Tuesday, September 24, 2019

What are the links between class and alienation according to Marx Essay

What are the links between class and alienation according to Marx - Essay Example the civilised epoch, namely, the idea that some time in the past people lived in harmony, and then there was some kind of rupture which left people feeling like foreigners in the world, but some time in the future this alienation would be overcome and humanity would again live in harmony with itself and Nature. Marx, a social philosopher developed his understanding of alienation in criticizing the work of Hegel where he found the existence of the experience in modern bourgeois society (Encyclopaedia of Marxism, 2004) (Paraphrasing Made). Encyclopaedia of Marxism (2004), said that Marx’s work, written in 1844, shows how alienation arises from private labour and from commodity production citing excerpt from Marx (1844) saying: â€Å"Let us review the various factors as seen in our supposition: My work would be a free manifestation of life, hence an enjoyment of life. Presupposing private property, my work is an alienation of life, for I work in order to live, in order to obtain for myself the means of life. My work is not my life.† Encyclopaedia of Marxism (2004) explained that Marx went on to show that the specific form of labour characteristic of bourgeois society, wage labour, corresponds to the most profound form of alienation. It argued that since wage workers sell their labour power to earn a living, and the capitalist owns the labour process, the product of the workers’ labour is in a very real sense alien to the worker. Moreover, it said that it is not her product but the product of the capitalist and that the worker makes a rod for her own back. (Paraphrasing Made). Encyclopaedia of Marxism (2004) said that once a product enters the market, no-one has any control of it, and it sets off on a course which appears to be governed by supra-human laws. It quoted Marx (2005), Capital Volume One saying: â€Å"... with commodities. ... It is a definite social relation between men that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In

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