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Before talking about the profoundness of Marx's discovery and explication of this distinction in human labor, it must be noted that Marx considers this abstract labor as determining the exchange value of commodities. But this is actually the negation of the very labor theory of value. It is the negation of the labor theory of value because of two major reasons. If the value-creating labor in commodities is the amount of this abstract, universal, undifferentiated, homogenized, averaged labor, then this abstract labor is further reduced to time. The time needed to produce a commodity is the basis of value. The labor theory of value is, in fact, a time theory of value. This time (it makes no difference if we call it labor time, as Marx does) is astronomical time-this alien concept of how life progresses. Also, when human labor is reduced to a homogenized substance, humans are devalued. A true labor theory of value would emanate from and explore and define how the labor of humans as valued, creative, life-giving persons creates value in what is produced.

The real profoundness of Marx's distinction of abstract and concrete labor is that it actually offers a theory of alienation. It describes some of the dynamics or concrete processes of alienation. When the value or importance of humans is reduced to universal, undifferentiated, and homogenized labor, or labor power in Marxian terminology, the individuality of people becomes absolutely unimportant and irrelevant. Anything that prevents the individuality of a person from finding expression is a process of alienation. Every day, the process of alienation unfolds and strikes violently on a massive, global scale. The alienation of humans happens each day through this process of the reduction of the billions of geniuses on earth to a homogenized mass of something, to abstract labor, to faceless resources for the creation of private wealth. We become alienated because we are prevented from being ourselves. We are only important as persons without identity, as a homogenized, abstract reservoir of labor power. This cleavage of a person into a unique individual important only to his loved ones and a person as a source of abstract labor is a powerful mechanism through which alienation is created. Marx's labor theory of value, stripped of its torturously unnecessary detail, should actually be presented essentially as a theory of alienation.

Going back to our discussion of the GNP, suppose all a nation does in terms of economic activity is to produce food and stealth bombers or napalm bombs. This scenario would still generate a large GNP figure, but what would this figure mean? This figure would represent an extremely high and perhaps unmeasurable social waste rather than economic activity that enhances the standard and quality of living. Even though the mentioned scenario is an extreme dramatization, in real life our society does, in fact, engage in socially irrelevant and wasteful economic activity. The enormous amount of resources and money that is devoted to the production of commercials is an example of social waste that is presented as economic output and is included in the GNP. But the dollar, and the GNP as a symbol of an economic concept, present this waste as productivity to our perception.

The GNP also includes profits. The GNP figures include profits realized at various points in the production and service process. Thinking of profits as the difference between cost and sales price is only a superficial understanding of what profits are. Profit, in essence, is a manifestation of social relations. It is a reflection of the relative power of companies vs. people who either work for wages or are unemployed. The less a corporation pays in wages, benefits, and workplace safety measures, the higher the margin of profit. When the work process is designed to dictate a pace so fast that turns work into an insult, that means higher profits. By disrespecting the environment and the health of the people by wantonly polluting the air and the ocean and the underground water, costs can be minimized and profits maximized. It is quite conceivable, then, that an increase in the GNP can be interpreted as bad news because a large portion of the GNP now represents profits and not actual goods and services.

The GNP, therefore, cannot be a measure of economic output. Two major components of the GNP are social waste and profits. On the other hand, as many people, particularly feminists, have pointed out, an enormous amount of economic activity in the form of housework is not included in the GNP. Just because money changed hands through the absolutely wasteful and meaningless multimillion-dollar Pepsi Cola commercial promoted by Michael Jackson, it does not mean there has been an economic activity or economic output. If money changed hands in a holdup, shall we call it an economic activity or an economic output, and include it in the GNP? Actually, one might argue that it does constitute an economic activity if the incentive was to obtain money to eat, even though we condemn it as a violent criminal act. In this sense, it has a more legitimate claim to being an economic activity than the Pepsi commercial or an automobile commercial disseminating mistruths about a car.

The exchange of money somehow defines the event as an economic activity. Obviously, not all human activity is economic. We may play volleyball on the beach and we wouldn't consider that as an economic activity. However, if we pay a dollar to throw basketballs into a hoop in an amusement park, that would be considered an economic activity because it financially benefits the owners of the amusement park. This dollar would be included in the GNP figure since it would be reported as income. In a few cases, even when money is exchanged, as in a poker game at a friend's home, no economic activity has taken place, as we ordinarily understand it. However, if we play poker in a Las Vegas casino, it would constitute an economic activity and find its way to the GNP figures. It seems that, somehow, through socioanalytical abilities unbeknownst to ourselves, we all define activities as economic if they benefit someone other than ourselves! More accurately, we define an economic activity in a sociorelational context. When we part with our money and give it to someone else in exchange for goods or any imaginable service, then we view it as an economic activity. A "purchase and sale" mentality defines for us what is or is not an economic activity. It is perhaps this kind of thinking that explains why housework is not considered an economic activity. Housework is not perceived as financially benefiting someone else; we do it for ourselves. The perception of what is economic is rooted in the intense sociorelational and conflictual context of life.

Price might seem to epitomize what is unhesitantly economic in nature. If there are certain dynamics that define the very nature of a discipline-in this case, economics-price is undoubtedly a perfect candidate. Yet, in today's world, price has little to do with what is truly economic.

In the earlier days of capitalism, price gravitated toward production costs. Price did provide a margin of profit that was not exorbitant, and it generally appeared to maintain its basis in production. One could argue that, in the past, price could indeed be considered an economic phenomenon because, by and large, it seemed to emanate from production itself. More specifically, it came close to the cost of a commodity. In a sense, price was not completely disjointed from reality; it was intelligible, and it made sense to a person. However, today, prices are typically set arbitrarily; they have little or no basis at all in production. A price that will generate more profits is the price that is set, and people cannot disagree with it other than not buying the product or the service. Prices, today, for the most part, are not understandable in terms of the natural reality of life. Price is also a symbol; it appears to represent the value of a commodity, but, in reality, it comes between the reality itself and the person, thus masquerading reality. Price, as a symbol, has the potential to confuse and distort our sense of judgment about the value and importance of something; therefore, it is a powerful agent of alienation.

Arbitrary price setting is an invisible mechanism of hurting people, of coaxing or forcing the money out of their pockets-money they can use for fun, vacations, and self-development. Suppose a person accosts someone on the street and, for the fun of it, demands that he give him all his money and jewelry. This is a transfer of wealth or possessions from one person to another. But this is not an economic activity, it is not an economic phenomenon. Arbitrary price setting is very similar to the example given. The corporate world, for the fun of it, or for the profit of it, demands that people part with their possessions (here, money) and hand them over to them (it is easier to see this phenomenon when we realize the unrelated ness of prices and costs, and when we become aware of the arbitrary and outrageous markups). Again, this is not an economic phenomenon. This is a direct transfer of wealth with no economic character or justification. The transfer of wealth has nothing to do with what is, in essence, economic. Pharmaceutical companies are among the most notorious perpetrators of this kind of piracy. Just because an old medicine for a cattle parasite was recently found to be effective in the treatment of human colon cancer, the company producing it raised its price for medical use several hundredfold. The new price had no relation to the cost of producing it; it had no basis in the process of production. This kind of arbitrary price setting is quite alien to what is truly "economic" in nature. It is a direct exercise of power; it reflects the power of certain individuals or corporations over the people.

Price, this master symbol of economic life, deceives us about who we are. Price contorts a person's understanding of his needs and desires. Needs and desires surreptitiously depart our consciousness if they are unaffordable. Sometimes, they may simply be transshaped into distant wishes or utopian passions. More importantly, price and the very act of purchasing commodify needs and desires. They become things outside of ourselves confronting us as commodities that need to be purchased at a price. For example, a person may be enamored of ballet-an art form that helps her connect with her self as it touches and stimulates her artistic tastes and her emotional definition. This person may very much want to go to a performance by a famous ballet company visiting the town. If she has money, she can go, but if she has no money, then she can't. Our tastes, our emotions, the emotional definitions of ourselves become objects outside of ourselves that need to be purchased. We need to purchase those "objects" in order to connect with ourselves, to experience ourselves. But perhaps the most glaring example of this is the purchase of a health insurance policy. If we don't have health insurance, we cannot receive decent medical care and, sometimes, no care at all. When we buy health insurance, we actually purchase our health, we purchase ourselves, we purchase our very existence. Yet, this phenomenon escapes our perceptual and comprehensional senses. We are so used to our own objectification, that this bizarre phenomenon-the purchase of our inalienable right to life-does not look bizarre at all.

The objectification of human needs and desires is, at the same time, an alienation process. Needs that are intrinsically one with our bodies and our emotional and social existence become alienated from us. They become strangers to ourselves and, in a sense, we confront ourselves as strangers.

Price deceives us as to who we are; it hides our identities from ourselves. Our needs, tastes, and desires become relevant, pursuable, and touchable, not because they are what define us as unique individuals, but because price determines if those are relevant, pursuable and touchable. More perniciously, price often shapes them into unhosted and uprooted nice things to be appreciated in the abstract. We often determine the importance of things based on their price tags and the money we make. We may want to buy something, but if it costs too much, given the wages we make, we may say, "it is not that important, there are more important things to do" such as food, paying the bills, etc. But that is the point; what is important to us as a person-perhaps because it reflects our tastes or something we desire-suddenly becomes not as important. The value and utility of things become relevant and are judged by something external to us-price. The value, relevance, and importance of things cease to emanate from us as individuals with distinct and unique tastes, needs, and emotional worlds. We constantly relegate to unimportance things that are dear to us, things that define us as unique individuals. We unpursue things that give us our identities. This process undefines a person. Price constantly unconnects us from who we are. This is a quintessential example of what alienation means. It is also an example of a concrete, demystified, and describable process whereby alienation happens in everyday life.

Price is also a powerful agent of alienation because it homogenizes people. Price somehow imparts value to commodities. Since prices are typically fixed and uniform in a given geographical area for everyone, they slyly force a similar value on a commodity even though people are very different from one another. It creates the tendency for people to assess the value of a commodity similarly. In so doing, it not only separates a person from his own judgment of how valuable a thing is, but it creates a degree of convergence and homogeneity in the way they assess the value of something. This is a process whereby people lose their individuality and, in so doing, become strangers to themselves.

Social phenomena masquerade themselves in forms other than what they are. Sociopolitical relations, for example, present themselves to us as economic phenomena. In the late 1980s, the United States, particularly California, entered a recessionary period. Millions of people lost their jobs, and millions lost their homes to foreclosure or were evicted. Even though that recession had economic consequences for the people, i.e., the loss of jobs and homes, diminished income, and the failure of small enterprises, the true causes of the recession and the defining dynamics of it were primarily political. Corruption in government at federal, state, county, and city levels is one of the main causes that precipitates recessions. Various economic interests have succeeded in wielding enormous power that is sustained by the political structure they have romanced so skillfully. The corrupting power of corporations over congress has transvalued the purpose of government. Lobbying has professionalized what is, in reality, a process of coopting the elected representatives into passing legislation that financially profits the lobbying economic interests. This is, obviously, somewhat of an overstatement. The transvaluation of the purpose and meaning of government has also come from within. We have representatives in congress who, by and large, have the same business mentality and share a similar life outlook on social issues.

Economic life, and its distinctiveness, is the result of social relations, including power relations. If the relative power of diverse and, particularly, opposing interests are substantially altered within the existing and legitimated economic system, recessions are very likely to happen. The role of the government is crucial in tilting the balance of power in favor of big business. The policies and actions of the government hasten the process of the erosion of the power of wage earners and the unemployed. When the government leaves the people defenseless against the power of the corporate community, people gradually lose their power. Corporations have had the complete freedom to fire or lay off workers. They have been able to take back the benefits that go with employment. They have denied wage increases and, in many cases, have actually forced people to take pay cuts. The romance and corrupting influence of corporations in congress and the executive bureaucracy has prevented the government from protecting the rights of the workers.

There were massive cutbacks or elimination of a wide range of public assistance and social programs in the 1980s and 1990s. This has been very damaging to the marginally employed or poor people, many of whom have had to become episodically or permanently homeless. The number of the homeless persons in the late 1980s and early 1990s almost tripled nationwide. The onslaught on the working people, and the active impoverishment of the people continue now with renewed passion and vengeance.

All of these weaken the position of wage earners and the unemployed. Purchasing power is eroded and the sense of income security fades. The specter of losing one's home and a sense of approaching financial hardship create ravaging fears and stresses. This uncertainty and fear, or the actual erosion of the purchasing power may cause people to stop buying, which sets the process of a recession that, in turn, further weakens and impoverishes the people.

Incidentally, the poverty and destitution that is seen as the result of a recession is, in fact, primarily the cause of a recession. Once a recession unfolds around viciously, it then heightens and spreads the poverty in society.

Even though the latitude and the ascendant power that the major business sectors enjoy vis-à-vis the wage earners and the unemployed are primarily the result of romanceful relations between the government and business interests, the government itself, from within, has acted in ways quite congruent with business preferences and demands. One of the profound changes in our society in the past several decades has been the change in the character of the state. The State or, more loosely, the government, at all levels, has been operating with a business rationality and logic. The same impersonal business logic that guides the conduct of the business world has been guiding the conduct of the government as well.

Historically, when the country has been in a recession or a depression, the public sector has expanded to provide employment and stimulate the economy. This time, however, with the most current recession of the late 1980s and 1990s, the government acted with the same callous mentality that one would expect from the corporate world. Various levels of government, be it the state, the county, or the city, started laying off people, introduced forced unpaid vacations, and denied cost of living raises. Also, instead of expanding social programs to help people who had lost their jobs and houses, the various levels of government further curtailed or eliminated many social programs, precisely when they were needed most. This kind of business logic, rather than social welfare and responsibility, now characterizes the state.

The abdication of the mandate and purpose of government to serve and protect its citizens, and its transformation into a bureaucracy that is guided by pure business logic and rationality is, at the operational level, a paradigm shift. The government has become an "MBA State." Even instrumentalist views of the state do not necessarily see an ideological confluence between corporate interests and the interests of the state. Now, however, there is indeed a substantial confluence of ideology between the corporate world and the state. The role of this "MBA State," or "MBA government," in precipitating and prolonging the recent recession has been as impactful as the soulless and rapacious policies of the corporate world.

During a recession, the Federal Reserve begins the tantalizing game of playing with interest rates as its main countermeasure for fighting a recession. It may start with lowering the interest rate by half a percent to see if it spurs economic activity. Not seeing an enthusiastic response, the Federal Reserve may pare the interest rate by another quarter of a percent. Then, a couple of months later, it may shave an additional one eighth of a percent off the interest rate.

The Federal Reserve's sadistic game of shaving small increments off the interest rate is designed to strip-tease the economy out of a recession. The Federal Reserve performs this tantalizing game without any understanding of the social-relational nature of a recession. The Federal Reserve is infatuated with interest rates, the money supply, credit and financing mechanisms, and a few aggregate economic indicators. The Federal Reserve perceives economic indicators as essentially reflecting decisional and operational consequences of the business community. It does not see economic indicators as outcomes of changing power relations between the masses of the people and those who control the means of production and financing mechanisms. Prodding and nudging of financing mechanisms as the solution to a recession not only is quite naive and simplistic, but it may well be the playing out of an old myth about what causes a recession.

The government plays a vital role in precipitating, averting, or countering recessions. When the government acts primarily to further the interests of the powerful corporate community, either through cooptation and corruption, or by virtue of a confluence of ideology with the corporate community and the use of identical business logic and rationality, then the government is actively engaged in disempowering the people vis-à-vis the powerful corporate community. It is this disempowerment of the people relative to the powerful corporate community that explains the most recent prolonged recession we have had in the United States. What has facilitated and sustained this recession has been corruption in government.

The above discussion on recessions is meant to suggest how certain phenomena present themselves in descriptions other than the reality that remains unapparent and unrecognized. What looks unquestioningly economic may, in essence, be primarily a political phenomenon.

Societal phenomena, particularly economic life, are replete with forms that confuse our consciousness and contort our perception of reality. As mentioned earlier, commercials are essentially nothing but a flagrant and often humorized way of misinforming people about products and services that are sold. No one has seen a commercial that calls attention to the defects of a product. But the harm done by such a farcical absurdity as advertising goes beyond simply fooling or misleading people. Advertising, in subtle ways, corrupts human perceptual and comprehensional abilities.

Commercials present us with situations and scenarios that do not happen in real life. Everything is exaggerated and transshaped in a manner that is not experienced in real life. The humor often found in commercials makes an analytical view of commercials unnecessary. The extreme exaggeration and humor in commercials send a message to us that they need not be taken seriously or analytically; there is no need to worry about the untruth and unreality of the message of the commercial. The superficial form of the commercial becomes separated from content. What is presented becomes separated from reality with which we need not concern ourselves. We are asked to simply absorb the superficial image relayed, and make sense of it. The lifelong barrage of messages that present things devoid of content, and in such a manner that makes them seemingly innocuous and not in need of serious and critical attention, is, in fact, a socialization process. The concept of socialization should not be restricted to values, attitudes, and behavior, as it is ordinarily conceptualized. Socialization can also refer to a process by which people learn ways of thinking, ways of analyzing, judging, reasoning, and evaluating. It can refer to ways of understanding things and making sense of information and situations. Cognitive processes, which are also experiential, also become structured and develop through a socialization process whereby people, as children and adults, learn ways of evaluating and interpreting information and situations.

Commercials constantly suggest that we should not bother with content and reality. It is easy to oblige such suggestions because of the seemingly innocuous appearance, outlandish exaggeration, and the humor used in commercials. We stop at the level of form and appearance without the need to question the unreality of it all. We become lazy and used to the separation of reality and the form presented to us. The habit of separating reality from appearance does not last for the duration of the commercial only. It can become the usual way we perceive and process information and messages. This kind of mental and cognitive dynamics can become the usual manner by which we confront the world.

The acquisition of such cognitive habits is an alienative process. If this subtly pernicious process forms itself into cognitive habituality, this means a person is continually disengaged from her own cognition and sense of judgment. This is a more mortal form of alienation. It is a mode of alienation which is more than an uneasy, invisible, and unconscious presence and source of control; it is a mode of alienation that, in a mutative fashion, takes hold of a person's cognitive signature and becomes one with it. The process of the loss of one's identity becomes one with the recasting and refashioning of a person's identity. In a sense, a person simultaneously separates from and becomes himself.

Another mode of alienation that in a mutatively invasive manner takes hold of a person's not only cognition, but primarily the psychological and emotional world, is the process whereby we acquire a rigid value system and an unforgiving array of ethical and moral precepts. When we start being guided by a set of rigid moral precepts, particularly those that are antihuman or punitively inspired, we start parting with our sense of fairness and justice, with our sense of kindness, with ourselves. Certain moral codes are laden with unkindness and even cruelty. In certain cultures, the prevalent moral codes and values demand a father or a brother to severely punish or even murder the unmarried daughter or sister who has had an affair with someone. These moral codes require that the honor of the family be redeemed by severe punishment or, sometimes, murder. Now, many of such fathers and brothers are kind and wonderful persons. Yet, despite that, they commit violent, cruel, antihuman acts. The elusive meaning of alienation is so clear and demystified here. These fathers and brothers do things that do not emanate from who they really are. Through these self-contradictory acts they sacrifice their selves, their identities. But things are not that simple. This process of alienation is bizarre. Even though what we sometimes do does not truly speak for who we really are, in a sense, it somehow does. The values and moral codes that we have gradually absorbed or succumbed to, in a sense, start defining us; they start giving us an identity. But we also know that by absorbing and succumbing to these values and ethics we part with ourselves, we lose our identities, particularly when we act in accordance with those values and moral codes. The negation of ourselves becomes one with ourselves. Metaphorically speaking, we harbor an alien in ourselves, an alien that is us!

If we look around, we will find someone we know, perhaps a loved one, who sometimes does things that is unkind, callous, or cruel. But we also know that this person is a kind and loving person as well. What we see is then a reminder of the mysterious presence of alienation.

The example of fathers and brothers who treat their daughters or sisters cruelly in defending the family honor is a dramatic one; it helps illustrate the point of the argument more clearly. We embrace or confront the same alienative process in a less dramatic form in everyday life.

Designations or concepts traditionally regarded as economic create conceptual distortions. The meaning associated with "savings," for example, is very different from what savings truly means in real life. Traditional and familiar "economic" concepts often are symbolic distortions that conceal reality. Savings-this semiotically suggested notion of prudence and security-masks what we have given up in ourselves. When we save, we reduce or forgo pleasure, stimulation, and life-enhancing experience in the moments that we live. We exchange present life for future life. We give up life today for what may never exist in the future. We delay or give up what we can enjoy today; we surrender pleasureful things or experiences that reflect our fancies and desires. We sacrifice life experiences through which we validate who we are. And this is a process of alienation. We pass up the opportunity to experience ourselves. That which we give away of ourselves, we keep in isolation somewhere in the vaults of a bank, or even as figures on pieces of paper or on computer disks. But bank accounts are lifeless. We actually murder ourselves and place it somewhere in the form of nonlife, as a future memory of our past, as a strange metamorphosis of life into nonlife.

Savings also creates alienation in a different way. Savings assumes and is nurtured by the concern that, should something happen to us now or in the future, there is no one who will help and protect us, and those who would want to help may not be able to do so. It is also based on the concern that when our income drops for various reasons, society will not see to it that we are fed and clothed and entertained. This sense of not being supported, provided, and protected by society severs our connectedness with society, with other humans. It is a process of estrangement and alienation from society.

Savings, and the very ritual of making deposits in our savings account, routinizes alienation. It transshapes our sense of alienation into a belief about building our future or similar ideas. In the meantime, lo and behold, we extol our own loss. What symbolizes our security is, in reality, a tangible process of alienation from ourselves and society.

Alienation is not only a feeling, a state of mind. Alienation is also something that happens. The practice of applying for something, a job for example, and then waiting for the result, is a tangible process of alienation. It affirms the fact and reminds us powerfully that we are not in control, that other people will make decisions about us. Our very livelihood may, in fact, depend on decisions made about us by others. On the surface, applying for a job may simply be seen as something we do normally in the process of finding employment. However, it is one of so many concrete means by which alienation happens. It is one of the thousands of familiar practices through which the concrete process of our separation and estrangement from society takes place. It is a ritual whereby we accept and announce our powerlessness vis-à-vis the more powerful people in society.

Like savings, insurance reveals and, at the same time, creates alienation of humans from society and other humans. Insurance protects us from harm that can come to us from society, from other humans, from social institutions. If a fire burns down our house, it may mean disaster in the absence of an insurance policy; the specter of becoming homeless is real. Other people will not or are not in a position to help us rebuild the house. The belief in the need for an insurance policy is evidence that we do not count on society to help us; we do not feel we are among a community of humans whose support is natural and unquestioning, we do not feel we are one with society. It is a sign of estrangement from society. Car insurance is even more potently alienating. We may be sued by another human being whose car we have wrecked in an accident. There is a potential threat in every person we can imagine. Every human being can become a potential enemy. The very act of purchasing automobile insurance reinforces the subtle enemization of fellow humans.

Millions of people do not have medical insurance because they cannot afford it. Millions of people suffer pain and sickness, and many die due to lack of insurance or "underinsurance." This is a clear demonstration of the powerlessness of people and their objectification. The routine payments of health insurance premiums are a ritual of submission. Through insurance, we are ritualistically given the chance to plead for mercy-at a price. It is a demonstration of the mass subjugation of the people. The applications that we fill out to qualify for health insurance are petitions for mercy, and we enclose a check as recognition of their mercy.

In a healthy society, the thought of insurance would be obscene. Insurance is evidence of the powerlessness and helplessness of people. It is evidence of the isolation of people in society; it is the negation of social life.

Nothing is more amazing than the waking world. This living portrait that faces us every day connects with us in ways that are subtly or violently impactful, engulfing us in a perceptual sphere where everything is something else. Reality remains concealed by revealing itself in other descriptions, which we mistake for reality. Symbols are among the dynamics through which this bizarreness happens. The next chapter explores some of the reasons and dynamics of infatuation with unreality, and how this is related to the process of loss of identity.

© Vahik Ovanessian, Ph.D.

About the Author

Studied sociology, but my love is psychology. Hence, my work tends to be social- psychological. I think true knowledge about society and social interactions can be gained only if it can be explored and described within the context of everyday life. Why ignore what is abundantly around us and engage in abstract discussions? For years, in my university years, I sat thru social science courses and did not understand. Now, I feel it was because we were not discussing the realities of life. As some people have noted, things are not what they appear to be; this further makes "seeing" the reality a bit difficult. The symbolic nature of what surround us present an appearance that are not quite what they seem to be. My book tries to decipher the symbolic world and get to the reality that is there to see. I think all social sciences should be humanistic. That is, in order to truly understand society and ourselves, things need to be perceived and analyzed with the ultimacy of human freedom and dignity in mind. My second book is going to describe how the learned absence of such a perspective prevents us from understanding society and ourselves.