The Workers Rise

R.U.R presents us with a pretty clear-cut scenario of worker versus the bourgeoisie. The managers of the factory explicitly make the robots for their cheap labor, denying them humanity in order to achieve this end. They relish about the profits the robots can exponentially make them and directly link this to the free labor they provide. As the robots are created more intelligent and sophisticated they become, not sentient necessarily, but increasingly aware of their own strength, value, and population they begin to rebel. This rebellion is fuelled by this gained by the sense of superiority over the humans. Radius says, “You are not as strong as the Robots. You are not as skillful as the Robots. The Robots can do everything. You only give orders. You do nothing but talk” (II-47). Radius, who becomes the head of the rebellion in the factory and eventually the leader, expresses his issue with what has become a bourgeoisie class of humans—they do not produce. The value of manual labor becomes the distinguisher between the two classes of worker Robots and managing humans. The only human that is sparred and survives the rebellion is Alquist because, “He works with his hands like the Robots.” Unfortunately, this is the downfall of the Robots, who have lost the knowledge of their own creation.

I found that R.U.R. describes a system of labor that leads to a Mutually Assured Destruction situation. The humans cannot have a workforce of Robots. Their simplicity makes them vulnerable to unintentional self-destruction; Dr. Gall creates “pain-nerves” for this reason. Yet as the robots are made increasingly refined, humans lose their ability to work—there is no need. The humans become fully the head of operations, but not the actual operation. The Robots stand opposite to this; they are all manual labor but none of the brains. Marx’s prediction of the fall of capitalism is spelled out—when the worker is not a part of the means for production, the whole system is destined to fall in itself.