Marx on alienation

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Marx on Alienation

Marx suggests that the industrialization process had caused alienation regarding to the well-being of individuals. But the alienation does not belong to every single individual but mostly to the proletariat. Marx develops his theory of alienation in four mainstream sections; the estrangement of worker from his labor’s product, the production process, his fellow man, in addition to his species ontology; i.e. humankind. In his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844; the estranged labor notion was considered by Marx after having developed the key concepts of capitalist economy. Considering these, he develops his ideas on alienated labor and the product of labor which becomes external to the worker. The objectification causes him to be controlled by his own product. And also by producing more, he obtains less while he was more controlled by the labor’s product. Not only that, but also the product of his alienated labor does not belong to himself, it belongs to the capitalist. The result would be the fact that the worker is deprived of the means of life by perceiving external world as an instrument for survival of his own life. He, no longer, produces according to his own desires but rather it becomes a necessity.

He analyzes that the product is nothing more than being the summation of the total actions in production process; therefore the relationship of the proletariat with the product can be expanded between the worker and the process of production. There is an immense connection between the estrangement of the production activity and the product itself, once the former definition of product being considered as the summation of the processes to produce. The content of the alienation of labor is further developed by Marx through the understanding how process of manufacturing is estranged to the worker similar to the objectification of labor’s product. The capitalist production includes internally the feature that makes the labor a power independent of the worker which does not belong to himself and possessed by the capitalist. The individual in the proletariat class of society therefore becomes miserable and unsatisfied; nonetheless, he still has to put his effort and work for that external being, not only sacrificing his body; but also ruining his intellectual- mental being. That is not only the result worker’s lack of control of the labor or inability to do it, but rather the way in which production processes and the product itself become alien and opponent to him through the oppression applied by the capitalist. The production processes and the products are strictly determined by the capitalists which leaves no room for individual creativity or imagination of the worker. “Indeed, living labour itself appears as alien vis-à-vis living labour capacity, whose labour it is, whose own life expression it is, for it has been surrended to capital in exchange for objectified labour, for the product of labour itself” (Marx, 253).

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The worker, who has been alienated not only from the product of his labor and the process and activities of labor, also faces the estrangement from his fellow men and what is worse; himself. As he states in Manifesto of the Communist Party, “All that is solid melts into air all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind” (Marx, p. 476). Having considered that worker’s labour has been estranged to him; he is also alienated from the natural life, from his activity for survival and to live a better life which carries humanity in a level of a species being. The activity of the life of a species is what forms its disposition. The statement, that the worker’s estranged labour is possessed by some other power other than him and also the individual is alienated from the self, which is also can be considered together with the estrangement from the other men. “If his own activity is to him an unfree activity, then he is treating it as activity performed in the service, under the domination, the coercion and the yoke of another man” (Marx, p. 78). The worker has to produce “under the coercion and the yoke of another man” which is serving to the other man’s profit and utility. The proletariat also has internal inequalities with these men from the upper class of society, which make it possible to enforce and coerce the workers.

There is also an immense contradiction in the space of the worker’s product of labor and the actual living place of the worker. The worker cannot actualize himself and his abilities within the work space. It is not possible for him to shape his own labor. Thus, the objectification of labor makes the product, which is created by the worker itself, transforms into something that is alien to him. Marx (p. 71-72) states that labor seems to be, for the laborer, as the deprivation of the sense of reality; on the other hand, objectification is the deprivation of the object. Paradoxically, if the worker produces in a bigger amount, his amount of consumption decreases due to inner workings of capitalist production. When he creates much more values, he himself becomes more nonprecious and of no significance. Because the worker’s creation of more wealth means that the capitalist exploits more of his production. Every time a worker produces, he cannot get his payoff quantum sufficit according to what he creates; but rather, the capitalist gains a surplus value from this product. This is called surplus appropriation. Therefore, the worker has to work more to earn what he had already deserved which alone does not solve the problem. Manufacturing products a lot will cause increased valuation of world of objects. “The devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of the things” (Marx, p. 87).

All these aspects of alienation are strongly connected with the concept of private property and the entire money system. “But labour, the subjective essence of private property as exclusion of property, and capital, objective labour as exclusion of labour, constitute private property as its developed state of contradiction- hence a dynamic relationship moving inexorably to its resolution” (Marx, p.82). Even if, the worker produces a lot, he does not have the capacity to own private property as the capitalist does. The estranged labor has to be owned by someone else; that brings us back to private property. Only if the labor is alienated, it is possible for somebody else to own it. With the same logic, monetary economy becomes possible. If the labor and the product of labor became alienated to the worker and do not belong to him anymore, the payment has to be realized through money.

To sum up, Marx analyzes the process of alienation in four parts; from the labour’s product, process of production, from himself and his species being. The worker cannot actualize his true abilities and desires; but rather, works just to earn for a living. In the capitalist mode of production, the labor becomes objectified, alienated and renounced. Thus, it results in the emergence of private property and monetary system which later on turns into a reciprocal relation; the labor becomes further alienated.

References

Marx, K. The Grundrisse.

Marx, K. Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844. The Marx-Engels Reader.

Marx, K. Manifesto of the Communist Party.