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Marx's Position on Alienation Karl Marx focused his attention on fundamental problems of essence and existence of a man, alienation and overcoming of alienation, freedom and sense of history. Marx interpreted the essence of a man, as combination of social relationships. Any person is the result of his social interlocution's. The man participates in creation of traditions, stereotypes of behavior and character of each epoque. Such kind of sociality gains fundamental ontological sense. Marx considers that sociality of a person is responsible for creation of value orientation, modal conditions, economic relations, etc.
Marx repeats philosophical-historical scheme, according to which the history of human alienation and appropriation has three stages. The relations of personal dependence, when a person depends on something can be related to the first stage. All before-industrial societies can be interpreted from position of the first stage. The second stage is the relations of personal independence. It is a form of society, which understands creation of universal social exchange of material, universal relations and universal needs. The alienation of man reaches the maximum and Marx relates all the societies of industrial type to this stage.
The third stage is the stage of appropriation. Humankind appropriates all accumulated powers. It means creation of society, where everything serves to a man. Separate progress of a separate man depends on separate progress of each member of society. What was Marx attitude to alienation? He considers it as a problem, when the own action of a man becomes for him an alien power.
Such action influences the feelings of a man; it is the example of pressure on a man. The social labor makes a differentiation between the man and animals. It gives a man certain characteristics, but later it gains the violent character. Marx makes analysis of alienated labor in different aspects. In conditions, when the personal property exists and all means of manufacture belong to the capitalist and worker has to sell his labor force (the only thing which belongs to him), - appears alienation of manufacturer from the product of his labor. The worker does not care what he can produce, because he gets the salary for his working time.
Actually, as far as the salary is so small, that it is enough only to buy all the necessary, the worker does not put attention on his work. The manufacturer is also alienated from his activity. He does not choose to work or not. He does not take part in the management or perfection of the manufacturing process. So, as Marx considers, the worker is alienated.
Such intensive labor makes him stupid; it deprives him of health and interest to life. Karl Marx also examines ideas of Feyerbach, who stated that a man is tightly connected with nature. The person, who has some certain need, should realize himself in nature. Such person creates a lot of objects, which can help him to survive. In such a way he creates the second nature, which is personalized. The person can reach perfection only by means of practice.
When a man overcomes difficulties, he changes himself and that is why the labor has a historical meaning. Marx considers a human activity powerful. He attempts to foresee the flow of historical development and offers in his works some projects of the future. His philosophical anthropology includes two important concepts: alienation and appropriation. The problem of alienation is known for the Western European society. Goods and Rousseau understood alienation as the process of depersonalization, depriving of individuality in social relations, which is connected with transfer of personality rights to the government.
Hegel understood alienation as institutionalization of the mans power and his essence. If man is merely a phenomenon, then human problems also lose their urgency. In "Critique of Hegel's Dialectic and General Philosophy Marx develops the consequences of Hegel's reduction of the real subject to merely phenomenal status in a discussion of his conceptions of man and nature. He praises Hegel's achievement in discovering the dialectic of negativity, but claims that Hegel's usage of this principle leads him into error, since he conceives of both man and nature in an abstract manner.
Reality becomes merely mental and in consequence human problems such as alienation and re appropriation can be resolved on the mental level only. On the contrary, Marx objects that the various forms of human alienation are not merely mental, but are rather due to the structure of social relations. Hegel was driven beyond the finite perspective and that a central theme in Marx's criticism of the speculative philosophy is the concern to salvage man as the subject of experience. Now, it may well be that Marx is not successful in his endeavor. It has been argued that his view of man is unsuccessful and that in his later writings there is a shift to individual perspective in the economic analysis of capitalism.
But it seems nevertheless quite plain that the intent of his critique of the speculative theory leads him backward in the direction of pre-Hegelian attempts to understand man as the subject of experience, such as Kant, and in this sense at least his theory belongs in the Kantian tradition. According to Marx, the conception of man as an abstract being is not a contingent factor in the Hegelian position, since it is due to a fundamental misconception. Marx states that Hegel misconceives the human capacity for self-consciousness, albeit mans distinguishing characteristic, as equivalent to man. In Critique of Hegel's Dialectic and General Philosophy Marx states that it is as much an error to consider man under the aspect of self-consciousness as it is to reduce the object of consciousness to a purely mental creation. Marx considers that a worker can be free only beyond the process of labor. He can be free only when he satisfies his biological (animal) demands, whereas he should be free only due to his demand in labor.
The private property made us so stupid and one-sided, that a subject can be our property only in case we possess it or consume it. For this reason the feeling of alienation replaced all those physical and moral feelings. Marx considers that such position should be changed. He thinks that the man during the process of social emancipation should regain the social world and in such a way to become a whole, universal man.
Finally, you can overcome the alienation of a man from his own being only when youll change the conditions, creating such situation. Marx writes that the philosophers explained the world in different kinds, whereas they had to change it. Such position is supported to some extent by tradition of Enlightenment philosophy. It considered that it should bring in the reason into society; it should assist to progress, but always in radical way. Marx understands that private property, being the consequence of expropriated labor, did not exist always.
He considers that the way out is possible only when labor socialist movement will know about the scientific socialism. Such socialism explains which historical rules brought to existing contradictions and which rules assist to destruction. He criticizes positions of socialists and indicates that the relations, existing in our society are difficult to change by words or demands of justice. Marx says that there is only one way out to abolish private property and all existing economical relations by the revolutionary way. In such a way, according to Marx, proletariat becomes the class, which is able to complete such historical mission, because the proletariat is the main manufacturer of material values and is the poorest and at the same time the most solidary.
Mans alienation from other men holds many of the same truths as the other sorts of alienation. This form of alienation can be seen as a basis for the other forms. This category of alienation can be further broken down into three sub-categories: alienation from fellow workers, alienation between worker and capitalist, and alienation of capitalist from capitalist. As Marx puts it, Workers competed against each other for jobs, and there were too many workers. For every worker who faltered or expressed dissatisfaction with working conditions, there were a dozen waiting at the employers door. As a result, workers were also alienated from each other and, of course, from the capitalist, who was making money from exploiting them. (Melchert, 520) In Marx's work on Alienated Labor he states, Thus we have now to grasp the real connection between this whole system of alienation - private property, acquisitiveness, the separation of labor, capital, and land, exchange and competition, value and the devaluation of man, monopoly and competition and the system of money. (Bailey, 32) As we see here, Marx is defining all the characteristics of a capitalistic society in relation to alienation.
With this in mind, it can only be true that the cause of alienation originates in a capitalistic, class society. Through the eyes of a person living in todays society, namely me, an assessment of Marx's analysis becomes apparent. Considering that Marx's writing on Alienated Labor was composed in the 19 th century, it would be absurd to claim that his arguments hold no ground. The aspects of each argument are still evident in society to this day. Today, men are alienated from their object of production, from the production process, from their species being, and finally from other men.
It is this truth (that Marx's views are still applied today) that gives Marx's analysis its strength. Alienation is present in all industries whether we believe it or not. I have found that there are no worthy points weak enough to touch on. After reviewing Karl Marx's thoughts on the meaning of alienation, the different sorts of alienation that he discussed, and the relationship of alienation to a capitalistic, class society, his concept of estrangement and how it affects a particular individual should be clearly evident. I feel that in the end, the attempt to draw a stark distinction between workers and property owners has been accomplished. Bibliography: Avineri, S.
The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. London Press, 1972. Bailey, Gordon, Not Gayle. Sociology: An Introduction. From the Classics to Contemporary Feminists. Toronto: Oxford, 1993.
Fromm, Erich. Marx's Concept of Man. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1966. Howard M. C.
and J. E. King. The Political Economy of Marx.
New York: Longmans, 1975. Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. 3 rd Edition. Toronto: Mayfield, 1999.
McLellan, David. Karl Marx: His Life and Thought. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. McLellan, David.
The Young Hegelian's and Karl Marx. London, 1969. Ollman Bertell. Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society.
New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society. Trans. and ed. Lloyd D. Easton and Kurt H.
Guddat. Garden City: Doubleday, 1967.
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