Overcoming Marxist Objections

Five thousand people in a coliseum lift their voices as they each raise a fist into the air, and circle it as if lassoing something: the signal comes from stage and, punching their fists upward, they shout, “Freedom! Flush that stinkin’ job! Huah!” They punch up into the air again with the last word.

Even though this sounds like a Marxist rant of the Proletariat, or working class, which most of the above people are members of, the real story behind it is much more complicated than Karl Marx could have predicted. These members of the Proletariat have made themselves members of the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class. They took ownership of their own individual businesses on a part-time basis, until they can eventually free themselves from the proletariat through a short burst of hard work. Their dreams of personal freedom from jobs, or as many of them call J.O.B. (Just Over Broke), has taken them on a path that Marx did not predict. They are Independent Business Owners who have no need for employees. They need one another, but not wage laborers. They are a part of a team of capitalists. These IBOs agree with Marx, that the owner of a large company exploits the employee to secure the bottom line, and also alienates him “from the objects he produces, from the process of production, from himself, and from the community of his fellows,” but this unique, capitalistic business model responds to the problems quite differently (Coser, p. 51).

Marx pitted worker against capitalist in the economic struggle to survive in capitalistic society, and from his point of view this logic could not fail. The capitalists, in his thoughts, were the oppressors, and the workers, the oppressed (Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 474). The workers, in exchange for means of subsistence, would sell themselves piecemeal, as if at an auction waiting for the highest bidder to buy their labor power (Coser, p. 205). In turn, the capitalists exploit the workers by paying them a sum of money per hour that will keep them at a bare existence, so that the latter would continually need to stay in this form of slavery (Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 485). The result of this exploitation is rendering relationships based on love void and replacing them with relationships based on “naked self-interest” (Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 475). Marx predicted this exploitation will lead to torn family ties for the worker, because there is no difference between man, woman, and child when it comes to the wage labor that is productive for the capitalist (Manifesto of the Communist Party, pp. 487-8).

However, he did not predict the creativity of certain capitalists, namely Rich Devos and Jay VanAndel, who decided to show the worker he had more options than working a job for 45 years. These two business men started Alti-Cor and Amway Corporation, both international businesses today, in 1959.The solution is to let the worker own his own business, to become an IBO, then give him a reputable supplier, and show him how to think like a business owner. Instead of buying something because it is less expensive, he buys from himself and gets a return on his investment. Fulfilling the family’s needs, and allowing other family members to participate in this business, he brings the family together, pursuing one goal: freedom. A single person can build the business just as well, fulfilling his own needs. That IBO, then, mentors other IBOs. He earns a very small percentage of money off the business volume of IBOs he sponsors, as well as making immediate gross profit off retail sales to people who are not IBOs. Using this business model, Quixtar.com launched onto the Internet on September 1, 1999, and has outgrown its old sister company, Amway, which now only focuses on international commerce. Quixtar.com is the new high tech supplier for the IBOs, and it offers 3 million plus goods and services, which can be accessed very quickly, and delivered to the door of the person who orders in a short amount of time. It is a high priority to keep the personal touch along with the new high tech aspects of the company. The person is in business for himself, but not by himself. Helping other people succeed will help him succeed: exploiting other people will bleed his business of any potential profit. A person may cut his ties with the business model at any time for any reason.

This team of capitalists knows working for someone else leads to exploitation, being paid the minimum amount that it costs to replace him, but to work for himself and help others do the same means true personal freedom, consisting of time and money. One thing that keeps this group of people from the exploitation of other capitalists is the type of income they receive. Instead of wages, an IBO earns a residual income, which Marx did not mention, based on his business volume. Residual income never returns to zero, as linear labor wages do. Duplicating a mentor who continues to build such a successful business insures the income of the IBO will steadily rise, and possibly surpass those upline in the network not creating as much volume. Productivity, not seniority determines leadership. There is not a ceiling to the level of income, for the challenge that many successful IBOs give to their downline is to pass them, which is very possible. To successful IBOs, money is a tool to help others, not a boss or owner that dictates what he can or cannot do.

Alienation, which is “a condition in which men are dominated by forces of their own creation, which confront them as alien powers,” is four-fold for Marx (Coser, pp. 50-1). The first type of alienation is from the product being produced. In the division of labor needed for a large scale production company, there exists alienation from the product that is produced; each laborer creating only a small part of the product. The worker does not produce the product of the capitalist, but produces the wages that he feels is due for his hours of labor. Money is what keeps the laborer bound to the capitalist, and keeps the former in bondage, as if it owns his life (Coser, p. 51).

When a laborer has a chance to own his own business and sell the products of the prosuming vehicle, namely Quixtar.com, he incurs a profit based on the volume he produces. That volume is based on products used and sold. Prosuming is the mixture of consuming and producing. Every time he buys from his supplier or others buy from it through him, he produces volume in his business. Being a personal user of his own products is essential because he understands that he is his own best customer. The products are the fuel to his business, so not knowing them, even though he does not physically produce any of them, would be detrimental.

Another type of alienation Marx mentioned causes him to only consider himself fruitful outside of his labor. This is alienation from the process of production, in which wage laborers, as mentioned above, see only a small part of the production of the finished product and share in none of its profits from sale. As Marx said, “ ‘Work is external to the worker…It is not part of his nature; consequently he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself…’”(Coser, p. 52). Work is a sacrifce that is made, and leisure is the real life activity he enjoys. A laborer will do just enough not to get fired, but not too much more, because he cannot see his importance in the entire scope of the business, and what part he plays. He satisfies the capitalist’s goals, and diminishes his dream to meet his income.

Work is sacrifice, but wage labor is sacrifice in order for the capitalist to prosper and that the laborer to live a life without vision. However, it does not have to be that way. IBOs admit that time as well as income defines personal freedom. The free time they refer to is the length of time that no one dictates their actions. To build a business using this model means to forgo the 45-year plan of wage labor. The IBO rejects money and time as controlling agents for his freedom, and focuses on a 2-5-year plan, in which he works hard for that period of time and gets paid a residual income for the rest of his life. He can make money through the U.S. and 80 countries and territories where the business model is developed, while he sleeps. At the very beginning, his mentors show him the big picture of the business model, also known as private franchising, and also how he fits into it; that is what the business plan is for, to give him that information before he makes the decision to become an IBO. IBOs work together, using their past experience in other studies or careers, to learn where they fit into the network of entrepreneurs. They take advantage of the free enterprise system, a capitalist tool which gives Americans the freedom to own a business if they should choose to do so.

Yet another problem facing workers when division of labor increases, is the simplification of their jobs, so much that the “special skill of the worker becomes worthless” and his intellectual ability or physical faculties are not used to their potentials (Wage Labor and Capital, p. 214). As long as he does the minimum required of him, he will get paid. He should not question the authority of the capitalist, who makes sure that he does the job he was hired to do. The capitalist is the master, and the worker is made to feel like someone without value, and this can cause grief in the workplace and in the home.

To run a Quixtar-affiliated business takes intense intellectual and physical faculties, and helps the individual strive to be more productive. To acknowledge that one has to change to improve his lot in life is not easy. To work with a diverse group of people who depend on his leadership, he must study those who have already done what he wants to do. To build this business with a solid structure, he must give up some rest and work after he clocks out from his job. It is a test of physical willpower to keep that up for 2-5 years. He knows he might fail, but no one will chastise him, for it is his business, and he is in charge. He learns from his mistakes, and his mentors will suggest how he might avoid common pitfalls. Dreaming big is encouraged, and dream stealing is vehemently discouraged. The unique personality of each IBO brings more credibility to the team.

Marx proposed that the barrier that kept the workers from becoming a class is the competition that exists between them (Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 481). This is indicative of the capitalistic economic structure, because there are more workers than there are capitalists, meaning fewer jobs to fight for. There is also competition within companies to acquire a higher income through promotions, and to not lose the income due to layoffs.

However, all IBOs learn that there is a ceiling to these promotions and the income will eventually come to a plateau, usually around the age of 35. Hopefully an IBO won’t learn the hard way that there is a cap on how much he can make as a wage laborer. A job setting has the structure of a legal pyramid, in which there is very little social mobility. The network of IBOs is there to support a fellow IBO. Those upline from him have a vested financial interest in his future; they do not want to see him fail. Those who do not have a financial interest in his future have no reason to steer him wrong either, for each IBO only needs to find six sharp, ambitious people in the entire world to take hold of the business model and plug into it. When one IBO becomes financially free, it brings hope to everyone else who has that same dream. With the power of the Internet, this has been happening faster for anyone who follows the mentoring of his growing upline. It is not through competition that he succeeds, but through cooperation among his fellow IBOs.

In conclusion, Marx’s view of alienation and exploitation of the worker, or Proletariat, in capitalism is limited by a tool called free enterprise, in which anyone has the right to own a business, no matter what his social status is. A business model that allows a worker to own his own business with a start-up fee of $150-250 becomes a way out of those Proletariat trappings. When a worker earns more money in his part-time business than he makes in his full time job, it is time to tell his boss to, as it is said often by IBOs, to take a long walk off of a short peer. It’s is a quiet revolution for the worker, freeing one another one person at a time.



References

Coser, Lenis. Masters of Sociological Thought. "Karl Marx: The Work." 1971.

Tucker, Robert C. The Marx-Engels Reader. "Wage Labor and Capital: Karl Marx." pp. 203-217.

Tucker Robert C. The Marx-Engels Reader. "Manifesto of the Communist Party."