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Essay: Marx – link between alienation and capitalism

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  • Subject area(s): Economics essays
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  • Published: 18 January 2022*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
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  • Words: 1,462 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 6 (approx)
  • Tags: Marxism essays

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Marx’s contempt for the capitalist society of which he was surrounded in is seen clearly in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts written in 1844. These focus on the issue of alienated labour of which engulfs the early industrialist society he lives in. For Marx, the link between alienation and capitalism is inherent due to the ‘exploitation and injustice’ within the profit-fuelled structure of capitalism (Pappenheim, 1967: 81). It is important to note that both workers and capitalists are alienated within a capitalist system but for this essay, the focus will solely be on alienated labour. Marx splits this alienation into ‘four progressive degenerating senses’ (Dale, 2016: 91) which this essay will outline before assessing the extent that this concept is strictly linked to capitalism or whether it is present in all of human life. It will then argue that the link between alienation and capitalism can be undermined by Marx’s contradictory assessment of alienation and asses the level that his arguments can be valued today.

Before evaluating the links between capitalism and alienation, one must appreciate that the basis of Marx’s theories are on the Industrial Revolution over a century ago. Therefore, Marx is able to simplify the capitalist structure of society into the bourgeoisie – who own the means of production and capital produced – and the proletariat – who are the labour forced and can be named as the labour here. For Marx, labour should be a ‘use value’, in that it should be produced to satisfy man’s needs (McLellan, 1978). This is clear in his writing: ‘From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs.’ (Marx cited in Conly, 1978: 90) which can be simplified into one should make as much as he both can and should produce. Instead, in a capitalist society, labour becomes a commodity owned and controlled by bourgeoisie thus removing the human nature present in organic production and creating the ‘objectification of labour’ (Marx, 1844 cited in McLellan, 1978: 78). This concept of how the labourer is separated from the product of work is the first form of alienation that will be discussed. As the worker put effort and skills into his products as ‘is necessary and universal aspect of human life’ (Ritzer, 2000: 60), he becomes alienated from his capital as he has no control or ownership of it. Instead, his product ‘confronts [the labourer] as an alien being, as a power independent of the producer (Marx, 1844 cited in McLellan, 1978: 78). This distortion is a product of capitalist structure of society whereby the more the worker produces, the cheaper his labour becomes (McLellan, 1978). Where the capitalist replaces his product with a low wage, the objectification continues, as his value is removed and he becomes dominated by his capital in order to receive subsistence to survive (McLellan, 1978). This alienation is worsened by the increase in value of products as in return the value of labour diminishes.

Following on from this, a second key form of alienation is the alienation from labour. For Marx, production distinguishes man from other animals because “man through his own labour … sustains his own life and reproduces society and the human species” (Pappenheim, 1967: 85). The capitalist process whereby the worker has no connection with its product creates this form of alienation. The labourer has given away his skills in return for a low wage as nothing more than a commodity. Yet, the labourer has little other choice as this is his only chance of survival in a capitalist state. This is why Marx calls for the upheaval of the class system to be replaced with a communist state where labour is valued as ‘life’s prime want’ (Marx, 1891: 119). In context of contemporary British politics, Marx’s argument can be undermined by the declining size of the working class and greater relative power it has through trade unions. Thus, arguably Marx’s arguments are weaker in relation to modern times but it must be celebrated that they can still hold to a certain extent over a century on.

This leads to a third form of alienation is seen in the alienation of man from his ‘species-being’. A man’s species-being is described by Marx as a man’s ‘nature and his intellectual species-powers’ (Marx, 1844 cited in Dale, 2016: 329). In simpler words, our humanity. The process of labour is central to distinguishing man from animal and for allowing humans to become self-aware (Sayers,1994). Where, in a capitalist society, labour is sold as a commodity instead of part of human endeavour ‘nature, is torn…’ from the workers (Marx, 1844 cited McLellan, 1978). Work becomes more similar to slavery and freedom can only be expressed at home (Pappenheim, 1967). This self-alienation is seen in capitalist societies where work is paid by wage, given to workers in pursuit of survival instead of an expression of knowledge and skills (Pappenheim, 1967). Capitalism succeeds in alienating workers from their human potential to the extent they become oblivious to it. This is where Marx predicted that workers become aware and overthrow the bourgeoisie class. A key critique to this thought is that in the years since his writings, capitalism has remained dominant and has become largely accepted in the Western powers.

A final form of alienation that Marx describes is the ‘alienation of man from man’. Marx saw humans as inherently social beings (Sayers, 1994). Yet, he believed this characteristic was stunted by capitalism. This stems from the division of labour, an integral part of a capitalist society (Conly, 1978: 82). Through the enforcement of specific skills on groups of different workers, individuals become alienated from one another as they learn interests different from other sectors and so the whole community (Conly, 1978). Marx places this form of alienation above all others in saying that ‘all other forms of alienation’ are realised in the division of labour (Conly, 1978: 86). This alienation occurs similarly in the competition created in a capitalist society. Marx states that the political economy is driven by ‘greed and war among the greedy, competition’ (Marx, 1844 cited in McLellan, 1978). This occurs amongst both capitalists and labourers. For labourers, the competition for higher wages and to survive hinders chances of cooperation between workers leaving them isolated from one another (Ollman, 1977). Workers fail to realise they are competing to sell their human potential to capitalists whilst sacrificing human relationships.

in the demand created by division of labour to produce a surplus to create profit for the capitalists. Therefore, the worker competes with other workers to create surplus labour and is valued on this work, this enforces alienation with his produce and competition between men (McLellan, 1978). Marx critiques Proudhon’s solution to this problem of equal pay with the view that this would move power from the capitalist to society making society the ‘abstract capitalist’ (McLellan, 1978).

However, Marx’s argument that alienation is caused by capitalism is weakened by the beliefs of other theorists, such as Conly, that this alienation existed before the capitalist era. Looking specifically at alienation in the division of labour, during periods of tribal ownership, alienation existed between the specialisation of jobs within families (Conly,1978). Marx agrees it occured in forms of slave-labour and appears to contradict his own argument stated earlier (Marx cited in McLellan, 1978). This occurs again when he states directly that he believes alienation is seen in each production labour process before capitalism (Buchanan, 1979: 123). Similarly, as Marx believes labour freed from alienation should be attractive with ‘subjective and objective conditions’ (McLellan, 1978), Adam Smith argued against this stating that labour had always been unattractive. By this, he means that during pre-capitalist times periods of rest were seen as periods of freedom, with work being more of a chore (McLellan, 1978). Although this doesn’t alter the link between alienation existing in a capitalist society, it does undermine the view that it is created because of capitalism.

Critiques to this view have argued that alienation did not occur in the periods preceding capitalism as seen in Hegel’s writings contrasting the forms of societies (Dale, 2016). As Hegel writes, in the pre capitalist society workers laboured with the absence of competition, machinery and abuse that followed with capitalism, but worked ‘in all piety and probity’ (Engels, 1987: 50-51 cited in Dale, 2016). It was the creation of a capitalist state that brought with it the low conditions and morale of the working class with followed the alienation of the workforce (Dale, 2016). This argument is highlighted in Charles Dickens Dombey and Son, which follows a father who loses his humanity to a desire for profit brought about solely through a capitalist society (Dickens, 1848 cited in Dale, 2016). Yet, aspects of alienation in the form of obdurate division of labour can be seen to have existed since the origins of labour so this argument does not suggest that alienation is created exclusively in capitalism, but that capitalism creates alienation to a degree greater than seen in the periods preceding it.

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