The Causes Of Alienation In Karl Marx And Max Weber

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. People tend to work to meet their desires and to improve

The second, is alienation from the product. In Marxist time and in today’s modern world we are involved in an abundance of mass production. In a capitalist system, people are placed in a position where they are responsible in making a minor part of the goods. The goods of work belong to the capitalist and is sold for their profit, whereas the workers gain nothing. Therefore, Marx concluded that the greater effort the workers put into their job, the lesser they benefit. The third, is alienation from other people. Marx said that through work people will be able to develop connection with other people. However, industrial capitalism causes people to compete against each other than working together. Which causes people to drift apart from each other and the possibility for comradeship is lessened. Lastly, is alienation from human potential. Industrial capitalism robs labourers from their human capabilities and what they can contribute to the world. Workers will lose a sense of themselves and of who they are, instead of fulfilling their needs, they deny themselves, rather than feeling joy they are depressed, they are also mentally and physically

This is how Marx believed alienation is caused. Now whereas for Weber, he believes that alienation is caused due to bureaucracy’s numerous laws and regulations. Weber thought bureaucracy highly logical due to it’s elements for instance policies, offices and duties that aid to obtain certain objectives as effortlessly as can be. Weber gave a warning that bureaucracy treats people as a “digit” instead of one of a kind being. To top it all off, to work in a huge association requires overly specific and frequently tiresome procedures. Weber pictured modern society as a boundless and developing system of instructions attempting to regulate everything, because of that he was afraid that the human spirit would end up being crushed by the modern society. Similarly, as Marx, Weber had concluded that individuals in this modern world who are in mean to aid the society, in the end, turn on its makers and place them in captivity. Individuals that are modernized were portrayed by Weber to be as similar as a small gear that was in a constantly moving mechanism, in this sense a never-ending loop of