Paper Abstract
This is a 5 page paper discussing the connection of ideas between Karl Marx, Bruce Barton, Juliet Schor, Joseph Heller and Nina Munk. Since the early writings of Karl Marx in the 1800s and his ideas that capitalism was bringing about the oppression of the working masses, several of the same elements have surfaced throughout the texts of the 1900s. Bruce Barton was a capitalist and one of the most successful businessmen in the early 1920s. In his work “The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus” however, he explains how many of the ideas of capitalism have occurred throughout history especially in the methods of Jesus the “Founder of Modern Business” where he likens Jesus to the ultimate “ad man”. More recently however, Juliet Schor writes in her book “The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure” that the obsession with capitalism and the need to constantly strive for more money has led society to overwork itself and corporate leaders to further exploit their workers. Joseph Heller in his work “Something Happened” ” further tells through humor, the tragedy which is involved in modern day corporate America. In one section, the main character describes “The office in which I work” where he figures out how many of his co-workers are afraid of one another and who are all in turn afraid of the owners of the corporation which despite the numerous classes which seem to exist in modern society still reflects the idea of Marx’s two class society of the bourgeois and the proletariat. Lastly, Nina Munk suggests that workers are beginning to liberate themselves by declaring themselves “free agent employees” and she alters Marx’s plea from the Communist Manifesto “Working men of all countries, unite!” with the modern version of “Workers of the world, stay home!” Bibliography lists 8 sources.
|
|
