Essays on Capitalist Misrepresentations and Intersectional Oppression in Marxist Literature

Two essays, one on the misrepresentations of working-class members' desires in nineteenth-century working-class poems and The Communist Manifesto and the other on depictions of racial capitalism in contemporary Marxist literature and its resulting in oppression disproportionately felt by POC members of the working class.

Oppression in Disguise In this essay I will argue that in certain nineteenth-century working-class poems and in The Communist Manifesto itself, the true desires of working class people aren't actually addressed, their misinterpreted needs are simply romanticized. To illustrate my argument, I will be analyzing the poems Song of the City Artisan by Eliza Cook and The Man with the Hoe by Edwin Markham. I will argue that these poems misrepresent the true desires of working-class people in that they are not created in reference to true workers, since Cook never worked and since Markham based his poem on a painting, as opposed to a real worker. From there I will proceed to examine the poems and will conclude that the representation of workers in them is romanticized, and this romanticization, in the context of being written by someone with no experience of labor or laborers, is shallow and misled. I will also examine Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ book The Communist Manifesto and will illustrate that, since Marx himself was not from the working class and did not have to work, his judgement of the working class’ needs are misguided and is not representative of those of its actual members. This analysis will conclude that the true desires of working class people were not represented by the poems in question, nor by The Communist Manifesto, but the working class was actually romanticized and oppressed further.

In Cook’s poem Song of the City Artisan, the speaker likens themselves with the working class firstly by glorifying manual labor and claiming to be among other workers;

“Labor is good, my strong right hand 4

Is ever ready to endure; 5

Though meanly born, I bless my land, 6

Content to be among its poor 7

Pent with the crowd, oppressed and faint, 37

My brow is damp, my breath is thick; 38

And though my spirit yield no plaint, 39

My pining heart is deadly sick.” 40 Thus, the speaker, particularly by using words such as “with” (Cook, 37) and “among” (Cook, 7) presents themselves as a suffering worker, whose consolation derives from being among others in the same position. Cook’s concluding stanza entails a challenge to the forces that appear to oppress her. The speaker challenges them to

“Double the labor of my task, 53

Lessen my poor and scanty fare!” 54 and makes only one request, for which, it is implied, she is willing to endure the harshening of her working conditions: “But give, oh! give me what I ask – 55

The sunlight and the mountain air” 56 Essentially, the speaker appears to romanticize the prospect of freedom, specifically being able to enjoy “The sunlight and the mountain air” (Cook, 56), and claims that any worsening work conditions, such as the “Doubl[ing] the labor of my task,” (Cook, 53) and “Lessen[ing] my poor and scanty fare!” (Cook 54), are worth the freedom that she craves. However, considering that Cook herself never had to work to make a living (seminar), her claims that freedom makes harsh conditions worthwhile appear to be shallow and near-sighted. Cook virtually has no idea of manual labor, and thus her speaker’s challenge to her supposed oppressor to pile it on is meaningless, and does not relate to people who actually need to work to make a living. She is thus hardly a competent person to illustrate the true desires of the working class, and is not qualified to represent their true desires. The effect of her poem is a romanticization of labor, and a near-sighted dare to have more of it for the sake of freedom, which, ultimately, is the only thing Cook had ever been familiar with. The poem seems to suggest that workers are easily willing to take on more labor and to comply with reduced wages, specifically through lines 53 and 54, but, coming from an upper-class poet like Cook, such a suggestion is inaccurate and merely romanticizes the harsh working conditions of the working class without representing their true desires.

Edwin Markham’s poem The Man with the Hoe depicts a manual labor worker and ponders the future of his class in a tone that is generally uplifting and seems to advocate for the rights of the worker. However, the poem is based not on an actual worker, but on a painting by Jean-Francois Millet;

Basing a poem on a painting, which is typically intended for the enjoyment of members of the upper class, makes its intentions of bringing justice to the depicted worker shallow and meaningless. The poem advocates for the freedom from upper-class rulers for the working-class man by addressing upper-class members and enquiring of them “O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,

Is this the handiwork you give to God,

This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?

How will you ever straighten up this shape;

Touch it again with immortality;

Give back the upward looking and the light;

Rebuild in it the music and the dream,

Make right the immemorial infamies,

Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?”,

essentially demanding to know how the oppressed worker and others like him will be compensated in the future for their time spent suffering and laboring. The speaker then ponders the future of the depicted worker, who, as the speaker implies, is destined to rise up against his oppressors; “O masters, lords and rulers in all lands

How will the Future reckon with this Man?

How answer his brute question in that hour

When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?

How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —

With those who shaped him to the thing he is —

When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world.

After the silence of the centuries?” The speaker seems to advocate for the worker’s rights and envision the prospect of freedom for him and for others in his class. Though the author of the poem was himself a member of the working class, he bases his poem not on a real worker, but on a painting of one, which is merely a depiction of a worker done by a member of the upper class. Thus, the author’s only perspective of the laborer he speaks of and seems to advocate for, comes from the upper class, and is thereby misdirected in its essence. The true desires of workers are not represented, and instead, they are aestheticized and romanticized. The intention to give the working class a voice, therefore, actually results in an exclusion of them from the discourse of class prospects and further develops the consumption of upper class art without actually helping workers.

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx calls on the proletariat to rise up and overthrow the order that the bourgeoisie have subjected them to, which is one in which the former works and suffers and the latter reaps all the benefits without having to work themselves. “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers” (Marx, 16), Marx writes, adding that “[t]he bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (Marx, 16), thus outlining the exploitation experienced by the proletariat at the hand of the bourgeoisie. He then goes on to praise the proletariat, claiming that ”[o]f all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product” (Marx, 20). Marx calling the proletariat “special and essential” (Marx, 20) highlights his appreciation for them and distinguishes them as the only class that is capable of bringing forth the inevitable revolution, pointing out just how uniquely special they are in his opinion. However, as a member of the upper class himself, one that never had to work and was actually supported financially by a factory owner, Marx’s praise of the proletariat is hardly based on personal experience. Considering that he himself benefited from the exploitation of the proletariat, his claims that they are the “special and essential product” (Marx, 20) of the Modern Industry commodifies the proletariat and seems to romanticize the prospect of revolution that, as Marx claims, they will bring forth. Without having worked or spent significant time with workers, his claims that the working class is horribly oppressed and must rise up seem high-brow and meaningless. He, too, joins the numbers of writers that, at first glance, seem to advocate for the freedom of the working class, but, on further examination, due to their affluent backgrounds, merely romanticize and aestheticize them without accurately representing their needs.

In conclusion, Cook and Markham’s poems, due to referring not to actual workers, but to their wealthy authors’ ideas of workers, are not adept to represent the true desires of the working class. The poems’ glorification of increased manual labor for the sake of freedom and revolution, in the context of the authors’ prosperity and lack of context of any manual labor or laborers, appear to be shallow and miss the mark. The Communist Manifesto, too, having been written by someone with no real experience of manual labor or laborers, is hardly the manuscript that the working class can use to advocate for their needs, as Marx seemed to have intended. Thus, Marx’s text, as well as certain nineteenth-century working class poems, misrepresent the needs of the working class and instead further commodify and romanticize them. Though the workers’ desire for freedom is represented in the texts, they are a failure in terms of basing themselves on the true experiences of the workers. The freedom movement in certain nineteenth-century literature, therefore, did nothing to further the true desires of the working class, but instead misrepresented their desires, created more art for upper class consumption, and further oppressed the workers whose rights it claimed to be advocating for.

Works Cited: Boos, Florence. Working-Class Women Poets in Victorian Britain: An Anthology. Broadview Press, 2008. Markham, Edwin. “The Man with the Hoe by Edwin Markham.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47948/the-man-with-the-hoe. Millet, Jean-Francois. The Man with the Hoe. Marx, Karl, and Engels, Friedrich. Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1848.

Intersectional Oppression In this essay I will explore dehumanization and alienation that the working class experiences under capitalism, and will conclude that though all members of the working class experience these effects, they are disproportionately felt by people of colour, who are forced to turn against each other due to also experiencing racial capitalism. To construct my argument I will consider Suzan-Lori Parks’ play Topdog/Underdog, and will then explore Amber Dawn’s book How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir. I will point out the ways in which working class members in these texts experience dehumanization and alienation, and some of them, due to their racial identities, also experience racial capitalism. This intersectionality leads to them being pinned against their fellow working class members in what can be construed as capitalism’s attempt of reducing potential rebellions so as to perpetuate systems of exploitation.

I will begin the essay by introducing the concepts of dehumanization and alienation, pointing out that they are experienced by all members of the working class under capitalism. I will then refer to the term intersectionality, which will help illuminate the reasons for which POC working class members experience worse exploitation than those members who are not POCs, and will explain that the result of this intersectionality is racial capitalism, which forces POC working class members to turn against each other.

The term dehumanization refers to the reduction of people to inhuman machines or beasts as part of capitalism’s systems of production. Their human characteristics are disregarded and they are deemed lifeless cogs in machines whose goal it is to maximize profits. According to Marx, capitalism also causes workers to be alienated from their labour (seminar). With the development of factories and large-scale productions, products are standardized, lose their individuality, and the labour investment of the worker is minimized. Instead of creating a product from beginning to the end, and having personal claim to it, workers in capitalism repetitively work on one aspect of a large-scale production, producing more, but becoming entirely alienated from the fruits of their labour. All working class members, according to Marx, experience a degree of alienation and dehumanization.

The term intersectionality, which was coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, refers to the combination of different aspects of a person’s identity. These combinations prompt discrimination that is not necessarily experienced in response to merely one identity aspect, but arises from the intersections of two or more. For example, a member of the working class, who is also a POC is likely to experience worse discrimination than a non-POC member of the working class due to the combination of these two identity aspects. What might arise from such an intersection of identity aspects is a phenomenon called racial capitalism.

In his review of Cedric J. Robinson's book Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, Gary E. Holcomb explains that “Robinson argues that the rise of industrial capitalism was built on a culture of racial construction. Emergent labor classes and ethnic minorities could be assembled through national identity formations- pitted against one another-to serve the dominant ideology” (Holcomb, 368). Thus, Robinson points out the intrinsic connection between capitalism and racial construction, explaining that capitalism was built on nationalistic and racial groupings and exploits certain racial groups while others thrive. Though slavery was officially abolished, capitalism maintained systems of cultural and systemic oppression and continues the exploitation of racial minorities (seminar). Thus, POC members of the working class are more vulnerable to capitalist exploitation than non-POC working class members. What emerges from this notion is the concept of racial capitalism, the maximisation of profit produced by a person based on their racial identity. To summarize this section of the essay, it has been established that though all working class members experience alienation and dehumanization, POC members of the working class also experience racial capitalism due to the intersection of the aspects of their identity that ground them within the working class as a member of a racial minority. Thus, POC members of the working class are disproportionately affected by capitalism, and one of the effects of capitalism on them is forcing them to turn against each other.

I will now consider the play Topdog/Underdog and will firstly explore the ways in which alienation manifests in it. I will later on explore how this alienation and its racial capitalism push the working class characters of the play to turn against each other. Capitalist alienation in the play is most starkly visible through the occupation of Lincoln, who works at an arcade as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator. In Lincoln’s original description, it is said that “[h]e is dressed in an antique frock coat and wears a top hat and a fake beard, that is, he is dressed to look like Abraham Lincoln” (Parks, 12). Since Lincoln is a Black man, his occupation requires him to engage in whiteface - smearing white paint on his face - so as to look more convincingly as Lincoln. Therefore, his occupation requires him to be alienated from his Black identity, which is a stark example of racial capitalism affecting him. Not only does Lincoln experience alienation and racial capitalism at work, but it spreads to his home as well. Lincoln’s brother and roommate Booth expresses to him that he is unsettled by his appearance, saying “I dont like you wearing that bullshit” (Parks, 13), referring to his costume and whiteface. He points out that not only does Lincoln wear this outfit all day while at work, he wears it home as well, by saying “[b]ad enough you got to wear the shit all day you come up in here wearing it” (Parks, 14). With that comment, Booth touches on the way that Lincoln’s alienation from his identity affects him not only at his job, but at his home as well, thereby bleeding into his personal life. This comment, taken in the context of capitalist alienation, can be understood as Parks’ commentary on just how deeply capitalism affects its workers, who are unable to leave their false identity at work, but bring it home as well. Capitalist thinking’s hold on Lincoln becomes more evident when he attempts to convince Booth not to change his name to an African one that is hard to pronounce, since that would prevent some people from hiring him. “You gonna call yrself something african? That be cool. Only pick something thats easy to spell and pronounce, man, cause you know, some of them african names, I mean, ok, Im down with the power to the people thing, but, no ones gonna hire you if they cant say yr name” (Parks, 18). With that, Lincoln expresses that he considers one’s employability to be more important than their racial identity, and that he is filtering suggestions of racial expression through a capitalist lens. This shows just how deeply capitalist thinking has penetrated into Lincoln’s mind - he has become dissociated from his racial identity, not only at work, but at home as well, and has begun considering suggestions of racial expression through the perspective of optimal employability. Furthermore, Lincoln firmly believes that his job is not considered “hustling”, unlike Booth’s, who makes money by tricking people in three-card monte. “I cant be hustling no more, bro” (Parks, 26), he tells Booth, who asks “What you do all day aint a hustle?” (Parks, 26), but Lincoln replies that “[i]ts honest work” (Parks, 26). Booth points out that “[d]ressing up like some crackerass white man, some dead president and letting people shoot at you sounds like a hustle to me” (Parks, 27), but Lincoln remains firm that “[p]eople know the real deal. When people know the real deal it aint a hustle” (Parks, 27). Though Lincoln’s job implies deceiving himself, since he alienates himself from the character he is playing, he considers this deceit admirable, while condemning Booth’s deceiving of others (seminar). It is/ clear from Lincoln’s values that he is influenced by capitalist thinking, since capitalism creates the circumstances in which the worker is alienated from his labour and from himself. This alienation, or deceit of oneself is encouraged, but deceit of others is condemned, creating a double standard that is visible through Lincoln and Booth.

It is now important to consider how these circumstances of racial capitalism force Lincoln and Booth to turn against each other. The most stark example of this is Booth’s killing of Lincoln after Lincoln beats him in three-card monte and taunts him about the loss and the money-filled stocking that Grace left him. He shoots Lincoln before Lincoln is able to open the stocking, and says “[t]hink you can take my shit? My shit. That shit was mines. I kept it. Saved it. Through thick and through thin. … And you just gonna come up in here and mock my shit and call me two lefthanded talking bout how she coulda been jibing me then go and steal from me? My inheritance. You stole my inheritance, man. That aint right” (Parks, 114). Thus, Booth’s murder of his brother was a direct response to him beating him in three-card monte, mocking him about his money, and pretending to take it. The capitalist nature of the encounter that led to the murder firmly roots it in capitalist mentality, and shows how alienation and racial capitalism force POC working class members to turn against each other.

In this section of the essay I will examine the ways in which sex work is rooted in capitalism and how capitalist dehumanization and alienation are portrayed in How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir. I will then show how the intersectionality of class and racial identities of certain POC workers leads them to experience racial capitalism and turn against each other. A stark example of dehumanization that sex workers experience in their jobs comes from a sex worker named Maria, who advises the speaker “[w]hen a trick picks you up, read them the menu like this: fifty dollars for a small fries, eighty dollars for a burger, and $120 for the full meal deal” (Dawn, 33). Likening sex work to food and its consumption firmly grounds these working class members in a capitalist system of consumption and immediate gratification (seminar) and is a direct example of dehumanization that sex workers experience. It is evident that this dehumanization is embodied by the workers, because they refer to themselves as food, thus demonstrating an awareness of the notion that they are not perceived as entirely human, but exist for their customers’ consumption. As well, the speaker explains that the job of sex workers is, in part, to sell their customers a fantasy of their choice. In a section titled Lying is the Work, she says that a sex worker’s “job is to move product. The product is sexual fantasy, which differs from other products in that the buyer wants to be an uninformed consumer” (Dawn, 113), later adding “[t]he fantasy holds my payment” (Dawn, 113). Creating and embodying fantasies for their customers is a manifestation of capitalist alienation experienced by the sex workers. They essentially are tasked with fulfilling the exact desires of their consumers, which forces them to lie about their “age, breast size, weight, cultural background, hair colour, college education, lust for certain sex acts and so on” (Dawn, 113), alienating them from their identities. They also engage in creating fantasies related to their customers’ social classes. For example, the speaker describes how a customer of hers named Paul gifted her things with which to furnish and decorate her apartments, in which he visited her. “Nice things – rejected only because they simply have too many things already – wine glasses or terrycloth bath towels. Paul brings so much that I start re-gifting” (Dawn, 36-37). Paul curates the setting in which the two of them will have sex so that is fulfils his particular fantasy of coming home to a woman who lives in an apartment full of nice things. This gifting, and the sex worker’s participation in it, thus, facilitates a kind of middle-class fantasy (seminar), which is rooted in capitalism, and for the continuation of which the worker becomes integral. It is now important to consider how the sex workers’ status as working class members and some of their racial identities intersect and create circumstances in which they are pinned against each other. The intersectionality of class and racial identities is most starkly visible in the character of Shelby. The speaker recalls her discovery of Shelby’s death by writing “when I showed up to a dead-silent workplace one day in May, I knew something was wrong” (Dawn, 99). She writes that she “found Summer looking crumpled, with her head in her hands. The other girls stared at the floor” (Dawn, 99). Immediately sensing that there might have been a death, the speaker asks “[w]ho died?” (Dawn, 99), to which Summer replies “Shelby, fuck. You remember Shelby. Chinese. Tranny. Worked by the name of Ling. You know, that older Asian girl” (Dawn, 99-100). This description of Shelby, the first identifier of which is her race, and the second a transphobic slur, is very telling of how working class members communicate to each other about fellow POC working class members even while grieving about their death. Shelby’s race being the first identifying characteristic that Summer focused on exhibits how that was the primary thing that Summer noticed about her, which others her from other working class members in their circle. The transphobic slur that follows in Summer’s description communicates that even in the moment of exhibiting grief and solidarity with Shelby, this solidarity does not extend to the aspect of her identity that is being transgender, otherwise, this part of her identity would be phrased in a respectful way. Therefore, the intersectionality of Shelby’s status as a working class member and her racial identity make it so that her fellows are pitted against her.

It is also worth noticing that Shelby’s decision to work under the name “Ling” firmly roots her within the framework of racial capitalism, since she chooses to emphasize her racial identity, perhaps so as to appear more “exotic” to her customers (seminar). Here, capitalism’s effect on Shelby is starkly visible - she alters her identity, overemphasizing aspects of it, so as to appeal to a demographic of customers. This alteration concerning her racial identity in particular entails that she experiences racial capitalism.

To summarize, it has been established that all members of the working class experience a degree of alienation and dehumanization. POC members of the working class, in addition to this, and due to the intersectionality of their racial identities and working class member status, also experience what is called racial capitalism. As a result, they are pitted against each other and forced into competition, which is visible through Booth’s, a Black man’s murder of his brother, who is also a Black man, and through Summer’s transphobic slur in regards to their fellow Asian transgender sex worker. This forcing of POC working class members to turn against each other can be considered the bourgeoisie’s way of preventing uprisings and perpetuating systems of oppression, since it ensures a degree of separation within the working class, which prevents total solidarity and consolidated uprisings.

Contemporary texts such as the two explored in this essay, thus, expand on Marx’s points about working class exploitation, including racial identities in the discourse of oppression. It might be understood that this pitting of POC working class members against each other is done to prevent proletariat uprisings, since it creates the conditions in which those working class members, who rightfully might be the angriest about their working conditions, due to being most vulnerable, are repressed by their own fellows. Capitalist systems of exploitation, thus, make it so that the oppressed end up doing the work of the bourgeoisie who benefit off of their labour, and perpetuate the systems of oppression that keep the rich in power. To begin tackling this challenge, as Cedric J. Robinson points out, entails tackling racism itself, since the two are deeply linked and capitalism cannot function without it (seminar). Perhaps the issue of racial capitalism and intersectionality appearing in contemporary Marxist texts, precisely like the two works discussed in this essay, is the beginning of the more nuanced uprising than what was envisioned by Marx.

Works Cited:

Dawn, Amber. How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013.

Holcomb, Gary E. “New Negroes, Black Communists, and the New Pluralism.” American Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 2, 2001, pp. 367–376., doi:10.1353/aq.2001.0016.

Parks, Suzan-Lori. Topdog/Underdog. Dramatists Play Service, Inc, 2001.