Essay On Marx Alienation

Marx believed in objectification when it came to labor, or essentially the outside/visible things we create are the workings of our internal thoughts—in my job, this is seen when I program accounts for our call takers as I make the visible (the account the agent works from) by thinking internally what the way to get the best functionality of the account would be. Marx though had some other theories about labor such as how work is a material thing, i.e. we farm for the food, we dig for the oil, etc. Marx believed that labor transforms us in terms of what we need, our level of self-consciousness, and so on. Marx though thought of work as the human need to work due to their needs—this is relatable as I work because I need to money, I need the money because I have bills and because I am in college. There is though an interesting topic that pretty much every job has that Marx thought of—alienation. Alienation, according to Marx, is
the result of us (the worker) seeing little to no purpose of our work because it isn’t of our own ideas. Marx had four different ways of which alienation occurs. First, because we as a worker do not produce what we are doing on our own accord/ideas or even to satisfy our wants and desires, we are alienated because our needs are not met. Second, the product produced by us the worker is not owned by us (the proletariat, or working class), but is instead owned by the bourgeoisie (owns means)—this means if we as the worker want to own the product, we must obtain it like everyone else does via buying the product. Third there is alienation from coworkers even, this ranging from where the workers are in terms of location at the work place to even the amount of competition the workers feel against their fellow workers in order to keep the employer happy. Finally, Marx believed in alienation of human potential—essentially the employer works the employees to feel as though they are a number, to where the worker begins to see even things like emotion and how they work programmed into their brain by the employer. Marx had some good theories about labor and a great view on alienation, but what does Weber say about another thing commonly seen in the workplace? Weber had a theory about bureaucracy, that it was ideal-typical. A bureaucracy can be thought of as the “red-tape” if you will that one must go through in an organization in order to get what they need or desire. The ideal-typical bureaucracy was thought of like this: offices in the organization that had specific rules, offices had specific tasks and authority in an organization, the organization follows a hierarchical set up, and so on. Think of bureaucracy like this: you need to get a ream of printer paper, but in order to do so you must fill out (in duplicate) the needed forms to submit to your boss who will then approve and send up the ladder to someone else for approval. Every job we have has a form of bureaucracy and even a form of alienation—take for example my job. I am a supervisor in a call center division that employs about twenty people.
The types of alienation I see are probably much like other call centers: my ideas are not what I end up producing, and I feel as though I am a number. Bureaucracy in my job is I (shift supervisor) send something to my boss for approval, who sends to her boss for approval, who sends to his boss for approval—this is not a very effective nor efficient way we run our operations. Does this change my investment in my job, not really as it is the people I work with that motivate me to return every day. I would say to combat others feeling alienated, I would increase their pay to increase their commitment to the job itself and also follow a restructure of management by getting rid of the bad apples and replacing with newer, more competent and understanding upper management. In conclusion, any workplace will have alienation and bureaucracy—you just have to look for it. Always be willing to take your ideas to the owners and present why you came up with
it.