During this paper I will confront Marx’s ideas on alienation, oppression, and domination. I will then discuss Philip Kain’s ideas on how housework and childcare can be both unalienated labor but also the greatest oppression. I will then conclude with my thoughts on the subject matter. Marx thought that you could have domination and oppression without alienation; however, you could not have alienation without domination and oppression. Marx believed that alienation happened when workers no longer saw themselves in their work. Alienation occurs when someone no longer works to sell his or her property to another person. But rather they sell their time in order to live, and create these products not because they get joy out of it, but because …show more content…
This therefore creates an incentive to keep costs low and selling prices high which results in instability making these workers further reliant on the capitalist who buy their labor. This is a form of oppression and domination of the workers because the boss profits based on the exploitation of workers. Once these workers are being alienated, dominated, and oppressed there is a progression that happens. They are first alienated from their own labor; they are a part of just one piece of the labor that goes into making the product. This makes their jobs menial and tedious, the workers do not find joy or fulfillment in their jobs and no longer see their labor in the product. They are also alienated from one another, in this system people are placed in competition with one another and therefore they only look after themselves to make sure they get the best benefits. They are then alienated from their product labor, they work for a product that does not matter to them and that they have no passion for. The last form of alienation is that they are alienated from themselves; by being apart of this system, it does not allow us to contribute …show more content…
Kain describes that when workers become alienated they no longer control their products and their products do not belong to them. They also do not control themselves, their activity is controlled by and produces product for another. Once all this occurs, workers become alienated from themselves and their species. Humans then no longer work for the benefit of the community, but for the benefit of the capitalists. This results in an alienated dehumanized world. Kain says that those doing housework would be in control of their product. The housework remains under the control of the women. The products they produce like laundry do not take on a mind of their own like products in a market. Most importantly housework is not alienation of the species. Childcare is working for the benefit of the future of the species. This is the paradigm of labor that produces a humanized object because you are literally educating and shaping another human being. All things that are involved in housework are difficult, however, they are also satisfying and can be creative. However, once it becomes expected of the woman and she is coerced into doing the housework and childcare it then becomes
The final form of estrangement is alienation of man to man. Since the worker’s product is owned by someone else, the worker regards this person, the capitalist, as alien and hostile. The worker feels alienated from and antagonistic toward the entire system of private property through which the capitalist appropriates both the objects of production for his own enrichment at the expense of the worker and the worker’s sense of identity and wholeness as a human being.
With the emergence of an industrial working class that arrived from the farms and countryside new theories and ideologies about the political economy began to appear. Karl Marx, a political philosopher during this time, introduced the idea of "alienation of labor". His theory proposed that labor has the ability to create a loss of reality in the laborer because the laborer himself becomes a commodity or object due to the nature of work. In terms of the roles of women it can be argued that the effect is even greater due to the limited choices of work available. This theme is expressed in literature through the writings of Gilman and Alcott.
What does alienation mean? "Alienation (or "estrangement" means, for Marx, that man does not experience himself as the acting agent in his grasp of the world, but that the world (nature, others and he himself) remain alien to him. They stand above and against him as objects, even though they may be objects of his own creation. Alienation is essentially experiencing the world and oneself passively, receptively, as the subject separated from the object." 1.(ch5, Marx's Concept of Man, by Erich Fromm) Alienation for what I understand it to be, is that I as a human being, (subject), I'm living my life with out being able to dictate what I want to do with it. The oppressors of my world are the ones dictating what I'm supposed to be doing with it. This creates my alienation from my world; making me live a life of oppression. You basically become a slave to your world.
This is because it allowed for the emergence of the powerful Bourgeoise, "In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” As Marx explained , the Bourgeois exploited the Proletariats through the means of the long hours the laborers had to endure to receive very low wages, which maximized Bourgeois profits. Furthermore Marx claimed that "The conditions of Bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them ...it has also called the into existence the men who are wield to those weapons -the modern workers.” The elites have created a very exclusive market, In order for the market to be placed effectively; the Bourgeoisie depended on the exploitation of others to remain wealthy. Marx perceived this tactic that allowed the bourgeoisie to overthrow their predecessors could be used against the bourgeoisie in the long term. Nevertheless, the way to abolish the Bourgeois was for the Proletariats to revolt against the factories in their areas and destroy the technology inside the factories, this allowed for the return of skilled
Commodity fetishism has blinded people into believing that value is a relationship between objects, when in reality, it is a relationship between people. This in turn, prevents people from thinking about the social labor condition workers have to endure; they only care and value about how much objects costs. They think that the source of the value comes from the cost, but it truly comes from labor (FC). Through this objectification stems alienation and estrangement. Marx starts with the assumption that humans have an intrinsic quality. As human beings, individuals like to be create and manipulate his or her environment. Creating is a part of people; therefore, people their being into their creations. However, Marx postulates that capitalism and specialized division of labor separates that working class from their creations in four ways- through alienation from the product, the labor process, one’s species-being, and humanity itself. The working class suffers through this hostility to make create more wealth for owners of factories. They get trapped in a cycle to make products for profit, but as automation advances, machines begins to take over people’s jobs; therefore, there less employment opportunities available, which in turn allows factory owners to decrease wages and exploit and devalue the working class (EL). In the The Poverty
Marx’s theory of alienation is concerned primarily with social interaction and production; he believes that we are able to overcome our alienation through human emancipation.
People work based on goals capitalist to pay them. In capitalism, labor is no longer a goal in itself but as an expression of the ability, potential of humanity and effort to earn money. The individual who experienced alienation in capitalist society is basic focus of Mark analysis in the structure of capitalism that became the source of alienation. Marx used the concept of alienation to the influence of capitalist production on people and on society. The most important thing is the two-class system in which capitalists use and treat workers (and thereby, their working time) and their production (tools and raw materials) as final products and workers are forced to spend their time to work to the capitalist in order they can
Marx states that the bourgeoisie not only took advantage of the proletariat through a horrible ratio of wages to labor, but also through other atrocities; he claims that it was common pract...
The concept of alienation plays a significant role in Marx's early political writing, especially in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1848, but it is rarely mentioned in his later works. This implies that while Marx found alienation useful in investigating certain basic aspects of the development of capitalist society, it is less useful in putting forward the predictions of the collapse of capitalism. The aim of this essay is to explain alienation, and show how it fits into the pattern of Marx's thought. It will be concluded that alienation is a useful tool in explaining the affect of capitalism on human existence. In Marx's thought, however, the usefulness of alienation it is limited to explanation. It does not help in either predicting the downfall of capitalism, or the creation of communism.
Marx’s theory of alienation describes the separation of things that naturally belong together. For Marx, alienation is experienced in four forms. These include alienation from ones self, alienation from the work process, alienation from the product and alienation from other people. Workers are alienated from themselves because they are forced to sell their labor for a wage. Workers are alienated from the process because they don’t own the means of production. Workers are alienated from the product because the product of labor belongs to the capitalists. Workers do not own what they produce. Workers are alienated from other people because in a capitalist economy workers see each other as competition for jobs. Thus for Marx, labor is simply a means to an end.
The purpose of this paper is to view Marx's concept of alienation (estranged labour) and
THE TERM "alienation" in normal usage refers to a feeling of separateness, of being alone and apart from others. For Marx, alienation was not a feeling or a mental condition, but an economic and social condition of class society--in particular, capitalist society.
...s as a threat. So, they will compete with one another in order to receive more benefits. However, this type of alienation really benefits the bourgeoisie because if the workers are all competing to do better than their fellow beings, then the private owners are essentially going to gain a better profit.
Producing goods or services are dictated not by employees but by their employers. If profits exist, employers are the ones that benefit more so than the regular worker. “Even when working people experience absolute gains in their standard of living, their position, relative to that of capitalists, deteriorates.” (Rinehart, Pg. 14). The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Hard work wears down the employee leaving them frustrated in their spare time. Workers are estranged from the products they produce. At the end of the day, they get paid for a day’s work but they have no control over the final product that was produced or sold. To them, productivity does not equal satisfaction. The products are left behind for the employer to sell and make a profit. In discussions with many relatives and friends that have worked on an assembly line, they knew they would not be ...
Capitalism controls or enslaves the laborer by making his existence dependent on the process of production instead of the production of the labor for himself. The laborer is historically different in a capitalist society because he is separated from production. He no longer produces for himself but instead for the general wealth, or the wealth of the capitalist. Capitalism controls even the capitalist himself by turning him into a mechanism which acts as the driving force of capitalism. As a consequence, the capitalist creates a society which is alienating and brutal for the laborer. However, the domination of the capitalist system leads to the creation of a collective working group that can become a form for human development and the creation of new radical social changes.