Effects of Capitalism through a Marxist Lens

In this essay, I will be reviewing the effects of capitalism through history, which have led
to noticeable effects on several key elements of modern, everyday life. This will include its
effects on the production-based workforce, its effects on the decline in marriage. This will be
through the lens of Marxist thought, with a primary focus on the economic factors leading to
each effect, but it will include deviations from economic decision making if applicable.
In his Manifesto, Marx puts forth the idea that capitalism revolves around the
bourgeoisie exploiting the proletariat for their own gain. At the time, the bourgeoisie owned the
means of production, and therefore controlled the distribution of wealth from the sale of
produced material. In their own self-interest, they would want to maximize their own wealth.
The natural consequence of this and competition/copying between owners results in the top
paying the production workers less. This is a simple way to keep profit without having to invent
a new process or boosting sales, as a competitor can simply copy this and leave you with the
original profit ratio from before. From this stems the next step, the production workers will want
to leave and go to your competitor, who will pay them more. Therefore, it is in your interest to
acquire your competitor, vertically integrate your own business, or to cooperate with your
original competitor and carve out territories.
In the Chickenization reading, we see all of these happen. The chicken meat selling
companies first competed with one another, then they attempted to buy each other out. This
resulted in three major companies selling almost all chicken meat on the market. Once they
reached this stage, they began to cooperate and carve out territory. This allowed them to
maintain prices at whatever height they desired with no need to hurt profit by competition with
each other. They were able to expand themselves to this height by vertical integration. In this
move, they reduced costs for themselves by buying all the means of production for the materials
that they used. In this case, they bought the means of producing the feed for the chickens, the
means of producing housing, and finally the means of buying and selling the chicken meat. What
they did not do in this case was acquire the means to raise the chickens themselves. What they
did instead was something even more cost effective, allow other farmers to raise the chickens for
them. The first and most insidious move was obtaining the method of buying the chickens, i.e.,
who the farmers sold their fully raised chickens to. By doing this, due to the prohibitive cost of
long-distance shipping of chickens, they could force farmers to either sell to them or butcher the
chickens themselves and sell the meat locally, which is often unsustainable due to the cheaper
meat available in supermarkets. Since the farmers were essentially forced to sell to their services,
they could then make farmers follow certain conditions in order to be able to continue selling;
this could involve anything: specially built housing (which would be from their services),
feeding schedules, which antibiotics to give the chickens, or how long the chickens are exposed
to light. The end result was a class of exploited farmers who provided the labor and shouldered
the cost for production but did not have control over any decisions regarding their livelihood or
product. The farmers were further hindered by being unable to communicate with other farmers
about their conditions or to negotiate on the price of their product. I call this a brilliant move by
the bourgeoisie because it effectively left them to reap the profits while exploiting the productive
working class in a way only steps above slavery. The worker in this case receives no benefit if a
decision above him was successful, but he bears the full burden of failure if an experiment goes
wrong.
Due to push back by unions in the USA (at least at one point), companies emulating this
model began to shift production to other countries where labor protection laws were more lax or
non-existent, or they shifted fully to the Chickenizaton model and contracted other companies in
other countries (sweatshops) to produce their goods for extremely cheap and they could pay
(sometimes less than) pennies on the dollar compared to American labor. This is exemplified by
Nike, who no longer employs any workers who directly make shoes; they only employ designers
and other skill and knowledge-based workers. This shift in production-based labor to foreign
sources and increase in service-based jobs in the USA led in part to the next of the main effects,
decline in marriage rates.
Marriage rates have declined in the USA (and other countries, but I will focus on the
USA in this), at least in part due to the lack of stable, unskilled, production-based jobs, which are
traditionally held by men but not necessarily limited to men. This lack of easy to access,
relatively well-paid jobs in production meant that there were fewer men who could, upon leaving
high school (or in my grandfather’s case, 3rd grade), find work waiting that would either be
unskilled or had on-the-job training that would also be able to support a family. Men who knew
that jobs such as this were waiting for them could begin searching for a wife much sooner, and
women could consider finding a husband much sooner. This is due to the easy access of
necessary levels of wealth required for the family to live in acceptable means (the middle class).
However, the shift away from this and therefore the increase in service-based jobs, has led to
needing sets of skills or knowledge before a job can be obtained. The next logical step from this
is that one must obtain those skills before one can even begin to search for a job. College or
technical schools are the normal route in this case. However, this all leads to the next major
issue, which is a cultural shift in the notion of when someone is considered an adult. Or rather,
the idea of when you have become an adult has not changed so much as the steps normally
required to reach that point have now delayed the point of adulthood until later in life. Assuming
that adulthood is marked by being able to support oneself and ideally be in a position that
starting a family is possible (and even more ideally desirable), we can see that in the days where
a job that may not even require a high school diploma could provide that, adulthood could be
achieved much faster. This new delay (to a majority, as college as a full-time occupation was still
a delay to adulthood in the days when the minority went) has resulted in a desire to wait before
committing to marriage from either party, as there is no guarantee of future income. This fear of
not having a guaranteed income is due to the capitalistic influence of turning a service-based
economy into a gig-based (still service focused) economy. Once this is achieved, see Uber
displacing the NYC cab system (service-based but consistent work) with gig drivers, who are
easily replaceable and exploited, i.e., the chickenization of service work.
 The other main influence on the decline of marriage, which is still due to capitalistic
factors, is the shift from the household economy from the productive to the consumptive (Berry).
In a productive household economy, all work is done for the benefit of all inside the home,
whether the work is done inside or outside the home. In this system, those living in the home are
their own boss, as all work is done for the benefit of the home by those living in it. There can be
no exploitation of labor as the labor is by design for themselves. This creates a situation where
those who desire to live together would naturally desire to be married, as there are strong bonds
holding them together. In other words, even if “the spark” fades, there is still the sharing of work
to maintain strong bonds with one another, and, in this case, there is a strong impetus to have
physical needs provided for through labor and not just an emotional need fulfillment. As our
culture began to shift to the idea that work must be done outside of the home (and therefore for
money), each sex could fulfil their own physical needs completely through paid work, as they are
now consumers of outside goods. This creates an interesting issue wherein partnerships are no
longer pursued for the ability to meet physical needs and are instead made purely for emotional
fulfillment. Therefore, if emotional needs are no longer met, there is no reason to pursue the
relationship any further. This leads to a decline in marriage for one simple reason, why would
you legally bind yourself to another person when, at any moment, you might realize that you no
longer love them and now (as your needs are no longer being met) you are almost compelled to
leave? The other bonds no longer exist, so you may as well live with someone for as long as you
are having fun, as it is much easier to pack up your things and leave as compared to getting a
divorce.
This all to say that capitalistic thought and the capitalist economy’s progression have led
to demonstratable effects on the life of the everyday workers in the USA, whether through job
choice, exploitation of their labor, or how they form relationships with one another. And, as I
hope that I have shown through this essay, how all of those are intricately connected to one
another.