In the article “Houston’s Human Catastrophe Started Long Before the Storm” Stephenson focuses on how the state of Texas has a huge issue on their hands after Hurricane Harvey. Their infrastructure was flooded with nearly 50 inches of water and many people were left without homes, jobs, or even family. I believe the main two issues that Marx and Engels would look at in this article is the state and the fact of class struggle. The most obvious idea that Marx and Engels would focus on is the problem of class inequality. The most vulnerable and poorest of poor individuals were the individuals who were mostly affected by this natural disaster. These individuals are being directly exploited by the bourgeoisie because they are fighting government regulations that are in interest of the proletariat. The corporations knew that disasters like Harvey were possible, but they ignored the problem and actually fought against …show more content…
The problem with this is that in this situation wages were only enough to get the lower class back to work the next day. They didn’t have money for extra expenses. The workers are being alienated from their species being. Being alienated from yourself means that you will be alienated from others as well. “In estranging from man (1) nature, and (2) himself, his own active functions, his life-activity, estranged labor estranges the species from man” (Marx, 75). When all you can do is work and not do anything else that makes you human is when you are being alienated. Since they are already being exploited for their surplus labor then you would think that the business owners would be responsible for paying for the damages. This was not the case. The bourgeoisie created a ruling idea of the decision to not include warnings about weather. Natural disasters are equivalent to the crisis of overproduction because everything has to be rebuilt which leads to economic