Karl Marx Alienation

In this essay I will examine Karl Marx’s theory of alienation. Firstly I will explain Karl Marx’s views on human society, capitalism and how it leads to alienation. After explaining alienation I will discuss it more in depth, to do so I will primarily look at three main aspects of alienation. The first aspect being one’s alienation from their own work. From here I will discuss the second aspect which is one’s alienation from themselves. Lastly I will discuss the third aspect; how workers were alienated from each other. Marx viewed humans as social beings; individuals had wants that could not be satisfied outside of society . Another aspect that is important to understand Marx views is how he saw free individuality; for an individual having

Alienation from one’s self is similar to the way one is alienated from their work; because an individual loses freedom over their own work, their work becomes meaningless to that individual’s being . More so, a worker does not have control over what happens to the product that they have created . With this in mind, Marx’s belief about productive activity must be considered; this is that, “productive activity is often referred to as life itself. So it is more than a turn of phrase when Marx says, ‘The worker puts his life into the object.’” Consequently, his life is now part of that product he has created , this then creates alienation because he becomes less himself, and therefore the worker becomes alienated from

Due to the nature of capitalism it creates competition; the better worker makes more capital, for in a capitalist society capital is what one is to strive for. As a result of this competition workers alienate themselves from each other for they are all competing for the same thing . Because of this competition the worker also no longer, “… [Saw] his own objective activity publicly recognized as enriching the community, the worker competed with other [workers] to sell his power of labor, and with it, his power of self-assertion.” This resulted in the worker becoming nothing but that; a worker, his peers competing against him. Therefore, workers isolated and alienated themselves from each other . Leading on from this, another aspect to look at is the capitalist class system; for the classes create alienation in society, through alienating a worker from his boss, or alienating a worker from a friend who climbs to a different class. Because the worker creates products for his superior, he is nothing but capital to that superior, so unlike the worker he does not labour for capital . Because of this the superior does not have the same ill effects from the capitalist system as the worker does, this leads to alienation in society. For the life that the capitalist leads is so alien to the worker, and the capitalist does not view the worker as equal. And so consequently, this creates