Socialism And Capitalism : Alienation In A Capitalist Society

Making products in a capitalist system puts many people in a position that are repetitive and laborers end up going through the motions. They have one specialized job in producing the whole product. The labor does not give input into the purpose of design, distribution, and marketing of the product. According to his essay “ Alienated Labor,” Marx tells us the things we go through in a work under the capitalist society:

Human labor is not valued since it is hidden from the general public. Furthermore, since human labor is hidden the worker is also alienated from the products they produce. This sort of creates a barrier between the worker and products. This alienation and barrier is further pushed by the alienation of worker from other workers. The workers don’t see the value in other workers but rather in the products they create. The worker therefore begins to value the economic and monetary value of a commodity. This emphasis on the economic value of a commodity restricts social relations between people. Thus through the fetishization of commodities people are alienated from social relations with one another. The workers are therefore alienated from one another because the capitalist system compels them to believe that they are in competition with one another. This competition restricts the worker from creating social relations. Thus, all social relations are seen as economic ones through the fetishization of

Karl Marx witnessed first hand the rise of the industrial revolution and the beginning of capitalism. He also became one of capitalisms biggest critics. Marx believed that society needed a better way of distrusting wealth but also a better way a finding people’s full human potential or what he called “species-essence”. Marx believed that what we do connects to who we are, for example, work is what makes us human. It fulfills our species essence, as he puts it. Work allows us to be creative and flourish. However, in the 19th century Europe work did the quit opposite, it destroyed workers, particularly those who had nothing to sell but their labor. To the mill and factory owners a worker was simply an abstract idea with a stomach that needed to be filled. The workers had no choice but to work for long hours for a pathetic wage. Even worse, their labor alienated them. Alienation is a disorienting sense of exclusion and separation. Factory labor, under capitalism, alienated the workers from the product of their labor. They made stuff they couldn’t afford to buy themselves. The products they made were shipped out to other places far way to make money

Capitalism refers to an economic system whereby ownership of as well as investment in the means of production is made by private corporations or individuals to whom wealth accrues since they own the means of production. Society morphed from the feudal system to a bourgeois one that did not eliminate class antagonisms (Marx and Engels para 8). Instead, “it has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones” (Marx and Engels para 9). At best, the capitalist society that emerged in place of the feudal system merely served to abridge class antagonism by erasing multiple hierarchical classes and replacing them with two classes, the proletariats and the bourgeoisie (Marx and Engels para 10). The bourgeoisie refers to the wealthy class who own the means of production and can, therefore, accumulate incremental wealth by subjecting the proletariat into endless labor. On their part, the proletariat does not own the means of production and are forced to sell their labor cheaply to earn a living, ultimately sustaining the capitalist machinery.

Firstly, a brief explanation of some of the terms I will be using. Capitalism is an economic system where businesses and the means of production are owned by private individuals for profit. In a socialist economy, the means of production are owned by the community as a whole and individuals get rewarded for their work based on the following principle: from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution. In communism, items are divided up based on, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Finally, I will use the terms proletariat and bourgeoisie.

The owners own the workers and the workers depend on the owners for their well-being; as a result, the owners only utilize the workers to gain wealth. And the working class in society is cheated from being financially stable. Capitalistic society see wealth as a privilege earned through education, hard work and dedication. Poor working class people are not afforded the same opportunities and upper-level society perceived them as lazy, uneducated, and unmotivated who are looking for a continued hand out to survive. Society perceive this class of people as havining a personality flaw. This capitalistic system is the power of wealth that keeps the working class struggling to make ends

Sharing is caring, right? It is a basic cliché that we grasp as early as kindergarten. But can sharing ever be excessive? Imagine a world where everything you possessed and worked for had to be distributed among others. In the book written by author O.T. Nelson, “The Girl Who Owned A City”, contrasting views are explored through two characters, Lisa and Jill.

These classes cannot work for themselves, they work for the ruling class, and so they cannot sell own products and make profit. They allow this ruling class to exploit themselves and become too dependent on wages and conditions of work. This leads to the understanding of social alienation, when a worker cannot coordinate his life, wage, actions and the goods he produced. His actions are dictated and his product is owned by bourgeoisie.

One of the last founding fathers of sociology is Karl Marx. He postulated many sociological theories that revolutionized sociology and modern history for that matter. Marx's Communist Manifesto was the basis of many political movements in the 20th century. In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx describes the class conflict between the proletarians and the bourgeoisie aka the working class and the ruling class in a capitalist system. The top few percent rule over the majority working class to keep control of the scarce resources they have. Karl Marx believed in the idea of alienation in a capitalist society. Workers become estranged from their humanity and their individuality. Capitalism turns the regular human from “homo sapien” species into the “homo faber” species (human worker). Marx also believed that the bourgeoisie uses many techniques to keep the proletariat happy and servient. The whole idea of capitalism is built around a “fetishism of commodities” that makes people love material things and money as much as friends and loved ones which makes people come back for more. Religion is also used as a way to control the working masses. It is a quick and easy way for the bourgeoisie to

This Communist view is very working class oriented believing that Capitalism leads to worker becoming a machine taking away all individual pride and freedom from him leading to alienation. This alienation not only separates him from himself but from other men he sees them as contributing to the problem that exist. The worker feels that the capitalist is so egotistical that everything he does is to establish more power and order over him and he sees no way out. He even extends it beyond the manual labor workers but to the middle management used by the company because of his personality traits or looks and are more valuable to the company in terms of manipulating them to do as needed without little reward for themselves. I do believe alienation is a problem in society and is what has led to depression, and alcoholism and other abuses on oneself and his family. Is capitalism solely responsible? Of course not, but in a tough world due to the economy and selfishness among individuals it has added to the alienation one feels. We cannot look to a form of government or non-government to solve this

In regards to the labour-capital relation within a traditional capitalist corporation Marx & Engels (2007) refer to the dialectic between the capitalists (or bourgeoisie) who own the property and the means of production and the laborers (or proletariat) who own no property and are obligated to sell their labour to the bourgeoisie to gain substance. For Marx & Engels, this labour market is inherently fraught with tension, since the interests of the capitalist and labourers are diametrically opposed, and the balance of power between capitalists and labourers tips further in the favour of the capitalists. Because workers have nothing to sell but their labour, the bourgeoisie are able to exploit them by paying them less than the true value created by their labour. Furthermore, because of the unequal positions of capitalist and labourer, labourers must work for someone else- they must do work imposed on them as a means of satisfying the needs of others. As a result, labourers inevitably experience alienation which Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) summarizes as the separation of individuals from the objects they create, which in turn results in one’s separation from other people, from oneself, and ultimately from one’s human nature.

You cannot have one without the other. For instance, labourers use their service in order to survive; meanwhile, the capitalist class use the labourers work to make a profit (Marx 1847). By doing so, the cycle of hiring more workers continues. Thus, there is a social interaction between both classes because without workers a company would not exist and without work the working class would not survive (Marx 1847). For this reason, it is incredibly important that the two classes work together in a just manner, so that the growth of capital can persist. However, this also means that when capital increases so does the workload on the proletarians. This usually leads to an increase in wages when the capitalists notice that profit is equivalent or exceeding the amount of products made (Marx 1847). Regrettably, this is not always the case. According to the Toronto Star, thousands of low-wage workers have not received their correct pay for their hard work (Mojtehedzadeh, August 2 2016). This is unfortunate as many workers now have to scrape their money together in order to make their payments on time. Sadly, employers who participate in wage theft rarely receive consequences and are likely to repeat their law-breaking offences (Mojtehedzadeh, August 2 2016). This potentially creates the mentality that capitalists can get away with anything without any repercussions when it involves vulnerable employees. To conclude, although the capitalist class does have authority over the working class they must follow the rules in regarding to pay and labour responsibilities, especially if they want to maintain a wealthy

Marx’s theory of alienated labour is structured around a class-based system. It is vital to acknowledge that Marx’s evaluation of the capitalist system is based focused the Industrial Revolution a century and a half ago, and therefore must be kept somewhat in that context. Within Marx’s simplified capitalist society model, one class of people own and control the raw materials and their means of production. They are referred to as capital, bourgeoisie, or the owning class. The capitalist does not just own the means of production, but also all the items produced. By virtue of their ownership of production property they receive an income and earn a living from the operations of their factories and shops. The owning class owns the productive resources, though they do not usually operate the production means themselves.

In seeking to highlight the key differences between socialism and capitalism, it would be prudent to first offer a concise definition of the two terms. Capitalism in the words of Brinkerhoff, White, Ortega, and Weitz (2007) "is the economic system in which most wealth (land, capital, and labor) is private property, to be used by its owners to maximize their own gain." As the authors in this case further point out, this particular economic system is largely founded on competition. Socialism on the other hand is defined as "an economic structure in which productive tools are owned and managed by the workers and used for the collective good" (Brinkerhoff et al., 2007). From the definitions, it is clear that unlike capitalism, socialism favors a situation whereby there is deliberate control as well as planning of economic activities on behalf of the entire community. In the case of capitalism, no attempt is made to have economic activities controlled from a central point on behalf of the community. Here, enterprises are allowed to compete in the supply of goods and services as they seek to rake in monetary returns. The key

According to Marx capitalism has a structured relationship between labor and capital which creates alienation. First the proletariat are alienated by repetitive work and assembly line like jobs. Many of these jobs do not require creativity or intelligence. The proletariat do not own what they produce so they do not take pride in their work. Capitalism promotes competition between collages which can promote alienation between themselves. I like to think of a skilled painter, it takes a lot of knowledge to paint a beautiful canvas. The artist knows his reputation is on this painting so he/she takes his/her time to make sure it is a work of art. Each painting they do will be unique in some way. Whatever they paint will be his/her property to sell or keep.