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The Abomination of Economics

In: Social Issues

Submitted By bg9600
Words 1843
Pages 8
Brad Gunkel
Mr. Heiss
I.B. literature
3 June 2013
The Abomination of Economics
Economics, the distribution of capital and goods, influences all aspects of human life in our modern consumerist society. The growing strength of manufacturing and urbanization occurring during Kafka’s life created massive tensions between social classes spawning a multitude of economic and social philosophies which addressed issues caused by the growing industrial might of nations as well as the rapidly growing wealth and poverty apparent in most industrialist cities and was further enforced by the onset of the First World War. The Metamorphosis reflects upon the economic struggle caused by the onset of the industrial revolution and the chaos caused by the onset of the First World War in Europe, between the large number of diverse economic and social philosophies such as the struggle between communism and capitalism which shaped the global struggles in the latter half of the twentieth century. In 1847 Frederick Engels, defined communism in The Principles of Communism as, “the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat” (1), the proletariat’s being the lower working classes which sell their labor to gain capital (Engel 2). The communist ideal calls for the rejection of capitalistic ideals and the adoption of a classless society with no private ownership of resources but rather public ownership of capital resources in order to avoid the evils of capitalism (Engel 13). The Metamorphosis reflects communistic ideals in its depiction of Gregor and the Samsa family, Gregor in the first pages of the book is depicted as a massive vermin, unable to provide or care for himself or his family (Kafka 3). Soon after we learn that Gregor works a low paying menial wage job as a traveling salesman (Kafka 4), Gregor’s lowly position presents him as the proletariat enveloped into

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