Dialogues of Plato: Apology, Crito, Phaedo - Assignment Example

ON REVOLUTION INTRODUCTION As we try to understand the human condition one gets stuck in the extensive and continuous experience of oppression, injustice and poverty by many people. I find it quite hard to reconcile that we human beings come together to create a better world but in the world that we have created there are many people who are suffering, who are being oppressed and who are experiencing all forms of injustices. As such, I think we have to ask ourselves if we have really created a better world. In light of this, I will make an attempt to see the connection between the works of Plato, Marx and Lenin as we try to look into the specialization of an individual as he/she survives in a state trekking the milieu of lean production in globalization. PLATO’S SPECIALIZTION AND GLOBALIZTION Plato’s The Republic is one of the greatest ancient texts that touched on the relation between the individual and the state. Plato’s presentation in the Republic shows us that human beings come together and create a community because they recognized that on their own it will be very difficult to satisfy their needs. This is for the reason that human beings are basically self- insufficient. We may be good at one thing but not on other things as Plato himself claimed “A state, I said arises, as I conceive out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants…” (241) Thus, the state is created. But under Plato’s state, he further stipulated that if we really desire for our needs to be satisfied, each member of the “original state” should be doing only the work that naturally suits him/her. He should not be doing any other job as he/she tries to perform his/her function within the state for “…we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations…so we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.” (242-243) and this concept is known as “specialization”. As such, it can be impugned that for Plato the recognition of an individual’s self insufficiency in the satisfaction of his/her needs becomes the primordial factor that will move a person to join and be together with other individuals to form a state. And the moment that they have come together they will just, without question, perform the task that is naturally suited for them for the good of the state which they have created. I think the entire argument of Plato regarding the origin of the state and his perception of the person’s role in the state is flawed. In the first place, it can be claimed that Plato assumed without doubt that his individuals are rational. He has taken for granted that he was referring to rational human beings. The sure sign of this assumption is “recognition of self-insufficiency”. Under this concept it can be inferred that human beings are capable of looking at things, of weighing events and judging which is beneficial or harmful for them. This rationality permeates the whole creation of state. But at the same time, he claims that these people will not be doing any other thing except that which naturally suits them. Why would Plato claim that? You have people who are rational and at the same time this same people will be living their entire lives doing nothing except that one thing which they do best so much so that “assembly line workers would perform one or two tasks, repetitively and…without complaint….” (Womack, et al, 55) Is human nature really like that – in our rationality we are extremely limited? Are we rational enough to accept that? Second, is the idea of specialization. Is it not true that the more specialized a person is on one field, the more the person becomes dumb on other fields? If such, why encourage specialization when in fact you can have a person who can develop most of his potentials not only for his own good but for the good of the state as well. And third, if rationality and specialization are the foundations of the state, why is it that we are still continuously experiencing oppression and injustice? Although these flaws are quite easy to see in Plato, it is surprising that his concept of specialization has endured through time and until now is still being utilized in the contemporary period. Let us take the case of ‘lean production-lean management’. Lean production – lean management is basically the style of production and management that is employed by factories and assembly lines as they respond to the demands made by globalization. We know that globalization is the contemporary face of imperialism. It intends to open the world market to all countries with out any restrictions, without any boundaries. In the process of creating a global market, the capitalists have conjured an idea wherein they can produce more with less. The first to concretely implement this idea is Ford with his concept of mass-production. Mass-production is “division of labor (specialization) to its ultimate extreme.” (Womack, et al, 31) if the task of the worker is to put two nuts on two bolts then that is what he is going to do. No other tasks are demanded of him/her. What is only demanded is that the worker become super efficient in his/her given task so that there will be no delays in the assembly line. On the other hand, Lean-production-lean management is the capitalists way of producing more for less while keeping “extremely skilled and a highly motivated workforce.” (Womack, et al 53) Under lean production the workers are encouraged to pour all their knowledge and creativity on the product. Working as a team, they develop the product without waiting for the go signal of the manager since hierarchy in production is no longer accepted as the life blood in the assembly line. In other words, the workers are given freedom to do as they please with the product as long as what they do with it is still in lieu of the mission-vision or goal of the company which is “continually declining costs, zero-defects, zero- inventories and endless product variety.”(Womack, et al, 14) Being such, lean production has been perceived as the panacea for both the capitalists and the workers because it has been claimed that under lean production – lean management, the company starts to see its workers as human beings whose holistic growth as a person is integral and important for the growth of the company. But is this true? I would like to think that at first glance it seems that lean production-lean management, indeed, emancipates the workers from the drudgery of their meagre existence. They no longer become part of the dispensable materials in production line. The fact that their creativity and knowledge is recognized will lead one to believe that under lean production a “company is a community.” But is this real? No it is not. Let us not forget that in lean production-lean management what is necessary is keeping “extremely skilled and highly motivated workforce”. This is Plato’s division of labor, specialization with a contemporary twist. It demands from its workers to continue harnessing its skills, to continue achieving excellence so that they can continue coming up with the best variety of products. But for whom - for the workers themselves or for the capitalists? Specialization of workers in lean production under globalization has glaringly shown us that in our contemporary period workers no longer just sell their labor force, their bodies. In our time, workers sell their entire humanity – labor force, knowledge, creativity- to the capitalists. The individual’s commodification is further solidified as that which somehow defines our humanity is sold to the highest bidder, the capitalists. Thus, workers condition is still the same, they “live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.”(Marx & Engels, 12) INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE Plato’s division of labor which necessitated specialization, though flawed, has been stipulated in order to elucidate how human beings have established the state and how the good life can be achieved within it. Whereas, specialization in labor within the framework of lean production is the new form of worker exploitation. It is never intended to understand human nature or the nature of State. Rather, I believe it is intended for one purpose alone and that is to fulfil the capitalists’ vision- mission PROFIT AND MORE PROFIT. I think that what Marx and Engel’s have said before regarding the plight of the workers still hold true in our time. I am claiming this on the premises that: First, the idea that society was created as a result of contract or agreement among equally rational individuals is far fetched from reality. All stipulations regarding its authenticity are based on ahistorical stipulations founded on ‘apparent’ human nature. We see this in the works of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. On the other hand, when I look into human experience and human story what I do see is nothing but an antagonistic story of class against another class on each epoch of human story, “freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-, in a master and journey man, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted , now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending class.”(Marx & Engels, 3) Second, workers are still bound by wage – labor. In lean production though they try to present the idea that there is no longer hierarchy in the production line but that what they have is team, a workforce that moves together towards the achievement of the common goal everything is but a deception. In reality, lean production is a way of getting everything that a worker has in his/her personhood at the same price. The capitalists dupe the workers, they make them believe that indeed they are integral part of the company when in fact what lean production leaves us is nothing but the fact that workers are no longer just the muscle, the brawn of the company but they are also now the think tank of the company for a very meager pay. While the capitalists play golf, the workers sweat their bodies and burn their brows so that they can earn a salary to live. Workers are still tied to the reality that they do everything yet they own nothing, not even their very personhood. For lean production has even demanded that knowledge and creativity be put to the creation of a product, a product which is not to be considered as mine in the end. The workers are still stuck in the predicament wherein they own nothing yet they have worked for everything for “they remain wage workers – proletarians.” (Engels, 67) Third, the State has nothing to do with the individual. In fact, it has become the apparatus of the capitalists as it implements its agenda for more profit since a “modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total personification of the total national capital….the more citizens does it exploit.” (Engels, 67). Thus, it has left the individual to fend for itself among the wolves. As the State allows the invisible hands of market to dictate not only the price of commodities but what a person can or ought to be, it continuously manifest its true color – an organ of oppression. Fourth, in our brief discussion of Plato’s concept of specialization I have claimed that Plato has used the concept of specialization in order to understand human nature and provide a theoretical foundation for the origin of the state. As such, human beings, whether man or woman, have been seen as important in pursuing and maintaining the good of the State. Thus, highlighting the notion that there exist a necessary relation between the individual and the state on the premise that the two are the same. And to drive this point, Plato used the ‘analogy of the letters’ (240). On the other hand, this kind of relation does not exist in specialization under lean production. The individual is perceived as a tool that furthers the interests of the bourgeois society. No matter how they coat this idea with ‘team work’ in lean production, the reality of the workers being tied to wage-labor is undeniable. Being such, both men and women are commodified and objectified. In case of women, I think she now greatly suffers more under these conditions for the burden of the double bind is heavier and stiffer. This I claim on the premise that women are objectified in all aspects within the capitalists society – her body, her worth, her personhood even her soul. Fifth, freedom is inauthentic in specialization under lean production. In Plato’s specialization, although half baked, he has assumed that rational people will freely enter such a social set up. But in our times, the freedom of people is nowhere to be found for “in one way or another, all these states are in the last analysis inevitably a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.”(Lenin, 31) Sixth, in terms of property the workers condition is still the same under the contemporary situation. Even John Locke himself claims that “…every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands we may say are properly his [sic]….he hath mixed his own labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.” (22) However what we have is a farce. Lean production – lean management is nothing but new names conjure by the bourgeoisie to cover up the same old conditions of workers- wage-labor, wage – slavery, property less, oppressed. While maintaining the concentration of wealth and property to the hands of a few people. I still cannot imagine how hundreds of billions of dollars are concentrated only in the hands of twenty people. I believe it is greed not opportunity that made these people want more wealth. Haiti is suffering from food shortage, Philippines is suffering from rice shortage while there are many people in Africa who consider being fat as a sin because it is a sign that you have much food while most of them are dying in hunger. This is inequality. A very vast inequality, a chasm that separates the capitalists from majority of the workers who are poor and oppress. Seventh, democracy is a sham. “Democracy means equality…. it signifies the formal recognition of the equality of all citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure and administration of the state.”(Lenin, 83) However, what we now have under the current scenario is a democracy for the rich, a democratic republic that perpetuates and secures their wealth, property and status. All of these are made possible because “…A democratic republic is the republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and therefore, once capital has gained control of this very best shell, it establishes its power securely, so firmly that no change, either of persons, or institutions, or parties in the bourgeois republic shake it.”(Lenin, 14) Thus, while the capitalists enjoy all the pleasures in life, the poor and oppress wage – slaves are left to live a life of survival similar to animals in the wild. And finally, in a situation wherein the individual and the state are so divergent, there is really nothing left to do but to undertake a revolution. Marx and Engels have succinctly shown us that the class antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the workers will continue as the state becomes the machinery of the bourgeoisie to secure itself, to maintain its power, to perpetuate its position. The complete and total annihilation of all the apparatus and organ of oppression which are being utilized by the bourgeoisie should be destroyed if we really human freedom to be extensively experienced and enjoyed by the majority of people. So one with Marx and Engels, “Let the ruling class tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE” BIBLIOGRAPHY Dialogues of Plato: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic. Ed by J. D. Kaplan. New York: Pocket Books., 1950 Engels, Frederick. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. New York: International Publishers., 1994. Lenin, V.I. State and Revolution. New York: International Publishers., 1988. Locke, John. Of Civil Government: Second Treatise. Chicago: A Gateway Edition., 1964. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. London: Penguin Books.,2004. Womack, James P., Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos. The Machine that Changed The World: How Japan’s Secret Weapon in the Global Auto Wars will Revolutionize Western Industry. New York: Harper Perennial. 1991. Read More