Hegel's Dialectic Of Master And The Slave Essay

In order to properly explain Hegel’s “dialectic of the master and the slave,” you have to first explain the differences and how each came to position they are in. “Man - at his origin - is always either a master or a slave” (Hegel, 53). The master and the slave’s positions become reversed once the slave no longer fears death. In order to cease being a slave he must fight against his master and overcome his fear of death. “What made man a slave was his refusal to risk his life. Hence, he will not cease to be a slave, as long as he is not ready to risk his life in a fight against the master, as long as he does not accept the idea of death. A liberation without a bloody fight, therefore, is metaphysically impossible” (Kojeve, 63). Your situation

There will always be the master and slave (Hegel), rich and poor (modern America), property owner and the propertyless worker (Marx). These are synonymous with each other in a capitalistic society. Marx lists off four types of alienation which can be described as the result of human beings regarding their own labor in a negative light. The first one being the estrangement of the worker from the object that he is producing. “The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and size. The worker becomes an even cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates” (Marx, 2). The second is the estrangement from the activity of production itself. Third is the worker’s alienation from a sense of life purpose, human identity, or what Marx coins, “species-being.” Marx states that the process of transforming physical matter (raw materials) into something of substance is fundamental to a person’s identity. The fourth and final form is the “estrangement of man from man.” Since the worker’s product is owned by someone else, the capitalist, there is hostility towards