Outline and discuss Marx's theory of Alienation Essay

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx identifies a dichotomy that is created and bolstered by the capitalist mode of production. In this mode of production, the dichotomy presents itself in a division of labor that forms of two kinds of people: capitalists, the owners of the means of production, and laborers, those who work under the domain of the capitalist. Marx harshly criticizes this mode of production, arguing that it exploits the laborer and estranges him from himself and his fellow man. According to Marx, this large-scale estrangement is achieved through a causal chain of effects that results in multiple types of alienation, each contingent upon the other. First, Marx asserts that under capitalism, the laborer is alienated from his product of labor. Second, because of this alienation from his product, man is also alienated then from the act of production. Third, man, in being alienated both from his product and act of production, is alienated from his species essence, which Marx believes to be the ability to create and build up an objective world. Finally, after this series of alienations, Marx arrives at his grand conclusion that capitalist labor causes man to be alienated from his fellow man. In this paper, I will argue in support of Marx’s chain of alienations, arriving at the conclusion that laborers, under the capitalist mode of production, cannot retain their species essence and thus cannot connect with one another, and exist in a world

Marx is of the opinion that alienation of labor has devastating effect on human beings both their physical and mental states. Karl Marx believed that there is strong link between man, his activity and products, his fellows, inanimate nature and the species, but alienation destroys this link and help makes human life miserable. This clearly shows how important the concept of alienation is to Marx philosophy, with these one could ask what then is alienation? This chapter tries to give a vivid explanation of what alienation is, the cause and aspect of alienation and Marxian solution to alienation

Karl Marx, a prominent sociologist during the mid 1800’s, is a German philosopher commonly known for changing the landscape of capitalism, economics, politics, anthropology, sociology, and even philosophy. His writings explored people’s relationship with their work and the alienation they experience as a result of industrialization. The theory of alienation has similar commonalities and differences to Du Bois's concept of double consciousness, described as the feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it hard to identify oneself.

Marx and Engels believed that the economy during the Industrial Revolution created a mechanical system in which people came to be alienated from the reality of being a human being. They argue that because society is putting in all of its effort to compete with each other so that production becomes a competition, people lose their sense of living, the sense of themselve, their “species being.” In the Communist Manifesto, they argue, “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of

Both concepts of alienation and anomie signify how individualism has impacted the social structures through industrialization and the division of labour. Both Marx and Durkheim’s theories emphasize the relationships between people in society and how this impacts on separateness and individualism within it; however, both theories are different. Where Marx is concerned he focuses on being alienated as a result of materialized matter through the bourgeoisie alienating oneself from culture, for Durkheim anomie is due to the lack of a collective conscience within society preventing both regulation and integration of culture; for Durkheim this negatively impacts on social solidarity and cohesion.

As human beings, one of the most fundamental aspects of our existence, according to philosopher Karl Marx, is the act of work. More specifically, it is the idea that work fulfills human being’s essence. Work, for Marx, is a great source of joy, but only when the worker can see themselves in the work they do, and when said worker wants to partake in the work they are performing. In the capitalist identity, workers are “a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital” (Marx and Engel, 1946, pg. 116). Labourers were simply described as “a commodity” (Marx and Engel, 1946, pg. 117) by the ruling class; they are but pieces of a large, intricate gear system, all for the profit of those above them. In this, the worker loses touch with their essence. This concept is referred to, more or less, as alienation. Alienation is a form of separation of how one sees themselves, and how one sees themselves in what they do. Alienation, in many ways, relates to the idea of false consciousness. False consciousness, for Marx, revolves around the idea of misleading society; It is an ideological way of thinking in which no true perception of the world can be achieved. Both alienation and false consciousness delve into the notion of what constitutes true reality. Alienation describes how those that are controlled by the ruling class are subject to a form of disconnect, and false consciousness is a hierarchal idea in

1. Describe how Marx’s concepts of alienation and exploitation are present in the documentary. Who is subjected to this alienation and exploitation? How does this take place in the film? Does resistance to this take place? If so, how? Draw on the readings and lectures, while also providing specific examples from the film.

In this essay I will be discussing how Marx refers to capitalism as alienating and exploitive by depriving workers the sense of self-worth and identity. Marx describes how the worker sees labour as a means of survival and gets no satisfaction from doing it because the produce does not belong to him. Instead they are sold for profit by the capitalist.

Alienation is Marx’s term for, in a capitalist society, people having distances with others due to lack of common value and integration and lack of connections to the products that they produce, and usually expresses as communication breakdown and absence of social relationships. Alienation is produced by social division of labor immobility and rationalization. When bureaucracy and rational-legal authorities obtain dominant power after currency becoming the legal exchange tool for transactions in capitalist market, rationalization has been extended into all division of society. And employees who work in bureaucratized company are easier to grow alienation because of the lack of sensibility of rationalization. Alienation is important to study sociology because it is applicable to explain social relationships in a capitalist society as it is related to capitalism, rationalization, and explain the reason why proletarians usually fail to recognize their rights. Marx implies a possible solution is making a revolution as people cannot end alienation by “changing their perception of ration” to oppose to Hegel’s idealism (Turner, Beeghley, and Powers 51; 121).

The readings about Karl Marx during these past weeks have been very interesting. Through the reading I have been able to see how Marx sees, analyses, and discusses about society. Marx is able to do this by allowing us to see through his perspective, experiences, and the history that he has learned throughout the years. Many concepts have come up in the reading but the ones that have stood out to me are alienation, exploitation, and class structure.

Karl Marx is undeniably one of the most influential philosophical thinkers that emerged in the 19th century. His ideas were ignored during his time, however they’ve gained wide recognition in the years after his death and are still widely called upon today during many philosophical, social, and economic debates. Amongst his famous theories is his ideas on the morality of Capitalism as well as Socialism. However, a theory of his that reigns supreme in many different aspects of modern day society as well as the past is his theory of alienation. Marx’s feels that modern means of production under certain conditions could cause the collapse of the worker. They would ultimately loose control of their life as a result of losing control of their work. The four major works analyzed in class all seem to have a revolving major theme of alienation in some aspect that cripples man’s ability to be a productive and effective being in society. Candide by Voltaire, The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer, and The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi all, in some way, effectively show the coupling theme of man’s alienation from society that reverts him to certain circumstances and in turn creates tension amongst the alienated man and the major portion of society that doesn’t endure alienation.

In this seminar, I seek to analyse, discuss and evaluate the theories of Marx. Firstly, I will analyse the relationship between human action and social structure. Having completed the analysis, I will move on further to discuss and exemplify his theory of alienation. Lastly I will evaluate his theory of false consciousness.

Alienation has been widely reported in the area of work by Karl Marx on the example of a

The theory of alienation developed by Karl Marx depicts the estrangement of people due to living in a capitalist system of production. Through the manuscript “Estranged Labor” from his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx describes his theory of alienation and specifies on the four types of ways in which the worker is alienated. A vivid example of Marx’s theory of alienation can be seen through Charlie Chaplin’s comedy film Modern Times. In his film, the central idea of the theory of labor alienation and how the worker is affected by the alienation are depicted. The notion of alienation depicted in Marx’s “Estranged Labor” is also depicted in Chaplin’s Modern Times.

Before the industrial revolution, people were defined by their work. For example, a bread maker. They were in charge of the process of making bread, selling the bread and the profit. According to Marx, under capitalism the proletarian experienced “alienation.” This is where an individual is isolated from society, work and sense of self. Marx discussed four different types of alienation: alienation from product, process of labor, from species and of man from man (Murray, Lecture 3). The first being alienation from the product. In Marx’s time and today’s world, we engage in a lot of mass production in our capitalist system. People often are placed in positions where they are responsible for making a small part of the product or engage in a very specific task. Going back to the bread example, under capitalist system, a person may only be in charge of adding the flour to the machine and the rest of the work is done by the machine. The person is not involved in any other aspect of the work. Today many people work to make a produced that they do not own for other people to consume with the purpose of being to sell of that product and make the maximum amount of profit. But in today’s world, the profit is owned by the capitalist owner who is in charge of the production, and distribution of the product. The second type of alienation is the alienation from one’s own labor. Making products in the capitalist system puts people in a repetitive position. The laborers end up going through the motions they have one highly specialized job in production the whole product. The labor does not give input into the purpose design distribution or marketing of the product. Simply, the worker is a small piece of the puzzle. The third is the alienation from others. To Marx, this human essence was not separate from activity or work, but being separate from other human species. The fourth is alienation from man to man where the worker can’t connect to other worker. Workers compete with each other. A capitalist system sees the labor of the worker to a commercial commodity that can be traded in the competitive labor-market. It does not view labor as a constructive socioeconomic activity that is part of the collective common effort performed