provision of private prison structures? What structural and administrative forms do they assume? How are they articulated in practice? To what degree do these practices have a social, economic and political influence? What conflicts arise from these phenomena? Are the correctional facilities serving the purposes they intended for or have become a source of cheap labor to corporations and politicians? Who are the true beneficially of this type of an arrangement in the long run?

Conclusion

Capitalism negates the effort of the worker to a profitable commodity that can be used to trade in the labor environment as opposed to a useful socio-economic endeavor that is geared to making the society better and advancing personal survival. Labor can be sourced using all and any means as portrayed the private prison systems in the United States. The capitalist who owns the production process is determined to extract as much labor from the worker as possible. Capitalist economic arrange pit one worker against the other and by inference one corporation against the other in competition for higher returns or wages instead of working towards their mutual economic interests.