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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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Essentially, the worker does not control what he or she produces because the capitalists control it to ensure an increase of profit. In Alienated Labour, Marx explains that, “this relationship is at the same time the relationship to the sensuous exterior world and to natural objects as to an alien and hostile world opposed to him”(McIntosh 1997:18). He argues that the workers feels alienated form their own work because they know that they will be unable to reap the benefits (McIntosh 1997). An example of product alienation is how Z understand that he is digging tunnels to increase the production of the colony however is alienated because he does not receive any personal benefits of his work. The general stands in front of the entire colony and says, “We are the hero’s.

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When man confronts himself, he also confronts other men. What is true of man’s relationship to his labour, to the product of his labour, and to himself, is also true of his relationship to other men, and to the labour and the object of the labour of other men.” (Marx 1844) We have evaluated the four types of alienation labor in relation to the worker: The estrangement of the worker from the product of his work, the estrangement of the worker from the activity of production, the worker’s estrangement from species-being or human identity and the estrangement of man to man or the estrangement from our fellow workers.

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The key concepts that I will discuss in this assignment are the theories and ideas of Karl Marx on Alienation, Exploitation, Materialism and Class struggle. The objective of this assignment is to examine the literature written about Karl Marx in order to clearly present his main ideas and theories in relation to work and capital. In the second part of my assignment I will discuss what relevance these theories and ideas have in today’s world. Karl Heinrich Marx the philosopher and revolutionary socialist was born on the 5th of May 1818 and died on the 14th of March 1883. He was born in the city of Trier in Germany and studied law in Bonn University.

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Writings of Karl Marx had formed the theoretical basis for communism and the continual debate against capitalism. Marx understood capitalism to be a system in which the means of production are privately owned and profit is generated by the sale of the proletariat’s labour. He considered it to be an unfair exploitation of hard work with alienated social interactions and purpose. I agree with Marx that capitalism is indeed unfair and alienating, because it concentrates wealth within a small group of people by exploiting the surplus value of workers’ labour, and creates an alienated workforce. Hence, this essay will first discuss the relevance of Marx’s perception of capitalism as an alienating and unfair system for the contemporary world, before examining the potential of governments to influence the extent of alienation and unfairness that occurs.

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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.

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