What Marx Appear To Mean By The Term Alienation - Essay Example

? What Marx appear to mean by the term "alienation” Project Close Out: al: Introduction Karl Marx was a German Philosopher who livedbetween 1818 and 1883. He was a social scientist, a philosopher, historian and a renowned revolutionary. He is the most influential social scientist to emerge in the 19th century. His political, economic and social ideas gained rapid acceptance despite the fact that he was largely ignored by other scholars and regimes during his lifetime. His fame rose further after his death in 1883. Marx was a communism’s most zealous intellectual advocate. He made comprehensive writing on the subject which laid the basis and foundation for the political leaders who were to come after him. He studied philosophy but turned to economics and politics in his twenties. Karl Marx’s theories of politics, economics and society, which are collectively referred to as Marxism, argued that all human societies progress through dialectic of class struggles. Such class struggle occurs in a capitalist state. Within such a society, the capitalist classes; the owners of capital compete with the workers. The workers solely have their labour power to offer as a means of obtaining daily bread for their livelihood. Karl Marx referred to the capitalist societies as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”. Such a society is run by the wealthy class of individuals. Such a management or rule is purely meant to benefit the rich ruling class. A class struggle between the bourgeoisies would lead into a dialectical series which enables the society to be transformed from one state to another. The bourgeoisie would always struggle to maintain and expand their wealth in terms of land and other factors of production. This group of individuals does this by exploiting and exposing the proletariat to harsh conditions characterized by poor wages, less food and poor housing. This would enable to capitalist class to make maximum profit and reduce competition from the proletariat. Alienation basically refers to an act of separation from what is most desired by individuals or from whatever is desirable. Alienation is a discrimination of individuals based on something which is valuable to their existence. A society in which alienation is practiced tends to have some of its members get extremely wealthy at the expense of other members of the population. Individual are alienated when they live in conditions which they do not approve of and believe to have been caused and forced into them by external forces. It is a form of discrimination in which individuals are denied or prevented from accessing their rights. Forceful denial of self determination, where individuals lack the power to determine whatever happens to them, is a form of alienation which Karl Marx explained. This paper tries, therefore, to make an analysis into what Karl Marx implied by alienation. Karl Marx and Alienation Karl Marx expresses the meaning of alienation in two words; estrangement and reification. Reification refers to the externalization of aspects of self which there exist a dual sense of lose and identification. This implies that labour became a remote or external action since there is the act of selling one’s self just as a commodity and also an individual no longer relates or identifies with the outcome of ones labour since it has been an independent action. Estrangement on the other hand refers to a situation in which an individual has a feeling of separation or distance from the society or community. Karl Marx understands the concepts of alienation from a capitalist point of view. His argument of alienation is based on a capitalist context. The capitalist mode of production forms the basis for alienation according to Karl Marx. This focus enables us to look at the source of alienation in its actual context in the human societies that we live in. it also enables us to understand the manner in which all the rest forms of alienation are deeply rooted in the prime cause which is capitalism. Marx identified a mechanism through which individuals find useful things, taking them the way they are freely. These items or things are then changed to some more productive resources. This is done by improving the usefulness of the resources. Karl Marx frequently used cotton as an example of the commodities that could be improved greatly to increase its usefulness. Others are hemp and wool. Others were the mined raw materials such as ore which would then be turned into cars, ships, railroads and even cutlery. Wool was obtained from trees and converted into lumber and chips. This was then used in making houses and paper. Plant seeds were sown and after some time it was harvested when it reached the maturity stage. The harvests were utilized as food. The animals which were kept also served similar purpose. Some of the animals were also trained and used the process of production. At this time there was no alienation since the people were always in direct contact with nature. Individuals also created whatever was useful to them directly from nature. Each of the individuals in the society knew and understood what is useful and necessary for their existence. They had to coexist among each other. Alienation has its onset on surplus production which became an immediate requirement among the members of the various societies. Surplus value implied wealth which became a commodity at the time when some individuals realized it could be utilized as exchange for some other things which were not readily available or which had shortages. When surplus value allowed for the coming up of specialization, the succeeding generations lost the way with which things were done. Specialization in one way meant other knowledge and skills as well as means of performing things are left behind and forgotten over successive generations. It also implies that the specialists should depend upon those individuals who are still in contact with the reality to support them. However, they must offer something which has value in exchange. No single individual would wish to work for another individual who contributes nothing. A fair exchange ought to exist since all individuals have basic needs that they ought to satisfy in order to live. Alienation essentially meant that individuals who took part in the process of production were separated from means of production. This involves a number of stages which eventually led to the contemporary world of the present time. The basic idea underlying this is the attainment of the factors of production by an owner class. Such an owner class could be the theocracy, aristocracy, or the contemporary bourgeoisie bankers and industrialists. Naturally, there is no such thing like ownership of property. If anything, we are owned by nature but not we owning nature. Somewhere along the history of human society, and for some reasons, these societies decided to act as marauders upon other societies. They appropriated whatever they had produced for themselves. This is how the issue of ownership developed. The basic idea of this is that whatever an individual works to create becomes their own property. This property can then be traded on with others. Still they can be taken by theft through force. The development of states in the ancient times led to wars of conquest. These wars were fought for the means of production, fishing areas, whether land, trees, slaves, mines among other means of obtaining and measuring wealth. The concept of money in these societies became a major point of focus. Individuals were in one way or another withdrawn from accessing the means of production. Individuals became alienated. This aspect of alienation has continued all through the history of human society to the present. It became a real problem with the withdrawal of the peasants from the land within the various principalities and kingdoms which existed in the world during those days. The land from which the peasants were expropriated was meant for the function of growing cash crops as well as utilizing it for other commercial purposes which were meant to benefit the kings, princes and the landlords. It also served to benefit the courts. The business of cash crops which was dominated by the bourgeoisie was facilitated by money that was managed by the banks which had begun to emerge. Banks gave out loans with the basic idea that they would be paid back interest. Such interest was to act as a service fee of the money which assisted in the manufacturing expansion. The peasants who were at this point landless would just end up in the cities which had begun to build up. These were the places where trade was practiced. Such cities also housed manufacturing and developing industries. Since the peasants lacked everything in this condition except their labour, they were obliged to work so as to survive. The peasants worked for money which was the universal commodity that was rapidly became a fetish to be adored as a result of its seemingly magical ability to change into everything else that is of importance to an individual’s life. On itself, money can’t be eaten or worn. It can’t either be used as shelter on its own. In fact what was produced from the manufacturing centres was just but a single commodity. The typical labourers who were landless became alienated from the commodity that they spent all their time producing it. As these peasants did not own the factors of production as provided under the banker or royal’s entitlement by defined laws, this too served to worsen the relations between the peasants or labourer and the commodity that they produced, and this led to a greater alienation. It also worsened direct relation between those who own the factors of production and the producer who used the factors of production but having no control in their use. More often than not, they could not afford whatever they were producing from the wages they got. Beginning with the industrial revolution, several developments in the production helped by the banks made it possible for such things as mechanically enhanced assembly line and production. These developments frequently and constantly gave challenges to those individuals who laboured. Peasants and labourers have been advised to take script money as forms of wages. This script money is subject to inflation and devaluation and hence it becomes what has been referred to as fictitious value. This is a situation where the real value part diminishes and the fictitious part increases with time. In the past times, script was backed by gold. However, this limitation was withdrawn. A principle example of the increasing fictitious worth is the fall of the Reich mark during the time prior to the Second World War Germany. In this situation, inflation was highly intense to a point where each and every individual had to posses wheel barrows filled with script money, which was rapidly devaluing, to buy one loaf of bread. It also worsened towards the end since labour had to be paid on hourly basis and they had to swiftly run out to spend the money before it lost value further. Thus what the labourers most had was fictitious value since a billion fold more was needed to buy a similar amount of goods that cost a tiny section of fraction of the amount a year earlier. Such devaluation facilitated by war reparation penalties for war damages to Europe as a result of the First World War. We live in a society with a consumerism culture where things like planned obsolescence, dangerous, dirty, boring, and underpaid work has been the norm of the world scale. The human’s focus has been diverted almost totally to the acquisition of money. This quest is no longer backed by the traditional value like gold. Individuals live isolated and alienated from nature. In case we took away the massive production facilities, the mega-cities, transportation, our power, individuals for the most part would not understand how to handle the new surrounding, which would be what has been left of a spoilt nature. Poll Pot did a similar thing which had a disastrous outcome for his subjects. He forcibly removed the entire population from the cities for his agrarian reform. Individuals who had obtained partial training from the cradle to work in an industrial mega-city had little or no knowledge of nature, agriculture and skills to deal with the current realities. In the case where a specific job that one did disappears, the individual who is hence isolated and alienated from the gone job is obliged to retrain or even relearn the old skills or techniques of doing things. Alienation exists too in the form in which many individuals have highly specialized functions on the line of assembly. In such a situation, not a single individual has the ability to do the full job. To complete a given process a host of skills which no single person is able of learning them within a single life time. Moreover, the amount of skills collected in each of the completed product fixes it out of the reach of most of the labourers. These individuals then turn to the banks and other financial institutions who exploit this with credit and loans for cars and houses which are charged at interest. At a point where the job is lost, the financial institutions and banks holding the legal title, claims the cars or house and keeps the entire payments made to that particular instance. This forms one of the most prevalent kinds of alienation of labour away from what they produce in the present society. Whatever is witnessed currently is a lot filled with the surplus production of mega-factories which no single individual can afford to buy as a result of unemployment. Individuals lose homes and where labourers struggle hard to obtain titles lose the building together with all the payments to the mortgage which are held by the bank. These individuals end up being homeless. These banks then hold the vacant houses which do not generate any income and become “toxic assets”. Authorities and governments have to step in to prevent further loses and disaster. However, such interventions by governments are often unsuccessful. A number of insurance companies have collapsed as a result of this. This is what comprises modern alienation in the contemporary world. According to Karl Marx, the governments and banks also greatly contribute to alienation in the societies. Governments and banks have a trick which is based on nationalization of pubic assets. The governments and other authorities hold ownership up to a time they deem well enough again to allow for privatization. Such a cycle goes forth and back in a lockstep to the benefit of the economy. The weaker enterprises and businesses are wiped out and the assets are taken over by those who survive the cycle. The labourer who has then been alienated is left with the struggle for continual re-training, consumerism, money and distractions which is in plenty in the current society. Alienation from nature, the factors of production, and the product that is produced, from service and by the atomization of the working force by knowledge and skill and shift work gives a definition to the current state of alienation. Marx’s theory of alienation is located in his analysis of the correlation that exists between the different classes of individuals which exist in society. It is also grounded in the manner in which these classes have developed within the social formation of capitalism. Labour produced not just the commodities but it also produces itself and worker as a product or commodity. The object which labour produces confronts it as alien. The product in this case faces the producer as a power independent of the producer. The outcome of labour is labour which has been enclosed in an object. This object has become a material. This is the process of objectification of labour. In such a case a labour’s realization is its objectification. In the context of political economy, the realization of labour seems to be a loss of realization for the labourers. The alienation of the labourer from his product implies that his labour becomes an object or commodity which exists externally and would always confront him since it is independent from the worker. The life which the worker has conferred on the object also challenges him as something alien and hostile. The fact that labour is external to the worker, he does not therefore affirm himself. Instead the worker denies himself and does not feel content. He is unhappy with himself. He does not develop his mental and physical energy freely. He instead mortifies his body and moves on to ruin his mind. In such an instance, the worker just feels himself outside his own work and in his work he feels outside himself. The worker feels at home, happy and free when he is not working. This is a situation where the worker’s labour is not voluntary but rather it is coerced. The worker is enslaved by his own work. This implies that the work is not actually the satisfaction of a need but rather it is a mere means to satisfy need and wants which are external to it. When Karl Marx talks about enlightenment, he implies that man finds turned against the human needs as well as the capacities which give the basis for his definition as human. According to him, the capitalist mode of production moves the relationship between humans into one between things which have power over humans. On the other hand, the world of objects takes on a seemingly more human existence. This occurs when commodities determine the actions for men. Another aspect of alienation according to Karl Marx is that man is estranged from his fellow human. According to him an instant result of the fact that man is estranged from the outcome of his own labour, from his life actions, from his species being, is just but tantamount to estrangement of man from man. Man has therefore been alienated against fellow man. Karl Marx asserts that in a capitalist state, work relations in the industries and factories or the social relations of production forms alienated labour since the workers lose control over the commodities and products that they produce. Humans also lose the control over the organization as well as the process of production. They further lose their own individual selves as species being and worse their relations with others. Since capitalism is a class society which is based on ownership of private property and inequality of economic ability and powers, labourers don’t control production as well as the activities that pertain to production. Workers do not make or set the pattern, priorities and rhythm within the workplace since the specialization and division of labour and work prevents them from doing so. Similarly, the workers cannot realize the potentials they have individually as social beings as they are not given the opportunity to practice and realize the impact that they can have on various situations. Eventually, individuals are compelled to work and operate in hierarchies with economic and political domination since they are unable to create productive and moral societies which are based on the principles of mutual democratic citizenship and sharing. The activity that is intend and expected to anticipate and encourage human self-realization as well as individual fulfilment leads to lives full of exploitation and suffering instead. Human labour functions to bind the worker just more closely to institutions of alienation as well as wage slavery. According to Marx, the more the labourer produces the less he has to consume; and the more value he makes the more worthless he becomes; the more refined his commodity the more simple and misshapen the labourer; the more civilized the commodity the more barbarous the labourer; the more authoritative the labourer the more weak the labourer; the more the work manifests intelligence the more the labourer vanishes in intelligence and became a solve of nature. Within the framework of alienated labour, Marx looks at nature and science as just specific forms of production of production that comes under its general law. Such aspects as morality, religion and culture are not independent entities which exist in some abstract forms and a historical set of ideas. Rather, they are profound manifestations of alienation as well as the loss of control over their lives by individuals. In capitalist communities, private property is the basic and material form of alienated labour. The theoretical expression of such a society is the natural science. A theoretical form of consciousness which is alienated is science. Such consciousness ideologically hides our relation to nature and the physical surrounding. It as well distorts this environment. Such a situation takes place in both natural science and political economy. Nature and science are hence historical forms of industrial production as well as market relations. These forces are manifestations of the intense class divisions as well as power relations that exist in the society. Karl Marx argues that truth is an alienated consciousness which is produced within a social framework composed of class domination and political economy. Thus the individual is not just separated from the means and factors of production but also from truth and nature. Alienation prevents the potential and ability in humans for self consciousness and creativity which are essential in the satisfaction of human wants, for the institutionalization of basic rights as well human emancipation, and also for the development of real and true democracy based on participatory principle. It is crucial to understand that the alienation according to Marx is not simply a matter of confusion or subjective feeling. Individuals make decisions on daily basis which at times have unintended outcomes. Such outcomes join together to create social forces of large scale. These forces may have unpredicted consequences. According to Marx, the institutions of capitalism which are in themselves the products of our behaviour come back to modify and structure the behaviour of our future lives. This does determines the possibility of actions that we shall take. For instance, as long as a capitalist wants to remain in business he ought to exploit his workers to every legal limit possible. The capitalist has to exploit the worker to the maximum and ruthlessly for him to stay in the field. Similarly, the labourer ought to take the best job that is on offer as he simply has no any other option. However, by taking this step, we support the very structures which are forces of oppression against us. The systems of governance have worked toward depriving the common citizen of his right to determine issues for himself. In a capitalist political society, the authority to govern is held by the rich minority. These are the individuals who dictate the manner in which issues and matters are to be conducted in the society. The ruling class uses the powers that they are vested upon to shape the aspects of life for the entire society without necessarily looking at or taking the opinions of the citizenry into consideration. Whenever a regime comes into power it utilizes the opportunity to form political elite which then becomes joined or transforms itself into the economic elite. Such a political group or elite would centre on accumulating wealth in, terms of land, companies among other assets. This elite class would then employ the citizens who only have their labour as a means to earn a livelihood. The capitalist class fixes the prices for the labour which are always very low and not sufficient enough to enable them invest in other economic activities. The labourers lack the ability to determine whatever they want in their lives. They are literally alienated from making decisions about their own lives. According t Karl Marx, alienation is a concept that systematically and solely has its roots in capitalism. He further observes that within the mode of production based on capitalist labourers lose determination their destinies and lives as they are deprived of the right and privileges to conceive of themselves as the director of their deeds, to ascertain and determine the nature of the actions, to determine their relationships with other actors in the society, and have the ownership of the value or use whatever is produced by their deeds. The workers in a capitalist society become self-realized and autonomous beings. However, they remain to be under the direction of the bourgeoisie whose motive is instilling maximum exploitation n them. Each worker, by working, contributes to the common wealth. Alienation in a capitalist society occurs since the worker can only express this social aspect which is fundamental through a system of production which is not collective owned but is rather owned privately. In such a privatized asset each of the individual workers works not as a social being but rather as a tool or an instrument within the system. Conclusion Karl Marx work’s explains the manner in which individuals are alienated by different forces in the society. The main cause for the existence of alienation in the society is capitalism as a form of production. Capitalism exists both in the economic and politic realms of the society. The political regimes in capitalist societies would often be the capitalist class or the bourgeoisie. They hence control the factors of production in the society and manage it for their own befit. The capitalist class hence dictates the conditions surrounding the lives and working condition of the working class. The fate of the proletariat in a capitalist society lies with the decisions made by the ruling bourgeoisie. Politically this is extended to situations where the ruling regime determines everything regarding the lives of their subjects. The citizens are suppressed completely and exposed to situation where they are not in a position to determine the manner in which they want the society to be governed. It is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This is what is generally referred to as alienation by Karl Marx. Workers and citizens are generally exposed to four types of alienation by their capitalist ruling class according to Karl Marx. To start with, alienation of the manual worker from the job is evident from the work he does. This is the outcome of his labour. The worker does not determine the nature of the product he is to produce; the capitalist class does the design. Second is the alienation of the labourer from working. The worker is alienated from the action of production itself by making a discrete sequence of production where the individual does not feel part of the entire process of production. Third is the alienation of the employee from himself as a manufacturer. The worker is meant to work as a machine or rather a tool or equipment in the production process. The individual loses the sense of self determination and does not perform the duty as he would wish but rather as the system and the owners of the means of production would wish. Lastly is alienation of the labourer from other workers. This is facilitated by the fact that capitalist reduce labour into a good that can be traded on the market as opposed to a social relationship which would exist between persons who are concerned in a common effort meant to improve their society. References: Avineri, S. (1999).The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press Berlin, I. & Ryan, A. (2002), Karl Marx: His Life and Environment, Oxford, Oxford University Press Bideleux, R. and Jeffries, I. (1998). A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change, Routledge, London. Buchanan, A. (1982). 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