For Marx, this alienation works as a process, but it can be broken up into 3 different aspects for analysis. The first aspect of alienation under analysis is how workers are alienated from the product they produce. Under capitalism, the object the workers produce is surrendered for the wages they receive. The workers then loose any relation to the object they are producing because they are handing it over. This is of course is different from the system of self-sufficiency, where the workers have a much more direct relationship with the object that they produce. As the workers become more independent of their product, they transfer power to the employer. As mentioned with Marx’s critique on the political economy, the more objects the worker produces, then the more power the employer possesses which will lead to a greater weakness to the workers. Therefore under this system, the workers are only competing to be exploited. This is a form of alienation, because the object that the worker produces becomes an alien entity to him, independent of his control and ultimately controls the worker.
Another aspect of alienation that Marx examines is how “the self” becomes another alien entity to the worker. Under the mode of capitalism, the working conditions are established by the capitalists and not by the workers themselves. These conditions are established along the grounds of the capitalists drive for profits, rather than the workers need for self-fulfilment. Marx felt that self-fulfilment was a major aim of a person, and felt that under the system of capitalism, where your working conditions are created by your employer, it was impossible for the worker to gain this self-fulfilment. He also felt that the capitalist employers were victims of this problem too because if they didn’t drive for profits, then they would be put out of business. The labour itself is described by Marx as “exterior to the worker, that is, it does not belong to his essence. Therefore he does not confirm himself in his work, he denies himself, feels miserable instead of happy, deploys no free physical and intellectual energy, but mortifies his body and ruins his mind” (4)
What Marx is attempting to describe here is that within the work in capitalism, where everything is based around the production of capital, there is no room for the most important of human goals, self growth. During the working day, the worker has no room for self growth under an environment driven solely by products and dictated by the employer. He feels that the capitalist notion, that the exchange of wages is somehow beneficial to the worker, to be flawed, because he does not have the free time or the energy outside of work to fully maintain any self growth. Instead of developing his mind and body, the worker is caught up in a continuing circle of unfulfilling work and insufficient leisure time. Through this process, the worker becomes alienated from himself, as Marx concludes “he does not belong to himself in his labour but to someone else”. (5)
The third aspect of alienation that Marx scrutinized was the alienation of each worker from each other. Within capitalism there is always a division of labour as each mode of production creates a different workforce. The labour force is divided up in many different ways, from employers to general workers, and also divisions between modes of production. Marx feels that due to this division of labour that inevitably happens in capitalism, especially as workers and modes of production become more specialised, it is inevitable that this will lead to the distortion and souring of the relationships between individuals. Marx felt that capitalism tended to make individuals look at each other, not as human beings, but as workers or employers. People are forced to compete, workers viewed as commodities and employers perceiving other people as competition or commodities. Marx felt that this system made people view the “species-life of man into a means for his physical existence” (6). This alienation of the “species-life” continues through the existence of private property, as both a cause and enforcement. People with private property are separate from those who don’t possess it, and people are judged and viewed on how much property they own. The acquisition of private property is central to capitalism and causes varying degrees of power within society. Those with more property tend to have more power while the ones lacking property tend to lack power. This causes divisions within the humanity, serving to enforce the alienation of people from each other. Under this system, the relation between persons becomes the relations between things, and people become the playthings of objects. According to Marx, we view humanity as alien to us, as mere objects, judged in accordance with the property and objects we possess. Therefore, not only is the product we produce alien to us, and not only is our “self” alien to us, but under capitalism the rest of humankind is alien to us.
However, this notion of alienation is open to considerable doubt. The idea itself certainly possesses a great deal of attractiveness in its notion that we could work in a way where we control our own working environment, as well as the product of your labour. Yet despite its appeal, it is difficult to determine just how we are supposed to establish a mode of production where both these requirements are satisfied. Self-sufficiency is surely a form of production where one can control his own working hours and also control where his product is based, yet under this system of production it is difficult to see how anyone can really reach the goal of self-fulfilment. Marx criticises capitalism as a mode of production where one cannot reach his full intellectual capabilities, yet under self-sufficiency, it is difficult to see how these capabilities could be reached as there would be little room for variant assets in society. For example, if I wanted to eat a banana it would be impossible for me to do so without trading with someone who can grow one. Self-sufficiency is the only way in which a person has full control over where his product goes, for almost all professions have to hand over work in order to receive some form of payment for living expenses. Although it is possible for a person to have varying degrees of relation to the product that he produces, it is difficult to see how alienation to ones product could be eradicated altogether.
Marx’s view, that only when labour is exerted under certain self-controlling conditions does it reach a sense of fulfilment, is a rather narrow view of human nature that can be open to question. It seems that Marx has looked at people who are unhappy in their jobs, who work long hours in a repetitive manner for minimal pay. It is rather blinkered to view the entire system of capitalism as consisting of the mass production of objects that have no meaning to the worker, and that suppress the worker so he is alienated from himself. It is plausible to suggest that a worker in a job might genuinely like the hours and the conditions that he works in.
The criticism that capitalism causes a division of labour, causing workers to be alienated from each other, is also open to doubt. Marx is obviously correct in the observation that labour is divided; after all it is evident that divisions will exist if people are working at different jobs. However, to say that this division causes relations between persons to take the form of relations between things is a rather derogatory view on human nature. Certainly, in some cases it is possible to view a person as a commodity or competition, but it is rather excessive to suggest that we are somehow alienated from our “species-being” under the mode of capitalism.
The plausibility of Marx’s thoughts on alienation has both its positive and its negative arguments. In some aspects of capitalism, his theories may well stand firm yet there are also contradictions in a capitalist society that may well refute his claims. Marx is writing in a time when mass production and terrible working conditions were a major characteristic in capitalism, which is perhaps why he is so critical of this mode of production. To some extent, his claims were correct in regards to certain forms of capitalism, yet it is problematical to view all aspects of capitalism as possessing the problem of alienation.
Bibliography
(1) David McLellan, The Thought of Karl Marx, Second Edition (University of Kent, Macmillan Press Limited, 1982) p.117
(2)Lecture notes, lecture 1, Marx and Hegel
(3) David McLellan, The Thought of Karl Marx, Second Edition (University of Kent, Macmillan Press Limited, 1982) p.118
(4)David McLellan, Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Second Edition (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000) p.88
(5)Ibid, p.89
(6)Ibid, p.91
