to confine their workers in an "iron cage" typified by rule-based and rational control of actions.
Karl Marx would have seen the poverty revealed by the Katrina disaster as the ultimate vindication for his philosophy. Marx believed that social classes were intricately tied to the means of production. In his critique of capitalism, he noted that the elites who owned the means of production enrichened themselves at the expense of the working class and used their power to politically disenfranchise them. Workers, meanwhile, were steadily alienated from their work, and hence from happiness, by the increasing mechanization associated with capitalist production. Marx would have viewed the poverty revealed in Sandalow's article as a natural byproduct of our capitalist society. Further, he would have seen the looting and the shooting at National Guardsmen as expressions of the alienation experienced by the poor.
Sandalow, Mark (2005). "Katrina Thrusts Race and Poverty Onto National Stage." San Francisco Chronicle. September 23. A13.
Copyright 2005 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2005, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION
HEADLINE: Katrina thrusts race and poverty onto national stage;
Bush and Congress under pressure to act
Searing images of destitute African Americans huddl
...