XAVIER UNIVERSITY – ATENEO DE CAGAYAN

“THE HUMAN PERSON AND WORK: A SYNTHESIS PAPER FOR SPECIAL

TOPICS IN PHILOSOPHY”

SUBMITTED TO:

THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

SUBMITTED BY:

JAMES PATRICK B. PABONITA

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY

APRIL 2022
 Abstract

This synthesis paper on Special Topics on Philosophy will be focused on the

ideas of Karl Marx on the work of the Human Person. This synthesis paper will clarify
the notions of work as an expression of the self towards the community and a fulfillment
of a communal need. In addition, this synthesis paper will also demonstrate how work
changes through time as the society changes with it. Finally, it will showcase what it
means to be an ideal worker in the lens of Karl Marx.
 Introduction

There was a period of history where the human person’s work is simple and
authentic. Workers just produce items and exchange them locally. This commerce and
manufacturing enabled the establishment of communities, which functioned as a link
between the local populace in a given region. Without an excess of production,
distribution of commodities remains in excellent condition, which has no adverse effect
on people's well-being as a result of needing to catch up with production. This period
in the history of human work is referred to as primitive communism. Such primitive
communism exemplifies the fundamental concept of Marx's ideal work. The ideal work
for Marx suggests an egalitarian social relation in terms of work exchange, whereby, a
superstructure such as capitalism does not alienate the results from a person’s work
thus allowing for an authentic product as a means of expression of a human person of
himself and to the community. According to Marx, man's work is a definite mode of
life.1

Through work, man develops his own identity, since work reveals who a man is.
Man's output via his work is inextricably linked to his identity due to the human mark
on every creation. Hence, this synthesis paper will explore the notion of Marx’s ideal
work and its development on today’s times, most notably during the Covid-19
pandemic. For that, this synthesis paper will discuss Marx's notion of work and argue
why the artist is the ideal worker according to Marx's conception of work.

1
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), 7
Work is the human person’s expression of the self towards his community

Human work, by nature is a communal expression of the self. It is intended to

be shared throughout the community by which man exists. Understanding work entails
comprehending the worker. A group of species-beings that comprise a community
enables the human person to work with one another. This is when the human person
appropriates nature in order to survive. Together with the worker's unique individuality,
the notion of the ideal work attempts to develop the worker in its collective sense,
where individual work would mean selfish work. To illustrate this further, consider
threads and needles. The productivity of man when he sews with his needle is directly
proportional to the productivity of the human person when he produces threads. Insofar
as the worker who works with the needles is unable to sew without relying on the
thread. It demonstrates a relationship between the work of one person and the work of
another worker, rather than mass manufacturing.

In a broader sense, this relationship of workers may be observed in the process

of producing clothes. Where such production is carried out collectively. As seen by the
communal aspect of work, this collective approach transforms man into a fellow-man;
something that exists not just for himself but also with others. Thus, to work entails first
realizing the worker's species-being inasmuch as his activity is directed toward the
work of others. The life of the human species speaks of a process whose ultimate goal
is to humanize nature. Thus, man's task becomes one of nature control inasmuch as
the control is directed toward himself and his fellow-man. This process of humanizing
nature cannot be possible if the work of the human person is only directed towards his
personal or selfish needs.

Work is communal in nature and purpose. When man began to work in the
earliest civilizations, his direction was already beyond himself; beyond the individual
worker. In contrast to an animal not capable of reason, which exists just for the survival
of itself and its young, man exists for the benefit of others, more particularly for his
community. For that reason, work even in its earliest form, already have a distinction
according to the purpose it’ll serve for the community. This distinction of work among
the primitive man marks the beginning of the development of roles in human work. This

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gives birth to certain roles such as the farmer, the hunter, the fisherman, the artisan
and more.

All of these identities are associated with work as an expression of the primitive
man's self towards the community, which eventually forms their society. This
demonstrates that man's effort is not just for the fulfillment of his own wants, but also
for the fulfillment of his community existence. For this reason, Marx would say that man
is more than a self but a species-being.2 This is because the work of a human person
is not merely for the survival for himself but for the survival of his community, allowing
for the work of the human person to be an expression of himself towards the
community.

Work in this sense, is a process of the human person interacting with nature
and his environment. This is because the human person is born with the innate need
to survive, and there’s no other sphere by which the human person can get the
resources necessary for his own survival other than nature and the environment that
surrounds him.

This follows the idea that the human person then must reshape nature in
accordance to his needs to better serve the need for survival. Of course, this is also
true to other animals such as bees that constructs its own hive that amuses even the
human intellect. However, what sets apart the work of the human person from the rest
of the animal kingdom is that, his produce, unlike the honey and hives from the bees,
is a product of the human person’s intellect that exists prior in his imagination before it
was brought to reality. That is, with the capacity to reason which is only exclusive to
the human person, he is able to conceive the things needed to be worked on before
actually working on it – contrary to the bees in their making of the beehive and
producing the honey which is motivated solely on their instincts. This unique work
process by the human person then, allows for the human person to change himself in
the process of changing his environment through work, making work the human
person’s expression of himself.

Before the time of capitalism, the products of work is deeply tied to the person
who produced it. While it is still true on today’s time, at least on specific aspects of work

2
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, trans. T. B. Bottomore (New York: Continuum, 2004), 103

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in today’s time, in a capitalistic society in particular, the artisans or workers of the like
are more recognized compared now as today’s society values the numbers in
production more than the product itself. However, it does not presuppose that work is
only limited to the production of something strictly material. The renowned Italian
artisan Michelangelo is well known for his crafts like The Creation of Adam or the
Statue of David serves as a relevant example for the human person expressing himself
through his product, which by doing so, also changes himself as he changes nature
and his environment through the means of manipulating the paint pigments to produce
The Creation of Adam or manipulating a marble to produce the Statue of David.

Once more, this manipulation of nature and environment that is work is the
human person’s means of subsistence that in the process of doing so, also changes
himself thus expressing oneself through work. This helps us understand that work as
a means of expressing oneself towards the community is the human person’s every
activity. This means that every creative, intellectual, and artisanal work, is a process of
expressing oneself towards the community, simply the activity of the human person.

Work as a Fulfillment of a Communal Need

To work is to connect with the human person’s fellow-man as a means of

expressing himself towards the fellow-man. What more can a leather-man can do in
his excess of leather productions than to exchange it for other necessities produced
by a fellow-man? It is the communal need that drives the leather-man to produce
leather products that serve a specific purpose, useful to the community such as quivers
for hunters and soldiers, or belts for his fellow-man. It is without question that the work
of a human person addresses not only a personal need but also the needs of his
community by which he is situated. As the work of the human person that aims to
satisfy an innate need for survival by changing the nature around the human person,
this in turn, also satisfies the innate need for survival of his fellow-man, thus fulfilling a
communal need.

It is both an instinctual and a rational act for a leather-man to trade his leather
productions in order to acquire other means for survival such as food and materials to

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build a shelter. Instinctual because it is only natural for the human person to work in
order to maintain his survival. Furthermore, the work of a human person as a species-
being connects with a fellow-man allowing for exchange of goods and trades for other
commodities. The human person does not live in a solitary manner, as he is
surrounded with his fellow-man that interacts with him in ways that are possible within
the species such as language and other means of communication. In this process,
work becomes communal similar to the example of bees given on the previous section
whereby worker bees fly out and gather nectar to provide for their larvae that are in
prior, was produced by a queen bee. This instinctual process of the bees keeps their
species thriving in an environment filled with other species that competes with the
same resources they need.

Similar to the bees, the human person also works to provide for a communal
need of a community of human persons that in themselves, also have the innate need
to survive, and in turn, providing for himself and for the family. In the example of the
leather-man, such man sees the communal need for leather products such as quivers
for hunters and soldiers, or belts for a fellow-man, allowing for work to be also a rational
act. This is because work is not merely done by instincts alone. As demonstrated on
the previous section, the work of a human person is distinguished from the work of the
rest of the animal kingdom because such work exists in his intellect prior to reality. It is
both a product of imagination and rationalization otherwise a leather-man cannot
design such quivers and belts that serve a specific purpose.

This process of working to produce a product of a specific purpose essentially

conceives the society. It is through work that a community of human persons come
together and build a society to better their chances of survival. Marx's conception on
the human person were predicated on the premise that man participates in nature.

In the most fundamental sense, man coexists with nature in order to survive and
develop completely into himself. Marx used the term species-being to refer to this
coexistence with nature. Marx stated, "It follows from the character of this relationship
how far man has become, and has understood himself as, a species-being, a human
being."3 Nature and man's interaction demonstrates who man actually is and how he

3
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, trans. T. B. Bottomore (New York: Continuum, 2004), 103

4
interacts with nature via his awareness of himself as a human being. That is, as a
conscious entity with survival requirements in a predetermined environment. Man's
species-being informs how he interacts with his surroundings for survival; hence, the
interaction between man and nature and between nature and man demonstrates how
man should act.

The means of production, that is, the raw materials and the tools necessary for
a product to be produced, are both gathered and are crafted by the human person
within his environment, making all work essentially a productive work, even to the ones
that are motivated by creativity and the intellect. The result of work, that is, the product,
does not end with it being produced as it has to be used or consumed in some way
depending on which product it is, by some other fellow-man apart from the actual
producer. Even the paintings which is the result from the work of a painter, does not
end with it being simply painted because there has to be some other fellow-man that
would enjoy and contemplate the meanings of the result, allowing for the painter to
address a some sort of need from his community which can be an intellectual
contemplation or enjoyment from leisure. “Men are the producers of their conception,
ideas, etc.”4 This makes the work process of the human person and its result both
himself and for the community, ultimately satisfying both the needs of himself and his
society.

There is a communally shared need for survival in a society of the human person
that is fundamentally formed through work. As we understood from the previous
section, the work of a human person is a productive one. Meaning, that in every result
of a human person’s work, is a product, and that such product does not end with it
being produced, rather filling a need of a community or that of a specific need from the
community as demonstrated on the example of Michelangelo’s work. This is because
the human person as a species-being mutually shares the need for survival, and the
instinctual and rational notions of work is ultimately directed towards to the survival of
not just one human person but to the entire species as a whole. These communal
needs for survival entirely shapes the society that is formed through work and it does
not stay the same for all the periods of time. We have learned from the history of work
by the human person that work and to that extent, the needs for survival, is constantly

4
Erich Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man (New York: Continuum, 2004), 18

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changing in accordance to the state of nature in that particular period of time. In today’s
challenging times brought about by the pandemic for example, boosts the need for a
better healthcare system that could address the difficulties from the Covid-19
pandemic. This demonstrates the shift on the mode of working of the human person,
slowly transitioning and aligning itself with the digital age. It is evident on today’s time
that most of the working process involves digital tools, or if not, became entirely
dependent on the said tools such as computer devices and digital options as opposed
to the physical ones.

Understanding Work in the Covid-19 Period

Numerous changes in people's life have happened during the course of the
pandemic. It changed our form of socialization, limited our mobility, and, most crucially,
changed the way we engage with society. The Covid-19 pandemic has had both
positive and negative consequences. Many people were forced to grieve for their loved
ones, and many people's daily lives were interrupted as a result. On the positive side,
some people have developed a great personal, emotional, and spiritual relationship
with themselves and others.

Clearly, the pandemic is bringing something significant to the human society,

which may introduce a changing component that could perhaps change the current
society. Seeing the alterations brought about by the pandemic, this brings up the
likelihood of a shift in our today’s society's material processes. The pandemic has
brought significant changes in little over a year when quarantines began, and it has
been rapidly transforming many elements of human life and society since then. On
March 11th of 2020, the World Health Organization has declared the Covid-19 as a
pandemic5 and since then, more individuals in society have been stuck in their homes
or elsewhere as a result of the pandemic. With then, a shift in material processes in
today's society began to emerge. People's clothing began to change as they included
preventive measures such as face masks and carrying a bottle of sanitizing solution to

5
World Health Organization, WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on
COVID-19, 2020. https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-
remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020

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combat the sickness. The prices of computer components even rose substantially as
more and more individuals began to acquire a set of computers owing to mobility
restrictions, which caused more people to work from home. 6 As a result, several social
activities have moved from the physical to the digital domain.7 As more individuals
joined the digital rush and online governance was magnified by the pandemic, we
began to see subtle changes in the way man interacts with society. That is, connecting
digitally through digital gadgets since physical relationships are prohibited to decrease
the danger of disease spread.

As a result, we understand that the pandemic has resulted in rapid shifts in

various social activities such as socializing, employment, and, most significantly,
production. These fast changes in material processes brought about by the Covid-19
Pandemic pave the ground for another large shift in material processes on a scale
comparable to how industrialization transformed feudal society into modern society.

With an understanding of Marx's explanation of historical materialism and his

historical perspective, we begin to see that possibly the pandemic represents an
opportunity for a profound transformation in the material processes of society. That is,
because civilizations have an innate proclivity for evolution through material process
shifts, the pandemic might function as a catalyst for rapid change in the existing culture.
Thus, based on the history of prior societies that changed as a result of shifts in material
processes specific to each periods, the pandemic that obviously accelerated changes
in today's current society speaks to the potential of conceiving a new society. And that
civilization is now undergoing such a transformation, and it is only a matter of time
before the potential of a new society as a result of the pandemic is realized.

The Artist as the Ideal Worker

Marx referenced Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in the The Holy Family as saying “The
artist, the scientist, the poet, receive their just reward by the mere fact that society

6
Andre Co, What Affects GPU Prices? Yugatech, 2021. https://www.yugatech.com/guides/what-
affects-gpu-prices/
7
Rahul De, Neena Pandey, Abhipsa Pal, Elsevier Public Health Emergency Collection, “Impact of digital
surge during Covid-19 pandemic: A viewpoint on research and practice”, 2020.

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allows them to apply themselves exclusively to science and art.”8 This is a reference
to man and his immersion in creative work within the context of the society to which
they belong. Numerous individuals invest themselves in artistic endeavors. Some have
even attached their identities to it, following the example of Michelangelo on that
regard. That is, they develop into painters, dancers, or artisans. Along with their work,
these individuals spend time not simply on an activity, but eventually on self-creation,
in the work process that is directed towards humanizing nature and in turn, changing
oneself during such process.

When one looks into the eyes of a really passionate worker, one discovers
himself in his craft. That his, his skill gets ingrained in him. To illustrate this further,
consider the following example of a painter. Some painters work with their skills and
include their signature to indicate who did it. Though some painters choose not to sign
their work, it is ultimately true that whatever an artist does is his, and he is regarded as
the creator of that end-result of his work, which is the painting. Thus, anything the artist
makes is a reflection of himself, both as himself and as his self-objectified. Self-
objectified means that, when the human person expresses itself through a material
process, producing a material object in its end result. And this is the type of work that
is undertaken not for financial gain but as an expression of man's love for himself, his
product, and his fellow-man.

Marx considered art to be a reflection of life, as seen on his conception of the

idea of species-being. Being an artist needs a person to be completely absorbed in the
process of developing his craft, and therefore becomes a life-long effort. Marx asserted
“…every man who wished to become a master had to be proficient in the whole of his
craft.”9 The artist's collection of works therefore establishes a sense of community, to
which each piece of the other contributes. To elucidate such point, Manuel Dy's
Implications in the History of Work asserts that “man is the only being who can make
the community his object both practically and theoretically” 10 Examining man's capacity

8
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family or the Critique of Critical Critique, (Moscow: Foreign Language
Publishing House, 1956), 26.

9
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, A Critique of The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1932), 26.

10
Manuel Dy, Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings, “Implications in the History of Work”, 3rd ed. (Makati:
Katha Publishing, 2012), 118.

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to make the community his object, both practically and conceptually, demonstrates that
he possesses complete sovereignty over the collectivity of the human person. This
demonstrates that man's labor, as an expression of himself, is universally regarded.
This means that anything the artist does, even if it is only for his own enjoyment,
becomes a product for his fellowmen as well.

Thus, an artist is someone who works for himself in order to freely express
himself and to actualize his species-being. His art, which embodies his creativity, is
something that, by nature, cannot be kept to himself but must be shared with others.
The artist's work carries the human imprint11, as Dy puts it. This occurs when a work
of art is shared with others; when it is able to communicate with his fellow man through
an art display, a concert, or just by enjoying a single work of art.

By delving into Marx's work theory, which states that man develops himself
through work, we can observe that the worker's identity is linked to the end result of
his work, that is, his product. After Marx showed that man is a free being whose
freedom is actualized through his work, work is viewed here as the final stage toward
becoming a human person; i.e., being a species-being.

Thus, this human imprint on man's labor is the ideal product in every activity of
the human person. Marx's radical humanism points to the idea that the ideal worker in
a society must be an artist. That is, a worker who creates for his self-actualization, but
also makes a contribution to his fellowmen as a result of his self-expression. This sense
of work is free from being alienated, because what the worker does is both for others
and for himself.

Conclusion and Insight

As the human person continues to work for his survival, such activity also means
that the human person expresses himself towards the community. And through the
expression of himself towards the community, the human person also fulfills a need
from the community, allowing for a communal sense to be formed. In the process of

11
Ibid.

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the human person expressing himself, the human person also actualizes himself.
Consequently, this process of actualizing oneself through work, the human person also
actualizes the society which in turn, provides his fellow-man an environment where his
fellow-man can freely express themselves. As the human person continues to actualize
himself and in turn, becomes a species-being in the process, such work that is directed
towards not only to himself but also to the community, completes the end-result of
human work as a species, i.e., to humanize nature according to the needs of the human
person. With the nature humanized, all material processes within the environment are
then owed to the human person. Which is why the human person must adapt and
continue to humanize nature and his environment to better his survival.

In the plight of the pandemic, we have seen numerous changes in the activity
or work of the human person. As demonstrated on the previous section, work
processes done virtually or digitally are becoming more and more relevant as the
human person continues to adapt from the challenges brought about by the pandemic.
As the community that is built on the work of the human person and his fellow-man
continues to be faced with numerous changes, these certain adaptations that are acted
upon to better the survival of the species only leads to a formation of a new society
that addresses the current needs for survival. However, as the societies continue to
change through different periods of time, the ideal work would remain to be true, as
this is the primary driving force that creates the society of the human person in the first
place. The sense of being an artist therefore, would remain as the ideal worker, as the
work that aims to address the needs of not only oneself but also for the community of
the human person would continue in spite of the changes in the society.

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References

 Erich Fromm. Marx’s Concept of Man. New York: Continuum. 2004.

 Karl Marx. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. trans. T. B. Bottomore.

New York: Continuum. 2004.

 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels. A Critique of the German Ideology. Moscow:

Progress Publishers. 1932.

 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology. Moscow: Progress

Publishers, 1968.

 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels. The Holy Family or the Critique of Critical
Critique. Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House. 1956.

 Manuel Dy. Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings, “Implications in the History

of Work”, 3rd ed. Makati: Katha Publishing, 2012.

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