Alienation of the White Middle Class: Fight Club & Karl Marx

Karl Marx speaks to the cost of capitalism, the alienation apparent in both capitalist and worker. However, he hits on the drastic divide of why the worker’s alienation will be worse: “In general we should observe that in those cases where worker and capitalist equally suffer, the worker suffers in his very existence, the capitalist in the profit on his dead mammon (4).” He goes on to describe how the worker not only suffers because of his work, but because of the possibility of labor—whether he is unemployed and in need of labor, or he is enslaved to his labor in order to avoid the loss of it, thereby losing the chance to be a consumer fueling the fire. This alienation is driven to the extreme in Fight Club, where the protagonist is (plot twist) alienated from himself due to the worthlessness of his labor. 

Tyler Durden is the most extreme case however, as he would have no followers and therefore no power were it not for this divide between labor and laborer that provides him with the manpower to do something about it. The literal fire that begins this makes a point of burning all the consumer goods that he has been taught to want to buy so that he may work more to want more, etc. The symbolic chaos that then follows is apparent in every second of film, from the speech where “No Great Depression…Our great depression is our lives,” speaking to the numbness that the worker feels, to even his relationship with Marla being one of a war within himself as he is never lover nor friend, unable to emotionally connect to her as she is unable to with him, suppressing emotions so thoroughly they need the dying to cry with them. 

All of this supposedly caused by the suppression of humanity, the worthless disparity between capitalist and laborer. All is extreme, yet aspects ring true for the time period of the movie. Even today, as the divide in wealth becomes ever increasing, it becomes a twisted pride that someone overworks themselves by having three jobs in order to afford survival. Today, as much as it is about material goods translating to happiness, it is also far more about survival. Today, it is strikingly apparent Fight Club is about the white middle class because it takes for granted so much that a minority in poverty could not afford to do or risk jail ie simply living in a rundown house, the police called the moment anything is out of line for a person of color in poverty whereas Tyler is allowed to be bloodied every week without question, even at the office he is allowed far more patience. Though the alienation is almost universal, the problem is the dismissal of how desperate for survival those below the poverty line, especially minorities. There is no larger consideration for this, assumed that this particular alienation of labor is the universal kind rather than alienation due to desperation for mere existence as Karl Marx says above.  

  

Would it be possible, however, to make a Fight Club that addressed these issues and more today? What are some immediate tweaks to be made?