ipl-logo

Classical Social Theory In 'Estranged Labor'

512 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Marx types of alienation

Classical social theory is evident throughout fight club. At the beginning of the film, the nameless narrator that will be referred to as “Jack” experiences alienation as seen in Marx’s essay “Estranged Labor”. Alienation is a process where the world a person lives in starts to feel foreign to them. Jack works for a major car company and assesses the risks involved in malfunctioning parts using a formula that decides whether or not the company issues a recall on a defective product that was produced. He is alienated from the labor he produces because he receives little benefits for the work he produces and the company he works for receives most of the profits. Jack has no enjoyment or sense of gratification for the work he completes and produces …show more content…

The capitalist system creates a lower class whose labor allowed the system to function called the proletariat (Jack) and an upper class with more power that owned the production factories that the proletariat worked in called the bourgeoisie (the car company Jack worked for). These factories and the products of the labor produced in them were the source of power for the bourgeoisie. Class conflict happens because the bourgeoisie suppresses the proletariat and the proletariat revolts against the suppression. An example of this in “Fight Club” is when Jack starts rebelling against the company (the bourgeoisie) and eventually gets a settlement when he beats himself up in front of his boss and frames him for the “attack”.
In “The Fetishism of Commodities” Marx explains that we measure the value of the usefulness of things with money. Jack recognizes that he has become a slave to the fetishism of commodities, saying “we buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like” and that he is “a slave to ikea”. He is constantly making money just to spend money. He uses his material possessions to try to find meaning in his life and define who he is as a person. When his apartment explodes, he is forced to look this realization in the face because he has lost everything that him a consumerist

Show More
Related
532 Words | 3 Pages

The Marx approach focuses on economic factors as the sole reason for conflict in society. He saw society divided into the Bourgeoisie, or the owners of the means of production, and the proletariat, or the workers. Tensions and conflicts occur when the resources, power, and status are unevenly distributed between these two groups, and the conflict can lead to social change. He believed the exploited people would bane together and attempt to bring about changes. The workers would develop a class consciousness and revolt demanding more changes in society, while those with the wealth, power and prestige will continue to try and promote their own interest usually at the expense of the weaker

Read More
841 Words | 4 Pages

According to Marx society was divided into two classes that were in eternal conflict in the battle for resources, or as Marx coined; “the means of production”. The first class were the bourgeoisie, which Marx described as the sole owners of the means of production as well as the media. The bourgeoisie used their power and influence to exploit the second class, which Marx called the proletariat which consisted of all the workers of the world. Marx rejected the idea that the wealthy pulled themselves from their own bootstraps, which he called “false consciousness” and in return coined the term “class consciousness”, which referred to a persons awareness of their own social status, especially in terms of class conflict. Overall, Marx concluded that social order is created maintained by domination and power.

Read More
1297 Words | 6 Pages

Karl Marx defines “alienation” by which laborers are estranged from their self-being because of the capitalists. A result from the lack of identity with the products of their labor and a sense of being are controlled or exploited (en.oxforddictionaries.com). Marx asserts that capitalism is the root cause

Read More
988 Words | 4 Pages

However, despite being “unsure of their futures, with nowhere to direct their anger and no one to assuage their fears” (GEN X – SITE SOURCE), the characteristic of Generation X which really draws parallels to Palahniuk’s novel is the high divorce rate of the time. The impact of an influential feminized society is yet again bolstered by the norm of a woman being in complete control as a result of fathers leaving the household. In the novel, Jack mentions his absent father, and thus begins seeing a father figure in Tyler after having lacked strong male models whilst growing up. To the cohort of members in Fight Club feeling effeminate as a result, Tyler concludes that they are a “generation of men raised by women” (PAGE), further nourishing the men’s desire to fight and express their wrath to regain their identities. Due to their upbringing, the men in Fight Club lack a masculine portrayal, and hence idealize Tyler as the sole example of what masculinity should be.

Read More
814 Words | 4 Pages

The main concept of alienated labor was developed by Karl Marx in his early work Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts from 1844 - First Manuscript [Estranged Labor]. As defined, the concept of alienation is profoundly embedded in religions and social and political theories, the possibility that some time in the past individuals feeling like foreigners in the world, however, sooner or later this distance would be overcome and humankind would again harmony with itself and Nature (Encyclopedia of Marxism). Formed from Private Property, the political economy that is Capitalism divided society into two classes¬ - Property owners and Property-Less workers. By exploitation and estrangement, these classes become further designated as masters

Read More
926 Words | 4 Pages

It is argued that social inequality occurs because of the conflict between the upper-class and the working-class, or as Marx defines it, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. Based on the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx and Engels, 1848), the divergence emerges because the aim of the Bourgeoisie is to obtain a surplus-value that is produced by the work of the Proletariat. On the other side, the Bourgeoisie provides the Proletariat with the minimum required, such as a place to live and a minimum wage, in order to keep the society under control and avoid a rebellion. However, Marx did predict a revolt of the working-class that would eventually lead to a communist regime. When it comes to applying this theoretical approach to reality, it is evident to notice that no global revolt in regards to capitalism has occurred.

Read More
1041 Words | 5 Pages

As in Marx’s analysis of capitalist society, in the film we can clearly see how the bourgeois classes maintain their lifestyle by exploiting and mistreating the workers. The workers cannot be distinguished, they don't have an identity and a individuality, they are identified only by numbers. The capitalists live in luxurious spaces above ground, while the workers live beneath the surface of the ground, in miserable houses. Those factors point out the dissimilarities of the two classes, which bring us to the conclusion that there will always be an inevitable conflict between them.

Read More
759 Words | 4 Pages

The three main ideas from the Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, had little to no influence when it was first published in 1848 for the Communist League. However, soon after Marx and Engel’s other writings on socialism became published it grew in popularity, and was considered a standard text of the time (Brians, 2006). With Marx’s radical ideas, and Engels’ thorough writing, they were able to convey how they were individual of the other socialists of the time and elaborate on their idea socialism and how it would inevitably be achieved. The three main ideas from The Communist Manifesto are class conflict, ephemeral capitalism, and inevitable revolution.

Read More
1320 Words | 6 Pages

Commodity fetishism refers to the transformation of human relations formed from the exchange of commodities in the market. Human relations form between people of trade in goods and services in the market expressed in terms of the objectified economic relations among currency. Commodity fetishism allows the ability to transform individuality, conceptual aspects of financially viable value into objective and real things that people think have intrinsic value. (Rubin, 1990,5) Karl Marx states social relation between people assumes in their eyes to form a relation between things therefore commodity fetishism is religious due to the involvement of supernatural status to assume a belief in something not there. Humans use their brains to create commodities

Read More
847 Words | 4 Pages

Marx and Engels look at capitalism with seriously negative opinions. They regard the system as extremely unsuitable, and are deeply concerned with getting rid of it. In a capitalist society, capitalists own and control the main resources of production - machinery, factories, mines, capital, etc. The modern working classes, or proletariats, own only their labor. Proletariats work for the capitalists, who own the product that was produced and then sell it for a profit.

Read More
795 Words | 4 Pages

Karl Marx talks about the role of communism and his conjecture of underlying this type of revolution. He speaks of two different class struggles, the "Bourgeoisie and Proletarians". Bourgeoisie are the people with authority, the ones who own production and are bosses of wage labor while the proletariat are the individuals with no authority, no ownership and are giving up their own power to the Bourgeoisie in order to survive. Societies began to separate and became hostile and aggressive classes. It all became about social ranking because of the increase and need of production.

Read More
1091 Words | 5 Pages

Marx believed that the class struggle forced social change. Marx’s theory is based on a class system

Read More
1143 Words | 5 Pages

Bourgeoisie, which gains the power, defines superstructure “including all social and legal institution, all political and educational systems, all religions and all art” (Bressler, 162), and articulate the ideology which is based on profits of bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie ideology leads to alienation of individuals, especially proletariats. This bourgeoisie ideology creates the clash between the two classes. Marx supported the working class and their victory over dominant class. Marxism believes in providing equal opportunity to the working class as that are available to the

Read More
732 Words | 3 Pages

Karl Marx and Max Weber both agreed that capitalism generates alienation in modern societies, but the cause for it were both different. For Marx it is due to economic inequality in where the capitalist thinks that the workers worth nothing more than a source of labour, that can be employed and dismissed at will. This causes the workers to be dehumanised by their jobs (in the past, routine factory work and in the present-day, managing demands on a computer), which leads to the workers finding slight satisfaction and feeling incapable of improving their situation. It was noted by Marx four methods on how capitalism alienates workers. The first, is alienation from the function of working.

Read More
793 Words | 4 Pages

Class struggle is a conflict in a particular society or between a society which is caused by the lack of unity in one society and different perspective of a different group in a society. It is also called class conflict or class warfare. One social issue of a class struggle is the social inequality. According to study.com, Social inequality is an inequity of social class, award, opportunities, religion, position in the community, social status and at some other point respect in a group of society.

Read More

More about Classical Social Theory In 'Estranged Labor'

Related Topics

Open Document