Marx Alienated Labor

858 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Karl Marx theory on capitalism

Marx’s argument is essentially that if the product of workers’ labour is alien to the worker, then it must belong elsewhere. For example, Marx stated that private property brings about restriction, and Marx critiqued the state and money, stating that it under minded community (Appelbaum, 1988). Private property is the product and the consequence of alienated labour, thus private property results from the concept of alienated labour (Suchting, 1983). Alienation adds to exploitation, in that the capitalist has a belief that they have a legitimate claim on the means of the production and the workers do not (Elster, 1995). In contemporary society, according to Marx, men were gradually producing with the sole objective of exchanging and thus there …show more content…

Marx suggested a solution to the problem of private property and alienation was found in communism “…communism as the positive abolition…of human self-alienation and therefore for man.” (McLellan, 1975). Marx argued that communism will replace capitalism in the way of economic crises and the development of the working class and class realisation (Lyon, 1981). Marx theorized that communism would be a positive elimination of alienation and alienated labour, this theory could be seen as fairly idealistic.
In the early 21st century, there are various contemporary productions in which alienation is still seen to this day, predominantly sweatshops and factories in newly …show more content…

Marx’s theory of alienation gives an insight on how the working class and the average worker do not see themselves in their work. The product they are producing is not for them and they do not own it, thus they feel alienated. They feel alienated from the product they are making, from the work itself, alienated from themselves and from other workers. Alienation in contemporary context still happens to this day, for example, with both sweatshop and factory workers in third-world countries and office workers in Western countries. Marx’s solution to capitalism and it’s result of alienation was communism, he theorised that if the consequence of capitalism was alienation as well as private property, those could be positively eradicated by the way of

Show More
Related

  • Mead And Marx's View On Human Nature

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products (.) chases the bourgeois over the whole surface of the globe” (Marx, 212) and creates a world that cannot exist without the separation of workers and owners and competition for the lowest price. The struggle between the bourgeois and the proletariat begins when the labor of the worker becomes worth less than the product itself. Marx proposes that our social environment changes our human nature. For example, capitalism separates us from the bourgeois and proletariat because it alienates us from our true human nature, our species being, and other men.

    Read More

  • Philip Kain's Ideas On Alienation, Oppressed Labor And Unalienated Labor

    1280 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Marx Alienated Labor Analysis

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    The final form of estrangement is alienation of man to man. Since the worker’s product is owned by someone else, the worker regards this person, the capitalist, as alien and hostile. The worker feels alienated from and antagonistic toward the entire system of private property through which the capitalist appropriates both the objects of production for his own enrichment at the expense of the worker and the worker’s sense of identity and wholeness as a human being.

    Read More

  • Why Does Marx Argue That Religion Acts As A Drugs And Opium Case Study

    1764 Words  | 4 Pages

    According, to Marx they are four types of alienation species being (the most important, products of labor, work process and coworkers/ other people. Marx theory on alienation is that work destroys us when we having nothing to sell but our labor. Marx believes that work is supposed to spark creativity and self-expression however, in capitalist society this clearly does not happen. To the factory owners the workers are not identified as individuals just as people. They worked very long hours for a disgusting wage because their stomachs needed to be filled. Their work alienates them .The items that the workers made were things they could not afford. The items were shipped off to far places to make money for people who paid them almost nothing. They workers worked extremely long hours. The only time that the workers were able to actually live their lives were the few hours they had at home to sleep and eat. The rest of the time they had were spent working because of this they were alienated from each

    Read More

  • The Gender Politics of Work Exposed in The Yellow Wallpaper

    2465 Words  | 5 Pages

    With the emergence of an industrial working class that arrived from the farms and countryside new theories and ideologies about the political economy began to appear. Karl Marx, a political philosopher during this time, introduced the idea of "alienation of labor". His theory proposed that labor has the ability to create a loss of reality in the laborer because the laborer himself becomes a commodity or object due to the nature of work. In terms of the roles of women it can be argued that the effect is even greater due to the limited choices of work available. This theme is expressed in literature through the writings of Gilman and Alcott.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx on Estranged Labor

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    The purpose of this paper is to view Marx's concept of alienation (estranged labour) and

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis Of Estranged Labor By Karl Marx

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    Karl Marx’s article titled Estranged Labor as found in his 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts pays significant attention to the political economic system, which is commonly referred to capitalism. He further delves into nature of the political economy with a keen focus on how it has negatively impacted the worker or laborer. Therefore, the laborer forms the subject of his critical and detailed analysis as tries demonstrates the ill nature of the political economy. To start with Karl Marx portrays how the political economy as presented by its proponents has led to emergence of two distinct classes in society; the class of property owners and on the other hand, the class of property less workers. According to Karl Marx (2004), proponents of the political economy have introduced concepts such as private property and competition indicating without providing any form of analytical explanation but rather just expecting the society to embrace and apply such concepts. In particular, political economists have failed to provide a comprehensive explanation for division that has been established between capital and labor. Estranged Labor clearly depicts Marx’s dissatisfaction as well as disapproval towards the political economy indicating that proponents of such a system want the masses to blindly follow it without any form of intellectual or practical explanation. One area that Karl Marx demonstrates his distaste and disappointment in the article is worker or the laborer and how the worker sinks to not just a commodity but rather a wretched commodity (Marx, 2004). This is critical analysis of Karl Marx concept or phenomenon on the alienation of the worker as predicted in Estranged Labor in several aspects and how these concepts are ...

    Read More

  • Wage-Labor and Capital by Karl Marx

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first type of alienation is from “product of labor”. This is where the worker is separated from their work. This is basically saying that the work that the worker is creating does not necessarily show their creativity. Marx wrote:

    Read More

  • Theory of Alienation: Marx and Nietzsche

    2372 Words  | 5 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Karl Marx and Capitalist Alienation

    1843 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...(rather than local) being. (13) Thus, although alienation provides an understanding of the problems of capitalism, it does not provide a means of escaping it.

    Read More

  • Rousseau's Theory Of Alienation

    1222 Words  | 3 Pages

    Marx’s theory of alienation describes the separation of things that naturally belong together. For Marx, alienation is experienced in four forms. These include alienation from ones self, alienation from the work process, alienation from the product and alienation from other people. Workers are alienated from themselves because they are forced to sell their labor for a wage. Workers are alienated from the process because they don’t own the means of production. Workers are alienated from the product because the product of labor belongs to the capitalists. Workers do not own what they produce. Workers are alienated from other people because in a capitalist economy workers see each other as competition for jobs. Thus for Marx, labor is simply a means to an end.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx and a Capitalist Society

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    When Karl Marx first penned his shaping works on communism, he assumed that the relationship between workers and capital would always be opposing. While most rejected his overall theories, they did not argue with the basic idea that the interests of workers would always be at odds with those of owners. This is one of Marx's only theories that has proven to be true. As a consequence, over the years, that thought has guided the marketplace in terms of deciding wages, working conditions and other worker centered benefits.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx And Private Property: The Right To Property

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    The right to property, also known as the right to protection of property, is a human right and is understood to institute an entitlement to private property. The right of property is one of the most debated human rights, both in terms of its existence and interpretation. However, according to Karl Marx private property is the inevitable result of alienated labor or the product of the worker who is estranged from himself. It is reputed that the working class labors to produce products that belong to someone else, and that the reimbursement the working class receives is always less than the value of the product they create. The past readings in class have shown the theories in which Marx imposes the disadvantages of private property, and the rent of land in which the proletarian suffers and the bourgeois gains. One of the results of private property that Marx argues that it is the cause of the existence of estranged men, monopolies and alienated labor. The abolition of private property can be a summation of Communism theory, however the nature of this opposition is a controversial subject.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx - Capitalist Alienation

    649 Words  | 2 Pages

    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."

    Read More

  • Alienated Labor

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory illustrates complex sociological themes for a children's movie. In the beginning a contest is announced by Willy Wonka, after having his factory closed to the public for years. Any child who finds a golden ticket in their Wonka chocolate bar will win a once in a lifetime chance to tour the famous factory. The main character, Charlie Bucket, comes from an extremely poor family who is fighting just to stay afloat. While touring the magical factory the five children learn some unexpected life lessons.

    Read More

More about Marx Alienated Labor

Open Document