Alienated Labor

In Karl Marx's theory on class struggle violence, he claims that because capitalism is built on the exploitation of labor, it is inevitable that the poor will become poorer and more numerous, whereas the rich will become richer and fewer. A 2014 Oxfam report noted that one percent of the population held 48% of the total global wealth. This does not, however, mean that the other 52% belongs to the rest of the population, because in actuality, it is mostly controlled and owned by the other 20% of the wealthiest people. Ultimately, this means that approximately 5.5% of global wealth belongs to the other 80% of people (i.e., us). For further clarification, the vast majority of the world's population owns less than six percent of the global wealth. As Marx noted, this means that we are all essentially competing with each other for 5.5% of wealth when we, the 80%, likely produce 99% of the labor. Another interesting thing about Marx's theories of labor concerns one of the four reasons that workers are alienated. The one I find most compelling with regards to the previously mentioned statistics is the one that states that under capitalism, workers become alienated from themselves. For example, when work is imposed, it makes the labor a miserable task. In psychology, there is a concept known as the over-justification effect that states that when the compensation for a task is too high or too low, it undermines the intrinsic motivation to do the task. Numerous research studies (See Deci, 1970 for an example) have shown that when people who do not receive compensation for a task tend to report more positive experiences than people who were paid. I think this is a pretty clear example of how putting a price on our labor diminishes the intrinsic gratification we would get from doing something that should be a conscious and free activity.