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Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 - Karl Marx

Red Menace

CHAPTER

The Perversion of Need in Capitalism

Marx argues that man's individual and species life are not different however much. The capitalist changes the worker into an insensible being lacking all needs just as he changes his activity into a pure abstraction from all activity to him. Capitalism thus functions to redefine human need from the conditions of human thriving to the most bare-bones conditions for survival. This reduction of need to mere survival explains why people judge the poor for engaging in anything approximating luxury.

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