Work as "a matter of indifference"

In our modern day, capitalist society, work is made as simple as possible.  Visit your local Chipotle, and you will see an assembly line.  One employee controls a register that allows her to have no knowledge of the prices of each product and also allows her to have minimal quantitative skills.  To her left are various employees each assigned to one part of the burrito—one person scoops beans and meat, the other scoops cheese and rice, and the last scoops toppings.  Their jobs are made as simple as possible and require little more than possible smiles.  Each person has his or her duty and has no need to understand anything beyond that duty. 

Marx, in the German Ideology, explains that this simplification of work is not only essential to capitalism, but it also diminishes the passion one finds in his or her work, leading to alienation of one's work and a bounded society.  According to Marx, before the modern day, “every workman had to be versed in a whole round of tasks, had to be able to make everything that was to be made with his tools” (178).  Through this need for mastery, Marx explains that medieval men found “an interest in their special work and in proficiency in it, which was capable of rising to a narrow artistic sense” (178).  Furthermore, Marx explains that this zeal for and mastery of one’s craft was “his only property apart from the small capital he brought with him” (176). Thus, Marx explains that in the Middle Ages, expertise in one specific profession was vital to citizens, imbuing them with joy for their art and allowing them a means for economic wellbeing.

Now, Marx explains, the modern day worker looks a lot more like someone working at Chipotle, “whose work is a matter of indifference to him” (178). This indifference in one’s work not only diminishes the “artistic” joy one feels in his work and leads to an alienation from production, but it also allows employees to be seen as disposable. If my only duty is to scoop beans into a burrito, I have no real capital to bring to the table other than my ability to potentially smile.  Thus, I am just as valuable to my employer as any other person.  My only role at work is to chug along like anyone else.  Yet, as a replaceable part in the assembly line, as easy as I was hired, I am equally easy to fire.  Thus, Marx explains, this drives a system of competition, which sets one apart from another.  If I am just as disposable as my neighbor, then I will see my neighbor as my enemy and competition, which will drive us apart.  Marx argues that this is detrimental to community development and thus also detrimental to society’s wellbeing. If we no longer are seen as or function as humans, but merely as sources of production in a system of divided labor, then our society devolves.