Du Bois & Marx on Oppression
In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois, creates a framework of race within society in order to explain and analyze the racism and lived experiences of black individuals in America. Through his analysis, he creates a model of oppression that can be applied to any oppressed group of individuals and which quite accurately explains the lived conditions of the oppressed group. A lot of the concepts he comes up with have parallels with Marxist thought and can be directly applied to the oppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie, under capitalism. In what follows, I will analyze the oppression of the working class and the separation of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie by the labor line, by drawing upon the parallels that exist between the philosophies of Du Bois and Marx.
Du Bois tackles the problem of race by reframing the entire problem in terms of what he calls, “the color line”. This color line according to him, separates the darker colored races from the lighter ones and helps to illuminate the relationship between the two (Du Bois, 25). In a similar fashion, in the oppression of the working class, a “labor line” exists that separates the working class – comprising most of society and consisting of individuals who have to work to make a living – from the bourgeoisie – those who make their money from their assets and through exploiting the labor of the working class.
Du Bois goes into detail about how the two sides that are separated by the color line are entirely separate worlds in truly every sense – from the schools, to the theaters, to transportation, to hospitals, to books and everything in between (Du Bois, 116). Du Bois here refers to both the differences in quality and opportunity available to one side of the color line as well as the direct segregation of the black man. This difference in quality and opportunity can be directly observed in the labor line as well – the working class or the proletariat, suffers from the same “otherness” that Du Bois as well as Beauvoir explore in their texts. Their kids go to public schools while the bourgeoisie sends their kids to expensive private schools that cost more than an average minimum wage worker’s entire monthly salary. Their modes of transportation include expensive luxury cars and private jets and luxurious first-class seats on commercial planes, while the working class uses decades-old, ill-maintained public transportation systems or modest cars at best and can only afford “economy” seats if they can afford the luxury of traveling by air in the first place. The elite have their own private healthcare, and buildings commemorated with their name even in death while the working class can often barely even afford to pay for a funeral and constantly fears ruination from the smallest of medical emergencies. The limited social mobility afforded to the people on the worse side of the labor line clearly shows the dichotomy of opportunity that exists between the two sides, or rather, the two different worlds of the labor line. Next, I will delve into the lived experience of the worker and all its different facets drawing from the work of Du Bois.
Building upon the concept of this labor line that we discussed, we see that a veil exists between the two worlds of the labor line just as it does for the two worlds of the color line (Du Bois, 13). This metaphorical veil keeps the two sides separated and more than that, it keeps both sides from being able to clearly see what exists on the other side of the veil. The bourgeoisie don’t want the working class to be able to peer beyond this veil, because it is in their best interests to keep the proletariat from realizing how disadvantaged their position is in society. The bourgeoisie must work to keep this “double consciousness” that the working class suffers from, intact.
What is double consciousness in terms of the labor line as opposed to the color line? The working-class individual has a duality of consciousness – on the one hand, he is an individual, born with an innate creativity, with the inner desire to express that creativity. On the other hand, he is a laborer – he must work to meet his basic needs, he must become a subservient slave to his superiors at work – he is not allowed to speak his truth, or behave as he wishes and must keep his true and authentic self, hidden, lest he be fired and end up in an even lower rung of society. He has to live a “double life” as Du Bois says – the double life of an individual and of a laborer (Du Bois, 231).
Furthermore, the opaqueness of this veil creates a “false consciousness” in addition to this double-consciousness. This false consciousness, a feature of capitalism, keeps the worker from being able to peak beyond the veil of ignorance and from being able to recognize the gross inequality, oppression and exploitation that exists within his side of the labor line. His false consciousness normalizes the existence of his double-consciousness and with time, he becomes more and more alienated from himself and his true, authentic personhood.
This double-consciousness reveals the objectification of the worker under capitalism. The worker sees himself through the lens of capitalism, and recognizes that his worth in the world is directly tied to his labor and that who he is as an individual is directly determined by the material output of his labor. To his boss at work, and to everyone else on the other side of the labor line, he is nothing more than an object. An object whose labor yields profits. He is used to seeing himself in terms of his labor. For this reason, we judge ourselves harshly when we are not productive in our lives. This is also why we judge our own worth by the amount of money in our bank accounts, by the car we drive, the material wealth we possess, and other markers of capitalist “success”. We see ourselves through the eyes of the bourgeoisie – we see ourselves as an object, a human resource, a worker first and foremost, rather than as an individual with true self-consciousness and inherent worth – a full human being (Du Bois, 14).
There is a struggle here that exists. A war of sorts between the two sides, because the worker knows somewhere deep inside in moments when his false-consciousness briefly lifts, that this duality of consciousness exists but should not exist, that the labor line should not exist. The worker reacts to this inner struggle in the same ways that the black man reacts to the color line – with rage, despair & self-doubt, and escape (Du Bois, 247).
Those that successfully lift their veils of ignorance in order to clearly see the existence of the double-consciousness that the labor line forces them to have, have either one of these three reactions, or some sort of combination of the three. First, there is rage. Rage at the system – at capitalism, rage at the bourgeoisie – at the oppressors, and rage at themselves – for their powerlessness in the face of capitalism. This reaction usually leads to some sort of outburst or a desire to go against the system and lash out at others, usually their own fellow members of the working class since they’re the most accessible. This reaction ultimately leads to them being further shackled within capitalism, both metaphorically and literally (Du Bois, 111). Prison is after all, nothing more than another form of slavery and a method to extract cheap labor from the working class under the guise of retributive justice.
Another common reaction to this oppression is despair and self-doubt. This, for one, manifests itself as a wide-spread societal issue of depression. When you do exactly as society says and you follow the path laid out for you, yet your achievements amount to nothing and you feel this struggle inside of you that you can’t quite identity due to false consciousness, a depressive psychological state emerges (Du Bois, 85). And from this depressive state, is born a state of complacency which leaves the worker with no choice but to just go about the motions of life, being a wage-slave, miserable inside, but having given up in the face of the forces of capitalism. The oppressors on the other side of the labor line use this common reaction to profit off the worker even further by pushing therapy and drugs onto the worker.
Lastly, we have escapism (Du Bois, 13). Escapism, behind the worker side of the labor line, mostly manifests itself through extreme consumerism. A desire to escape through the only avenue that capitalism provides – consumption. Through consumption, people find temporary meaning in their lives – the bourgeoisie successfully convinces the proletariat that the answer to their internal struggle, the answer to their internal misery and suffering, is through consuming the latest and trendiest good – that will make them happy and resolve their inner struggle. And before the worker has even finished unwrapping the first good, he’s inundated with hundreds of advertisements of other goods and services that promise happiness when the temporary hit of happiness from the good the worker just purchased, inevitably fades away. In this endless cycle of consumerism, the worker finds escape and like all other escapes, the tolerance level constantly increases with the worker wanting more and more expensive items to feel the same amount of happiness.
Sometimes, escapism can be found through institutions such as religion. Marx dubbed religion, “the opium of the masses” and discussed how the proletariat internalizes their suffering by finding escape in religion. He said, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people” (Marx, 1). By projecting their internal struggle onto external religious beings and symbols, they find momentary relief from their own suffering and they also find the strength to bear the suffering when the relief is not handy. The Christian worker finds it easier to bear his own internal suffering caused by the oppressors on the other side of the labor line when he gazes upon the image of Jesus Christ nailed to a cross.
Another aspect of the lived experience of the proletariat on its side of the labor line, is silencing. Du Bois talked about how the black American is not allowed to be frank and outspoken, to state their honest feelings on a matter and to assert themselves. Instead, the black American must be silent and pleasant no matter how the person on the other side of the color line treats him. He must endure their insults with a smile upon his face and keep all criticisms to himself (Du Bois, 234). Similarly, behind the labor line, the worker cannot be his own authentic self in the workplace. The worker must be pleasant for being unpleasant no matter what’s going on in the worker’s own life, is absolutely unacceptable – if his supervisor or manager feels that he isn’t pleasant enough to him or a customer, the worker will face consequences. Both, the customer, and the manager, can treat the worker with the utmost disrespect – insult him even – and the worker must bear it all with a smile on his face. The worker cannot assert himself, and the worker cannot state his opinion on matters he isn’t directly asked about – he is not a human in the workplace, he is merely an instrument of capital and an object of production. The worker’s real thoughts must be guarded. If these guidelines are not followed, the worker faces losing his job and the subsequent financial distress that is bound to follow. In this way, the bourgeoisie silences the proletariat.
The concept of the “color line” reworked to model the conditions and experiences of the working class, in the form of the “labor line” accurately represents the oppression of the working class by the group on the other side of the line, the bourgeoisie. The veil between these two separate worlds that exist on either side of this labor line, works to hide the true conditions of each class from the other to the benefit of the oppressing class. This labor line is actively imposed upon the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, by ensuring that very rarely is an individual able to cross over the line, and through the veil, into the world of the elite. This is done through direct means such as keeping minimum wages just high enough for the worker to be kept alive and for the propagation of future generation of workers (Marx, 10). This goal of the bourgeoisie is also achieved through means such as keeping false consciousness intact within society to the highest degree possible, by creating alienation at every level of labor, by alienating the worker from other workers, and ultimately alienating the worker from himself. It is achieved through commodifying even the reactions of the worker to his inner struggles and by stifling any attempts of the working class to band together through means such as unionization. The oppressors on the other side of the labor line ensure that the labor laws are lax and that the ones that do exist, benefit them to the fullest extent achievable. The worker under capitalism and behind the labor line, is nothing more than an object and a means of profit for the bourgeoisie and the worker’s lived experiences reflect this.
The parallels between the philosophies of Du Bois and Marx shed light upon the nature of the oppression of the working class. The works of these philosophers are over a century old, yet the frameworks they developed, more accurately than ever, describe the conditions of the oppressed within our society today. Du Bois hoped that by finally seeing our true selves free of double-consciousness, we would recognize our own inherent, latent power and through harnessing this power, we would be able to change society for the better. I have hope that we can all find this power within us, so that we may once and for all, erase the lines the separate us and achieve true equality for all.
References
Bois, Du W., and Brent Hayes Edwards. The Souls of Black Folk (Oxford World’s Classics). Oxford University Press, 2007.
Marx, K. and Engels, F., 1992. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Marx, Karl. 1970. Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843). Oxford University Press.