Karl Marx about alienation - Essay Example

Karl Marx, in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844) unearths his ideas on alienation. The Marxian understanding of this particular notion can be generally stated as the laborer’s loss of control over labor. Labor, which is a crucial concept in Marxian frame-work, can be defined, in simple terms as the actual activity of producing services and goods. Marx makes a clear-cut distinction between labor and labor-power. The latter refers to the capacity of the engaging in labor or alternatively in the production of use-value. Marx argues that alienation is rooted in the material world and not somewhere else. Alienation of labor occurs only in a capitalist society, where capitalist modes of production exist. Marx identifies four different types of alienation. They are a) the alienation of the laborer from the product, b) the alienation of the laborer from the labor process, c) the alienation of the laborer from his fellow human beings and d) alienation of human beings from human nature. a) The alienation of the laborer from the product: In the capitalist mode of production, the ownership of the product produced by the labor-power of the laborers is not with them; rather, it is controlled by the capitalists. Before the upcoming of capitalism, labor was solely part of the laborer and was dependent on him. In such a situation, the laborer had full control over the production and use of anything he produced. In the new system, labor acquired the status of an object of external existence and thus it becomes autonomous. This autonomy gained by the product controls the worker and his labor. This is a form of alienation where the life given to the product by the laborer alienates its creator .As a result; the laborer becomes a commodity like any other product available in the market. b) The alienation of the laborer from the labor-process: The labor-process refers to the process of production. In the time prior to capitalism, the laborers had full control over the conditions in which he works. These conditions include how the work is organized, when to work, how the work affects the physical and psychological states of the laborer and so on. In the capitalist system, the worker lost control over these conditions. It is not only the case that he loses control over the conditions of production, but the control over those very conditions reach in the hands of forces hostile to them such as capitalist and their machineries. As a result of this, the worker becomes forced to work and this takes away his freedom to work creatively. Thus creative work gives way for forced-work. Another condition which emerged after the industrial revolution in this connection is the division of labor. The same work is divided and given among different laborers. This exercise steals the laborer’s control over his skills and creativity. Specialization destroys the laborers’ individual talents and skills. When a laborer is forced to do only those works which are highly specialized, it would result in mere repetition and the work is devoid of any element of creativity , at the end. Moreover, it destructs the unity of thought and action, conception and execution which is a real threat posed by capitalism. The conditions of work are predetermined, and because of this predetermination in work, the laborer in turn transforms into a machine. As a result, the subjective element of labor gets transformed into something objective and something which is measurable. This explains the alienation of the laborer from the process of labor. c) The alienation of the laborer from his fellow beings: Power relations vary with class relations in a capitalist system. Within such a system, one’s labor gets de-personalized. The laborer loses control over his labor and the capitalist becomes the owner of the worker’s product. The interest of the capitalist, at the same time is diametrically opposed to that of the laborers, and a hostile relationship is built and continues to stand between the employer and the worker from the very instance when one is employed by the capitalist. Living in a capitalist society, the worker becomes always aware of his weaknesses from which arises his hostile attitude towards his employer who acts as an authority of power at the other end. Thus alienation between individuals is bi-directional in a capitalist society. Individuals see each other through the lenses of profit and loss and see each other as competitors. People stop to know each other as individuals, but as mere extensions of capitalism. Capital gets individualized, and the individual is drained of his individuality. d) Man’s alienation from human nature: Marx says that the thing which makes us ‘human’ is our ability to consciously shape the world around us. This is the demarcating factor which differentiates a well-skilled animal from a laborer possessing minimal skills. Human beings can plan and imagine their products, whereas animals are not capable of doing this. Before the advent of capitalism, the laborers could experiences a sense of freedom to consciously imagine their labor and labor power. In the capitalist mode of production this sense of freedom gets lost and the individual’s control over one’s own labor is lost. In a capitalist society, the shaping of the world is not a free-act, rather it is coerced. This coercion transforms free labor into forced labor. Under the condition of alienation, human needs are reduced to economic needs and this phenomenon makes its presence in the capitalist society, one in which the goal of production is not the satisfaction of needs, but the valorization of capital. Thus human needs are transformed into effective demands and their human significance give way to their market viability. Capitalism embodies the most evolved and sophisticated human capabilities as they are expressed in scientific and technological achievements. By turning man on the one hand and human needs on the other into means, capitalism de- humanizes man. Marx on religion “Man makes religion and religion does not make man.”1 Yet, the very creator of religion, man gets alienated from his/ her real self, that is his/ her ‘species being’2, while trying to view God as separate from him/ herself. Human beings through their attempts to project themselves to God tend to devalue their ‘species- being’ and the more they try to project themselves to God the greater becomes the level of alienation from one’s self. Thus this tool of religion can be well utilized by the ruling classes to alienate the laborer from his real self in order to fulfill their capitalist interests. The only purpose of religion at this juncture is to sedate society, and this sedation leaves the society in a place where it fails to see reality of its world, owing to the capitalist culture in which the society dwells. Religion is an inverted or false world- consciousness because of which the capitalist society produces religion to conceal the real state of affairs. For Marx, to treat alienation as a spiritual condition is inappropriate. Such a way of looking at it is illusory and therefore a spiritual solution to it is also illusory, and that illusion is religion. Marx on the other hand traces alienation to the interrelated human phenomena namely, private property, division of labor and commodity production and not anything like fate or original sin as theologians say. Alienation is a purely human condition. Though man is increasing his capacity for production, he does not experience himself proportionally as an active agent in relation to the world, but as something alien to him standing above and against him as objects, though they are objects of his creation. Marx on human nature To understand the concept of alienation and its kinds, one needs to know the underlying Marxian notions on human nature. These Marxian ideas about human nature build the platform for his criticisms on religion and capitalism. Marx has a non-essentialist conception of human nature. At the same instance, Marx is not rejecting the idea of human nature in itself either. For him, human beings are devoid of a fixed nature as such, irrespective of the societies to which they belong. Human nature encompasses both the common human needs and the unique capacities of man that bring about historically changing production relations. The social relations that constitute the capitalist society undermine human nature to the extent unparalleled in history. “The entire so called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labor, nothing but the emergence of the nature of man.”3 Human essence achieves its existence by its productive expression. Underlying the productive life, which is man’s species character are human needs and human capabilities which are constitutive of the human essence. Therefore man is not a product of nature. The only feature which is consistent with all human societies is the need to labor on nature to satisfy human needs. Working on nature changes the human laborer and nature. The capacity for conscious labor is the ‘species being’ of humans. Thus labor becomes the source and basis of human relationships with each other, and any change in this species being transforms the nature of human relations. Marx’s concept of alienation, human nature, capitalism, religion and so on are inter related in such a way that its gives a holistic picture of the historical development of society and the human condition along with it. Marx gives a holistic theoretical construct which addresses the human condition from a historical perspective. The human society is a complex network of various factors and explaining it only in terms of economics is a too reductive account. The supposed entirety of human life and society is not explored much in Marxism because of this reason. Marxism considers religion and all cultural and social relations as byproducts of economic relations of production which occupies the base structure in his model. Yet, it is possible to conceive of the socio-cultural relations as distinct from their economic foundations, in most of the real life situations. Marx’s conceptual apparatuses and their inter-connection therefore cannot be considered as giving a grand theory in terms of its explanatory power. At the end of the day, it is more or less a reductionist account, which forms the reasons for my abstinence from complete agreement to his theory. Read More