Anthony Roland S.C. Villanueva
April 11, 2019
Ph103- Section Q
Emergence Paper
History Through Action: The Emergence of Arendt’s Vita Activa
from Marx’s Homo Faber
Thesis Statement: How does Marx's critique of the alienation of labor anticipate Arendt's
vita activa?
How do the actions of an individual contribute to history? In other words, how
exactly does a human individual leave his mark on the world? In the world of great thinkers,
this question has been a subject of fascination. In the evolutionary timeline of humanity and
the rise of economies, humans have become productive through participating in work in
order to survive and sustain themselves. Along the way however, this had come at a cost as
individuals are exploited by large capitalist entities for the sake of profits– treated as subpar
individuals and a mere means to an end. This came to the attention of Karl Marx, a German
philosopher whom noticed that the riches produced through capitalism and industrialization
landed on the hands of only a few (Macionis, 85-6). Because of this, it inspired him to
become the forefather of the ideology Communism, which tackled the concepts of the
laborers’ alienation in the workplace and Homo Faber. He was a great believer in which
through labor, an individual is able to fully express his innermost abilities and participate in
the world. This same concept was later tackled through the works of Hannah Arendt, one of
the greatest thinkers in the 20th century who tackled the concepts of Totalitarianism and
the Vita Activa. In the Vita Activa, she distinguishes the difference between labor and work,
and exemplifies how action is the ultimate expression of humanity to participate in their
own history. Throughout this essay, we will see how Arendt’s Vita Activa emerged from Karl
Marx’s Alienation of the Worker & Homo Faber, as they point toward the same concept –
the creation of man’s history.
Karl Marx
During the 20th century, with the rise of industrialization and in the early stages of
capitalism, Karl Marx pioneered one of the most striking yet radical ideologies which would
change the history of mankind. Known as the “Father of Communism”, he inspired the
movements of Joseph Stalin, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong through his works Das Kapital
and Communist Manifesto. His works tackled the issues of capitalism, where he despised
the flamboyant lifestyles of the capitalists during the rise of industrialization and the
growing inequality amongst the privileged and the working class (Macionis, 85).
In his work entitled Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, he explains the
alienation of the human through labor. Labor was a “life activity, productive life itself,
[which] appeared to man in the first place merely as a means of satisfying a need – the need
to maintain physical existence” (Marx, 31). However, man who was subjected entirely to
labor was seen as alienated. Alienation is demonstrated in the economic fact that the
devaluation of workers is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things
and that labor not only produces commodities, but also commodifies the worker (Marx, 289). Through this, the laborer of a product, wherein his labor has been embodied in an
object, has become objectified – the problem lying in the “loss of realization” of the worker
to their own work as there is an inherent relationship of the worker to the objects of his
production (Marx, 29-30). For Marx, he believed that in order to be fulfilled at work,
workers need to see themselves in the objects they’ve created because “through such labor,
human beings affirm their sense of self and can feel happiness when they freely use their
physical and intellectual power” (Dian, 10).
It is through this that he focuses on the analysis of the man as a maker, through the
concept of Homo Faber. This as Marx claims is the defining feature of humans versus
animals, which is a special faculty we are capable of (Morawski, 305). Homo Faber
“develops and refines [the human’s] aesthetic sense while shaping work skills, mastering the
material world in practice and idea“ (Morawski, 305). Through being able to participate in
the active world the human is subjected in, he not only produces goods for the mere
consumption rooted in economic reasons, but in being able to express the self in their labor,
explore their innermost abilities, and see it as an opportunity to leave a mark on this world.
Through externalizing ourselves and being self-conscious, the material works and creations
of humans such as the arts, law, technology and the like, provides man a platform for
themselves to write their own history (“Karl Marx on Human Nature”). Marx argued that
“[t]he entire world history is nothing more than the process that human beings are created
through human activities”, hence highlighting the role of history through labor (Dian, 5).
Hannah Arendt
Known for her thoughts on Totalitarianism and Vita Activa, Hannah Arendt was a
political thinker and philosopher of the 20th century who never wrote of a single systematic
political philosophy, but tackled her philosophical ideas throughout her numerous works
(“Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy”).
In her book The Human Condition, she discusses the essence of embodying the Vita
Activa, which is composed of the Labor-Work-Action model. She remodels the hierarchy in
order of importance, taking off the viewpoint when contemplation was regarded as the
highest form of human faculties through Vita Contemplativa. She first distinguishes the
difference of Work from Labor, as there is a notion that these are both the same based on
the definition of Marx. However, Arendt interpreted these as two separate terms. For her,
labor is defined as a cyclical pattern where “production of vital necessities into the human
life” or the eternal sustenance of the human to survive where the end is during death
(Arendt, 170). In other words, one must labor throughout life to earn income and support
the individual and their family. She distinguishes it with work on the other hand where the
“end has come when the object has finished”, which is added to the “common world of
things and object”, is not subject to nature or necessity, and satisfies a more private &
personal sphere (Arendt, 171). Man’s work is a “world distinguished by its durability, its
semi-permanence and relative independence from the individual actors and acts which call
it into being”, allowing human life to unfold (“Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy”).
However, she argued that work was still not enough since it had a certain limitation to the
freedom of the person and is not yet an end in itself. The freedom to be sought in the world
of appearances could only be sought in the last part of the tripartite structure – action.
For Arendt, action was deemed as the highest form or human activity as it allowed
the human ineliminable freedom, was regarded as an end in itself, and as no subordinate
around itself. Through action, humanity is able to embody the faculty of the beginning. The
capacity of the human for initiation allows him to introduce something new to the world,
unexpected and of genuine novelty (“Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy”). It is also in
action that humans are able to participate in history by inserting themselves more in the
world through words and deeds. The individual discloses his being as free individuals, and
becomes the author and doer of the action in the space of appearance. Through the
expression of the individual in words and deeds, they are able to create their life-story, their
history, whom nobody else is the author or producer of (Arendt, 180).
Emergence of Vita Activa from Estranged Labor
Earlier, we have seen how Marx’s concept of Alienation lead to the concept of Homo
Faber, man as a laboring and productive being, and how externalizing our inner abilities
through work allows the human to participate in history by imprinting their mark. We then
see that in Arendt’s Vita Activa, she attempted to work on the existing definition of Marx’s
Labor, by distinguishing that Work and Labor mean two different concepts. In introducing
the final term to the tripartite structure, action, she defines this as the highest form of
human activity, as it allows human freedom to begin the creation of a certain thing. This is
synonymous to the definition of Marx’s labor, in which it allows the individual to affirm their
sense of self and indefinitely, participate in history. Although Arendt dissects the definition
of labor and makes a distinction, in the end, Arendt concurs with the notion of Marx that
“action [through the activities of man] creates history” (Dian, 12). Hence, we can say that
indeed, the concept of history through Marx’s Homo Faber is carried on through Arendt’s
Vita Activa.
Works Cited
Arendt, Hannah. “Labor, Work, Action,” in The Portable Hannah Arendt. New York: Penguin
Books, 2000. 167-181.
Dian, D. (n.d.). The Pearl Diver: Hannah Arendt's Research on Karl Marx. Academia.edu, pp
1-17.
"Internet Encyclopedia Of Philosophy". Iep.Utm.Edu, https://www.iep.utm.edu/arendt/.
"Karl Marx On Human Nature". Slideplayer.Com, https://slideplayer.com/slide/8904431/.
Macionis, J. J. “Sociology”. 14th ed., New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2012. 85-86.
Marx, Karl. Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts Of 1844 (Translated). Moscow, 1932.
Morawski, Stefan. "The Aesthetic Views Of Marx And Engels". The Journal Of Aesthetics And
Art Criticism, vol 28, no. 3, 1970, p. 301. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/429497.