Alienated Labor and Exploit of Workers

According to Marx alienated labor is the result of workers no longer being tied to their products or their consumption and this allows the workers to be easily exploited. This term is focused mostly on factory workers who really only have a brief time producing certain parts of a product but never really get to be involved in the production and consumption of the finished product. These workers are convinced to believe that their contribution is not worth as much as the finished product all-together and therefore they are easily exploited because they are socially constructed to believe their work is not as valuable as others.

However, although I do agree with this in terms of factory workers I also believe that it goes farther than this. I don’t think that Marx considered other types of works in this theory. I believe there are many other occupations in which alienated labor plays a role. Although certain occupations are tied to their products and their consumption more so than a factory worker, they are still being exploited. So many workers not in management positions are convinced that their work doesn’t mean as much or that their job is not hard and in turn they are willing to accept lesser pay than they truly deserve.

For one example, I personally hostess in a restaurant and although it sounds as though the work is simple, it is the complete opposite. Dealing with people who have no patience and having to constantly keep yours under control, while trying to please the customers as well as your own boss is not easy. Not only is it a toll on me physically to be standing all day without a break but it also takes a toll on me emotionally and what is that worth? No one can put a price on emotional stress but yet they do and ...

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...hing and nicer cars than what would people be working so hard for? No one would work as hard in order to just be leveled with everyone else. People work to be rewarded, they want to be recognized for what they have done and that is not a simple thing to do, get recognized. But once people are recognized, it makes all the work seem to be worth it for something and it also increases motivation to keep going.

Not only are different classes of people good for motivational purposes but without people in higher power it would be chaos trying to set rules and regulations. There needs to be structure in a society and there needs to be a higher power in order to get people to follow along. There has to be consequences, otherwise there would be no purpose for anything. If there were no lesser paying jobs then people wouldn’t strive for an education or to better themselves.