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Karl Marx Alienation Essay

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2. 2. 2 Alienation of Men in Capitalist Industrial Mode
Then epoch has seen a common phenomenon in the capitalistic society that the tool invented by human beings takes the charge of its creators in reverse. Karl Marx elaborates alienation as “ the work is external to the worker, that it is not a part of his nature, that consequently he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery, not of well-being, does not develop freely a physical and mental energy, but is physically exhausted and mentally debased”(Marx,1988:85). In this way, men are estranged by their labor. For Marx, human alienation appears simultaneously with capitalistic labor. “Labor’s product confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer”(Marx,1988:71) Marx illustrated that the essence of capital is to chase after the maximum interests, which set the solid foundation of capitalism. And the development of technology after the widespread industrial revolution has brought the United States into the machine age.
Martin used to work as a laundryman where he has witnessed the endless toil laid on the flesh and soul even with the help of modern machines. “It was a perfectly appointed, small steam laundry, …show more content…

“Labor’s realization is its objectification. In the conditions dealt with by political economy this realization of labor appears as loss of reality for the workers; objectification as loss of the object and object-bondage; appropriation as estrangement, as alienation” (71). The heavy work not only rots his body since Martin can not get rid of exhaustion in body and bluntness in mind. Labor “replaces labor by machines but some of the workers it throws back to a barbarous type of labor, and the other workers it turns into machines. It produces intelligence but for the worker idiocy, cretinism”

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