Marx’s study on historical materialism focuses on the division of labor, which is created by the concept of production. This concept entails how the tools an individual has determines which activities he or she will engage in. Marx argues that the different activities that are assigned to different people based on their tools is what creates the division of labor that eventually constructs the relationships people have with others. Once a relationship is established between an individual and others, then these relations determine who that individual is and where that individual belongs in society because their existence “coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce” (Marx, 150). In the act of producing, some people control the production while others participate in the physical labor of producing. People who control the production process are part of the ruling class, and the people who engage in the physical labor of production are the non-ruling class. The ruling class and non-ruling class are created from the different activities that are warranted towards certain groups of people based on their means of production. Marx argues that the activities one undertakes determines who he or she is; the relations of production create the basis of understanding …show more content…
Through the workings of production, he argues that reification is inevitable in this capitalistic society where the proletariats are “forced to objectify [their] labour-power [...] and sell it as a commodity” to simply survive (Lukacs, 168). He claims that reification causes the working class to feel lost and alienated in the business of production because they feel disconnected in the process of creating production. They sell their labor for wages to create products needed to fuel the businesses the bourgeoisies own; however, in this process, there is no personal relationship to the products he or she creates or with the people he or she works with, which makes the working class feel alone in the heavily capitalist, driven society. Lukacs’ standpoint of the proletariat proposes the notion that this standpoint creates the most objective view regarding production. Once a worker realizes the contradiction that he or she traded labor as a commodity to practically become a machine for the bourgeoisie, then the worker who worked like a machine realizes he or she is human. When production is viewed through the working individual’s eyes, then the big picture of production becomes unraveled. The act of