Cruella Devil is Back

Karl Marx, in his 1844 Alienated Labor, stated: "Nature is the inorganic body of a man, that is, insofar as it is not itself a human body. That man lives from nature means that nature is his body with which he must maintain a constant interchange so as not to die. That man's physical and intellectual life depends on nature merely means that nature depends on itself, for man is a part of nature. "When alienated labour alienates (1) nature from man, and (2) man from himself, his own function, his vital activity, it also alienates the species from man; it turns his species-life into a means to towards his individual life...work, vital activity, and productive life itself appear to man only as a means to the satisfaction of a need, the need to preserve his physical existence. But productive life is species life." Marx believed that every species is defined as much by its physical characteristics as by its function (work) in the ecosystem; accordingly, Marx' assumed that humans' defining feature is our drive to work, to create, for more reasons than mere survival. We create according to the rules of beauty, aesthetics, humour, mood, as much as we create according to pure usefulness. Therefore, the problem with global industry, or industrialization in general, is that it creates the illusion of there being no connection between the materials and labour used in production and the products you buy, and no connection between your work and your life or your identity (what Marx calls species life). That social theory lesson done, let me show you a good example of how this disconnect between raw materials and finished product, and between identity and job, can become disturbingly dehumanizing.