Throughout my work experience I have been a witness to various degrees of work alienation. As I continue to gather additional experience in the work environment and engage in discussions with fellow employees, it is clearly evident that there is workplace discontentment and feelings of being taken advantage of. Based on my work experiences to date, I agree with James Rinehart’s claim that forms of alienation are evident in the workplace. They force human beings into modes of behaviour that are unnatural and possibly harmful. I will illustrate that as we live in a capitalist environment, employees have little say or control over decisions made by their employers; workers do not have power over the processes or methods of work; workers lack fulfillment and are not treated fairly in their workplace and class structures are created to show dominance behavior. Producing goods or services are dictated not by employees but by their employers. If profits exist, employers are the ones that benefit more so than the regular worker. “Even when working people experience absolute gains in their standard of living, their position, relative to that of capitalists, deteriorates.” (Rinehart, Pg. 14). The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Hard work wears down the employee leaving them frustrated in their spare time. Workers are estranged from the products they produce. At the end of the day, they get paid for a day’s work but they have no control over the final product that was produced or sold. To them, productivity does not equal satisfaction. The products are left behind for the employer to sell and make a profit. In discussions with many relatives and friends that have worked on an assembly line, they knew they would not be ... ... middle of paper ... ...nvironment. Ultimately, humans are creative, hardworking and productive beings. As we spend the majority of our day at work, we want it to be rewarding and fulfilling. In this theory of alienation, being a worker comes first and being a person comes second. Alienation makes people spend their lives working on things they hardly care about while they make money for someone else as they sacrifice their own interests and goals. Capitalism turns workers into machines and alienates them from their full potential. Workers are not content as they are unable to determine their own paths as they are at the mercy of their employers. Alienation produces boredom, stress, unhappiness, misery and low productivity. Work Cited Rinehart, James W. The Tyranny of Work: Alienation and The Labour Process, Third Edition. (Toronto: Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada.) 1996.
Ruth O'Brien, Workers Paradox (Book Review), Journal of Labor, 2000, vol. 21, issue 4. p. 1
Before the industrialization movement began, there was more of a blend between the classes, and now there is a distinct separation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Because of the industrialization of the countries, the replacement of manual labor with the use of machinery and the division of labor, the work of the proletarian has become homogeneous. It does not contain the individuality or charm of the laborer as handmade goods do. The worker instead becomes part of the machine and is reduced to performing menial, repetitive tasks. Thus, the workman's pay rate reflects his work, and is reduced to minimum amount needed to barely sustain them. Therefore, as the skill needed to perform the job reduced, so does the amount of the wages. Also, as industrialization increases, so does drudge and toil. The worker become, in the eyes of the bourgeois in control, a part of the machine and as expendable and as easily replaced as any part of the machine. This is in the forms of prolonged work hours, amount of work done in a certain time, or by the increase of the speed of the machinery, which wears down and drains the workers.
According to Marx, estranged labor occurs when an individual partakes in the production of an object that “confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer” (Marx, 1844). Due to this objectification of labor, which results in labor being established outside of the producer, Marx suggests that this is translated into the separation between an individual and the object that he or she has created. As such, under the capitalist mode of production, the individual is unable to connect with his or her labor. This contrasted strongly against Marx’s statement in The German Ideology (1932) that the individual is a free and self-realized being who makes labor an object of his free choice and consciousness.
Alienation, as defined by Williams, has two meanings. He first describes the term as "an act of estrangement, normally in relation to a `cutting-off' or being cut off from God, or to a breakdown of relations between a man or a group and some received political authority." The second definition Williams gives for alienation is "the act of transferring the ownership of anything to another, and especially the transfer of rights, estates, or money. Alienation is a major concept in Marx's Communist Manifesto. Marx argues that class struggle causes the formation of all historical developments. He identifies alienation as the main cause of class inequality. The two class rivals in Marx's Manifesto are the bourgeoisie, or middle class, and the proletariat, or wage-laborers. According to Marx, the proletariat was alienated.
“It has to go”, cried his sister. “That’s the only answer, Father. You just have to try to get rid of the idea that it’s Gregor. Believing it for so long, that is our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that it isn’t possible for human beings to live with such a creature, and would have gone away of his own free will” (Kafka 52). The relationship between family member’s in Kafka’s Metamorphosis is an interesting theme addressed, and somewhat distressing subject. Why is it so hard to accept that this monstrous bug is Gregor? Is it so bad for him to want to stay and be near his family- the only thing he’s ever had and known? For the sister to even come out and say these words seems somewhat selfish. Why can’t it be turned around to a viewpoint through which we have a family loving their son, unconditionally, regardless of what state he’s in? The word love is definitely one which is not seen in close companionship with the Gregor family. And we can see that this lack of affection carries on to be one of the driving forces behind the theme of alienation in the novel.
The purpose of this paper is to view Marx's concept of alienation (estranged labour) and
In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscript of 1844, Marx brings up the topic of alienation. Marx says, “it is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and
Rinehart, James W. "Alienation and the Development of Industrial Capitalism in Canada." Solutions to Alienated Labour." The Tyranny of Work. Toronto: Harcourt Brace, 1996 pp.23-60, 153-156
The concept of alienation plays a significant role in Marx's early political writing, especially in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1848, but it is rarely mentioned in his later works. This implies that while Marx found alienation useful in investigating certain basic aspects of the development of capitalist society, it is less useful in putting forward the predictions of the collapse of capitalism. The aim of this essay is to explain alienation, and show how it fits into the pattern of Marx's thought. It will be concluded that alienation is a useful tool in explaining the affect of capitalism on human existence. In Marx's thought, however, the usefulness of alienation it is limited to explanation. It does not help in either predicting the downfall of capitalism, or the creation of communism.
Marx thought that you could have domination and oppression without alienation; however, you could not have alienation without domination and oppression. Marx believed that alienation happened when workers no longer saw themselves in their work. Alienation occurs when someone no longer works to sell his or her property to another person. But rather they sell their time in order to live, and create these products not because they get joy out of it, but because
The theory of alienation is useful in explaining capitalism because it focuses more on the aspect of labour in the capitalist system. Since the capitalist were not doing the work themselves, they hired other people to do it. By doing so, it slowly started to create this gap between the capitalists and the wage-workers. This gap was created solely because the wage-workers were not fortunate to have the means of production that the capitalists had in order to be successful. In a way, this system was really just solidifying the two main classes—the rich and the poor.
Alienation, in Marxist terms, refers to the separation of the mass of wage workers from the products of their own labor. Marx first expressed the idea, somewhat poetically, in his 1844 Manuscripts: "The object that labor produces, its product, stands opposed to it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer."
Marx’s theory of alienation is the process by which social organized productive powers are experienced as external or alien forces that dominate the humans that create them. He believes that production is man’s act on nature and on himself. Man’s relationship with nature is his relationship with his tools, or means of production. Man’s relationship with himself is fundamentally his relationship to others. Since production is a social concept to Marx, man’s relationship with other men is the relations of production. Marx’s theory of alienation specifically identifies the problems that he observed within a capitalist society. He noted that workers lost determination by losing the right to be sovereign over their own lives. In a capitalist society, the workers, or Proletariats, do not have control over their productions, their relationship with other producers, or the value or ownership of their production. Even though he identifies the workers as autonomous and self-realizing, the Bourgeoisie dictates their goals and actions to them. Since the bourgeoisie privately owns the means of production, the workers’ product accumulates surplus only for the interest of profit, or capital. Marx is unhappy with this system because he believes that the means of production should be communally owned and that production should be social. Marx believes that under capitalism, man is alienated in four different ways. First, he says that man, as producers, is alienated from the goods that he produces, or the object. Second, man is alienated from the activity of labor to where...
Capitalism at first seems like a beneficial idea that can help to support and drive a society, but upon further inspection, there is a great deal of instability in a Capitalistic society. One of the main outcomes of capitalism is greed. Throughout the recession the rich upper class continued to become astoundingly richer, while the poor lower class became persistently poorer. Moreover, a capitalistic system finds a way to make a profit from anything or from anyone. Alienating workers turning them against each other to focus on the common goal: profit. This is an example of how capitalism estranges employees in the workforce. In this type of capitalistic system employees are forced to compete with one another, therefore, alienating themselves from each other. Which can lead to a feeling of isolation and depression. For example, Carl was a successful business man that served the capitalistic hegemonic society, however, mentally and emotionally the work that he was doing was unfulfilling. Carl said that he would always make decisions based on what he was expected to do; based on what society anticipated of him; this is an example of hegemonic masculinity in everyday life. Eventually, Carl divorced his wife, his kids moved out, and he no longer worked for a successful company. In a capitalist society how does one overcome such alienation? Carl believes the answer lies in mindfulness and self-meditation. Carl argued that an individual should not serve work; should not serve capitalism, but rather that work should serve the individual. He encourages individuals to follow their passion and even to try and monetize their passion, however not all people have a passion that is capable of being monetized. He also argues that individuals shou...
In a capitalistic society, the owner exploits his workers by draining them of their self-worth. A worker gets paid only for his sustenance as the product he works on gets sold by the capitalists in the interests of creating a profit. This leads to the worker’s alienation from his surroundings and his work leading to the estrangement from the process of production. The existing social relationship is inherently antagonistic in nature and will give rise to class struggle that will eventually lead to the collapse of capitalism, and the creation of a new