Karl Marx - Alienation

Alienation

In Karl Marx’s Selected Writings he describes the ways in which labor can lead to the alienation of the worker. First he describes a cause as the objectification of the worker and labor. Next he shows how a separation of the worker and the activity of working takes away from the essence of life. From there he argues the essence of being is lost because the worker does not have the identity of his work. And finally he describes an alienation due to the separation of worker and capitalist. The first type of alienation occurs because there is an inverse relationship between the worker and product. Marx starts by describing the worker and labor as commodities. “Labor not only produces commodities, it also produces itself and labor as a commodity, and indeed in the same proportion as it produces commodities in general”(Simon 59). As the worker and his labor are viewed as commodities to be used as means for an end, they turn into objects. And Marx believes because the more the worker produces the owner becomes wealthier, therefore making the worker relatively poorer. This inverse relationship forces the worker deeper into the cycle and further away from the object of his labor. “So much does the appropriation of the object appear as alienation that the more objects the worker produces, the fewer he can own and the more he falls under the domination of his product, of capital”(Simon 60). The more the worker produces the more he becomes alienated from his production. Next Marx describes alienation as the separation of the worker from the very act of working. He believes the means of life are found in the act of labor and when everything is objectified the worker loses contact.
“The more the worker appropriates the external world and sensuous nature through his labor, the more he deprives himself of the means of life in two respects: first, that the sensuous external world gradually ceases to be an object belonging to his labor, a means of life of his work; secondly that it gradually ceases to be a means of life in the immediate sense, a means of physical subsistence of the worker”(Simon 60).
The world and nature around him, a part of life, departs from the worker when he does not own the final product. Further alienation comes from the fact that through his labor he is no longer trying to fulfill just his physical subsistence, a natural part of life. Labor for a private owner causes the worker to lose touch with life because his work does not come within as a natural and creative act but instead one of a slave to an entrenching cycle. “Political economy conceals the alienation in the nature of labor by ignoring the direct relationship between the worker and production”(Simon 61). The act of working disguises that life is found through the working for a product. But as the product becomes further away from the worker the means of life found through the act of working becomes further alienated as well. “And that worker does not affirm himself in his work but denies himself, feels miserable and unhappy, develops no free physical and mental energy but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind”(Simon 62). Work becomes completely external to the worker and he loses the gratification that can be gained from work. Therefore he becomes further separated from it. Marx describes a third type of alienation as “species-being.” Men find the essence of life in working. We can observe this for animals only make what is absolutely necessary to survive. “The animal builds only according to the standard and need of the species to which it belongs while man knows how to produce according to the stand of any species and at all times knows how to apply an intrinsic standard to the object. Thus man creates also according to the laws of beauty”(Simon 64). The fact that man does not just work to survive but finds pleasure in working to produce a product that brings them pleasure shows the essence of being in work. When man is alienated from labor, they lose identity and therefore identity with each other.
“In general, the statement that man is alienated from his species existence means that one man is alienated from another just as each man is alienated from human nature. The alienation of man, the relation of man to himself, is realized and expressed in the relation between man and other men. Thus in the relation of alienated labor every man sees the others according to the standard and the relation in which he finds himself as a worker”(Simon 65).
The relationship from man to man can be identified through the acknowledgment of what they produce as reflection of self. When individuals lose contact with their product they lose a sense of relation to others. The final form of alienation comes from one having the means to private property and what is produced, therefore separating themselves form the workers who produce but do not own. “Thus through alienated externalized labor does the worker create the relation to this work of man alienated to labor and standing outside it. The relation of the worker to labor produces the relation of the capitalist to labor”(Simon 66). Using labor to produce for a select few separates these two groups. They are alienated from private property and they have given up a sense of self to produce that private property. The alienation of the laborer is a result of private property and a few owning the means of production. The others are forced to work for these owners and in doing so are alienated and lose part of the essence of life. Marx finds importance in labor and the pleasure in ones product. The separation of the worker from enjoying making this product and owning the final product has ultimately caused them to lose some of their identity.