The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Poorer
What do the following organizations all have in common?; The “United Way,
“Salvation Army”, “Feed the Children”, “Gifts in Kind”, “Americares”, “YMCA”, “The
Red Cross”, “Catholic Charities USA”, “Feeding America”, and the “Mayo
Clinic/Foundation”. These foundations that we have just listed are what are referred to as
non-profit organizations. The majority of individuals in society have most likely either
heard of these organizations before, volunteered at a non-profit organization, have had to
depend on a non-profit organization, or are still depending on a non-profit organization in
order to survive.
So what exactly is a non-profit organization”? There are numerous
ways of defining the term non-profit organization. We used “The Free
Legal Dictionary” to define it and learned that it is, “A corporation or an
association that conducts business for the benefit of the general public
without shareholders and without a profit motive” (The Free Legal
Dictionary, 2014).
It is important for us to differ between what is known as “nonprofit organizations” and “profit-driven corporations”. The objective of
non profit-organizations is to benefit the “greater good” of the members of
the community, society, and the world. Non-profit organizations are entitled to make a
profit but the surplus value produced must be used for the organization or other nonprofit organizations (Fritz, 2014). On the other hand, profit-driven
corporations’ main objective is to generate profit for their
entrepreneurs and employees rather than the “greater good” (Ingram
2014). Examples of “profit-drive corporations” are Apple, WalMart, Toys R Us, Starbucks etc.
There are numerous reasons for the development of nonprofit organizations that exist today. Many sociologists have taken
into account previous sociologist thinkers’ work such as Karl Marx
to try to understand the real cause for the creation of these non-profit organizations and
how they have come to be where as they are today.
Karl Marx, a respectable sociologist, was concerned and critiqued capitalism as a
mode of production. He was specifically concerned with industrial capitalism as he
studied industrial capitalism from a sociological standpoint and a historical viewpoint.
Marx coined the term
“historical (or dialectical)
materialism”. “Historical
materialism” is the study of
actual life experiences of
members of society. Marx was
concerned not with what
people think they are doing,
rather he was focused on
people and their activities and
the study of society as a
historical process. According to
Marx’s historical
materialism, we believe that he
would use historical
materialism as a way to
understand how non-profit organizations in today’s society originated. In Marx’s writings
of the “The German Ideology” he stated, “But life involves before everything else eating
and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act, a
fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily
and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life” (Marx, 1845, 10).
Therefore, Marx would reason that non-profit organizations exist because they are
necessary to reproduce material requirements of life such as clothing, food, etc.
Marx might also interpret the development of non-profit organizations as a result
of capitalism in today’s society. With the rise of a capitalistic society, Marx has argued
that capitalism over time has formalized a new way of extracting surplus value and profit.
Capitalism therefore has created a dialectic of class conflict between the bourgeoisie and
the proletariat. The bourgeoisie’s (the owners of the means of production) main objective
is to increase the extraction of surplus value through the use of lower wages and longer
working hours. To the contrary, proletariats are the ones who have their labour power
sold and commodified. Wages are necessary for the survival of the proletariat, however
these wages are controlled by the proletariat. In relation to non-profit organizations, Marx
may not agree with the overall motif of these organizations, since non-profit
organizations interest is the “greater good” rather than creating profits. Non-profit
organizations do in fact create profit from the donations of other organizations and
community members, however they are entitled to spread these donations.
Karl Marx might also interpret non-profit organizations similarly to assembly
lines and the implantation of the division of labour. Within Marx’s writings, “The
German Ideology”, Marx concluded that the division of labour
includes a, “mutual interdependence of the individuals among
whom the labour is divided” (Marx, 1845, 14). If you have ever
walked into a non-profit organization such as a food bank and
have witnessed the environment of the warehouse where all of the
donations are held, packaged, and distributed, you would see the
similarities of the working conditions of a non-profit organization
similar to that of an assembly line. Within the non-profit
organization there is always an owner who is in control of the
entire non-profit organization (bourgeoisie), and there are also volunteers who volunteer
their labour in the warehouse responsible for organizing, packaging, distributing, and
shipping the donations to those who are in need of these products. Similar to an assembly
line, some non-profit organizations use characteristics of the division of labour where one
worker is responsible for the packaging of canned foods, or another worker is responsible
for checking and organizing the expiry dates of certain food items within a warehouse. In
summary, the labour is divided so that it, “makes it possible for me to do one thing and
another tomorrow” (Marx, 1845, 14).
“The rich get richer and the poor get poor” is a common statement that mainly
summarizes the type of society in which we live in
today. Marx may use this statement to criticize nonprofit organizations and may not agree with the
logistics behind these organizations. He may see volunteers who work in these non-profit
organizations as “slaves”. In the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts”, Marx wrote
that, … “His labour is, therefore, not voluntary but forced, it is forced labour. It is,
therefore, not the satisfaction of a need but a mere means to satisfy needs outside itself”
(Marx, 1844, 5). Those who volunteer are not receiving a wage for their work that they
contribute to the organization instead from a volunteer’s perspective they are most likely
volunteering as a way to “give back to the community”.
To summarize, from a sociological perspective, we have explained and have
interpreted some thoughts and ideas that Karl Marx might have concluded about the
development and characteristics of non-profit organizations. The thoughts that we have
just argued cannot be generalized as they are our own thoughts and can not be entitled to
what Karl Marx thought of non-profit organizations, but rather what he “might” have
thought about non-profit organizations. Therefore, we believe that Karl Marx might have
used his theory of historical materialism to understand how non-profit organizations in
today’s society have developed because they provide the basic material requirements of
life for survival for those individuals who are suffering from the economy. Secondly, we
stated that Marx may criticize the main objective of non-profit organizations, since nonprofit organizations interest is for the “greater good” of society, rather than creating
profits for the organization, employees, and their workers. Thirdly, Marx might interpret
the working conditions of a non-profit organization similar to an assembly line in a
factory system, through the utilization of the division of labour. And last but not least, we
believe that Marx may view volunteers who work in these non-profit organizations as
slaves, thus allowing the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.
References
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Non-profit+organization
http://nonprofit.about.com/od/qathebasics/f/nopvspro.htm
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/non-profit-organization-vs-profitorganization-4150.html