Karl Marx's Estranged Labor

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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were classical theorist, that shared many ideas, and together are the fathers of Marxist theory. They co wrote many manuscripts, but for this essay we will focus on the manuscript titled “Estranged Labour”. In this piece of writing Marx and Engel discuss free markets, political economy, and alienated labor. Political economy is the theory or study of the role of public policy in influencing the economic and social welfare of a political unit(Merriam-Webster, 2014). Karl Marx begins the manuscript “ Harsh Labour” with unsympathetic criticism of what political economy truly is, as well as its abilities and inabilities. According to Marx political economy can acknowledge that there are relationships between …show more content…

I agree with this quote , and agree with what Engles and Marx believed regarding political economy. This quote tells us that political economy fails to most things essential to system, but it does however propel extreme greed and competition. According to Marks “ Political economy conceals the estrangement inherent in the nature of labor by not considering the direct relationship between the worker and production” (pg 51). It is obvious that who benefit from the concealment stated above are the rich. The rich exploit the worker , the more the worker produces the less the worker gets in return, and the wealthy keep getting wealthier. The wealthy fail to acknowledge that production and their wealth is thanks to the worker. The worker works harder to produce more yet they do not benefit from increased production the only ones who benefit are the wealthy. In his manuscript Marks states that for the rich, labor produces wonderful things but for the worker it produces privation (pg …show more content…

In a capitalistic society , the worker is exploited , and he or she does not work to create a product that can be sold for a personal profit. Instead the worker works in order to live, in order to maintain physical existence , which can only be achieve by selling his labor to a capitalist for a wage. In the manuscript examined for this essay, Marx states that “A workers labor is not voluntary but coerced ; it is forced labor (pg 51)”. A workers labor is forced labor in a sense, because he or she has to produce and work not because he wants to or because this makes the worker happy, but they must work to survive. After reading about alienation of the worker I began to think about how I relate to this concept. After giving it some thought I concluded that I am in fact alienated from my work, and agree with many of the things Marx says about this subject. I am a dental hygienist who works for a dentist. The dentist makes his profit based on the production of his workers. The faster I get and the more patients I see a day, the more wealth the dentist accumulates , yet my hourly wage stays the same despite increased production . The owner, which in this

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