Estranged Labor, By Karl Marx

Prompt 1:

In Karl Marx’ Estranged Labor he explains how capitalism divides society into two parts, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The proletariat acts as the working class, they produce the commodities in the society in which they live. Proletariat production involves working in factories, to turn natural resources into goods and commodities. In turn, the bourgeoisie are the members of this society who own all the means of production and thus own the produced commodities. They own the factories in which the proletariat work, and essentially dictate their lives. The Proletariat owns nothing and the Bourgeoisie has complete control of labor, production, and product. Marx explains how complete control is the driving force that causes the

Humans have a hierarchy of needs and Marx wants those reading Estranged Labor to realize that while living under these conditions, set forth by the bourgeoisie, humans will not be able to satisfy their complex needs. In order to achieve human needs, it requires much more than working like an animal on an assembly line. Marx states that man is in fact a species being because as humans, we treat ourselves, “as the actual, living species; because he treats himself as a universal and therefore free being” (Marx 442). We are supposed to be more as humans than what a capitalistic society allows us to be. If a human becomes stuck in the cycle, which is capitalist alienation, you have lost what it truly means to be human. You go to work to survive not to truly live. You become nothing more than a machine to your employer. Marx says that, “wages are a direct consequence of estranged labour” (Marx 446). Wage labor allows the bourgeoisie to control you as they control the market. The working class are slaves to their wage. The capitalist class realizes the workers need their jobs to keep living, but also realize that as a worker you are disposable. The employers realize that there will always be someone there willing to replace you and that you need them more than they need you. Marx argues that this may be the largest issue with capitalism. Although as a worker you

He explains that capitalism leads to Monopoly Capitalism, which is the totalization of the commodity form. In Monopoly Capitalism, the state and capital become the same institution and make it possible for capitalism to thrive. He also goes into great detail about the idea of counter revolution which occurs by integrating enough members of the working class into the middle class. He calls these people salary slaves which are exactly the same group of people Marx described as wage slaves. They used these terms to criticize the exploitation of labor, which the capitalist class uses. Marcuse explains that, “the great historic role of capital is the creation of surplus labor, labor which is superfluous from the standpoint of mere value” (Marcuse 17). This is why Marcuse believes that capitalism is the ultimate form of social control. Depending upon where you stand as far as class, proletariat or the bourgeoisie, you may be nothing more than a salary slave. As the proletariat you work because you need to, in order to survive, but your labor is solely being used to benefit the capitalist as you never see any real