Alienation and Social Classes - Essay Example

The main concept of this reading is that in addition to labor creating goods, it also produces itself and the worker as a commodity. The proportion in which labor produces itself and the worker as a commodity is identical to the proportion in which it produces goods (Grusky, 2008). This makes the value of the worker decrease as the value of what he produces in labor increases. This reveals that the power of the product produced by a worker in labor works against him as an alien being thus producing what we call objectification of labor (Marx, 1978).

This reading reveals that the devaluation of the human world increases with an increase in the value of things. This is because of objectification of labor and work that makes work to be an object that assumes external existence and exists independently outside him. This makes work an alien object to the worker resulting in one of the author’s main concepts that are alienation (Marx, 1978). The alienation when put into political-economic context defines social classes that are part of the author’s overall work.

According to Chomsky (1999), neo-liberalism refers to the policies and processes whereby a small group of people is permitted to control the social life of others as much as possible to maximize their profit. It has been very prevalent especially in the working-class community and has resulted in some form of social and economic inequality among people in this group of citizens. It has made employees benefit less from their work resulting in some form of alienation and has made few individuals, especially the employers to be the key people who benefit from a worker's improved performance.

It is believed that this system has exploited global labor markets and has sustained an assault on the economic status of all workers. It has also resulted in a reduction in the quality of life experienced by the working population and it has influenced the democratic choice that these people can make. This has resulted in the creation of some form of alienation since the workers no longer enjoy the fruits of their performance thus they do not enjoy working. Moreover, it has resulted in differences in the reward of work thus resulting in the creation of social classes (Hyslop-Margison, & Sears, 2006).