Introduction

The process of alienation is central to Marxian theory of class struggle. The economic

exploitation and inhuman working conditions leads to increasing alienation of man.

Alienation results from a lack of sense of control over social world. The social world

confronts people as a hostile thing, leaving them “alien” in the very environment that they

have created. The workers caught in the vicious circle of exploitation find no way to get out

of it. Hence they lose interest in work. Work become an enforced activity not a creative and a

satisfying one. The responsibility of the worker get diminished because he does not hold the

tools with which he work, he does not hold the final product too. He is “a mere cog in the

machine and nothing else”. This situation of alienation ripens the mood of a worker for a

conflict.

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 Review of literature

Marx,s theory of alienation - The first major topic of the Manuscripts is alienation, a term
that has many interpretations. Alienation has a technical and legal meaning, and we often use
it to describe how we are or feel separated from activities or situations which we do not like.
A dictionary definition is "withdrawing or separation of a person or his affections from an
object or position of former attachment" or, in the case of property, "a conveyance of
property to another." The notions of separation or transferring something to a new owner are
one way of considering alienation, and this is the way that Marx develops the term. For Marx,
the main aspect of alienation is the separation of work or labour from the worker, and
separation of the products of labour from the worker. Both end up being taken by employers
and controlled by them, dominating the worker

Hegel theory of alienation - According to Hegel, self-conscious Spirit evolves through a

series of different historical and social forms. Subjectivity, individuality, and freedom
develop through a process in which the self is alienated from itself and then comes to
recognise itself in its alienation, so that, at the end of the process, the self eventually comes
be at home with itself.

Alienation as objective phenomenon - In short, there is an individual, subjective dimension

to alienation and its overcoming. Will and choice are necessary. But they are not sufficient.
The self must also be able to express itself, to realise its will and objectify itself. In doing so
it comes up against existing objective conditions, and these may either facilitate its
expression or hinder it. In this way there is an objective dimension to alienation; and its
overcoming requires the existence of specific objective social conditions

Alienation as historic phenomenon – The historical theory of the self is one of Hegel's
great achievements as a philosopher. Marx follows and refines this historical account, adding
a realistic, material dimension to it. By contrast, writers like Kierkegaard and Heidegger take
the self-conscious self as directly given. In Kierkegaard this is simply presupposed. `Every
human being must be assumed in essential possession of what essentially belongs to being a
man' (Kierkegaard 1941, 318-19). Heidegger takes more care to justify his initial
assumptions. Nevertheless, the implications of his phenomenological approach are similar.
`Dasein' (self-conscious being) is taken as the immediate given starting point.

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 Objective

1. To know about Karl Marx and Hegel

2. To know his concept of Alienation
3. To study about its impact in society
4. To know the critique about its theory
5. To study the type of alienation

Research Methodology

It has focused on qualitative methods of research. Secondary and published documented

data has been collected through various sources and analyzed accordingly.

To make the study more meaningful and policy oriented available literature and studies
have been consulted and reviewed apart from this field observations and open ended
discussion have also been equally considered and incorporated in the present study. The
filled in questionnaires were thoroughly scrutinized and processed in computer for
drawing out inferences, patterns, trends and conclusions.

Various documents have been collected through different websites, and different books
have been analyzed accordingly, so as to reach to a particular conclusion.

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 Table of Content

1. Marx theory of alienation.............................................................................................7

2. The concept of alienation of Marx with that of Hegel..................................................9
3. Responses to the theory of Alienation........................................................................11
4. Hegel on alienation.....................................................................................................12
5. Marx on alienation......................................................................................................14
6. Types of alienation......................................................................................................14
7. Alienation as objective phenomenon..........................................................................19
8. Alienation as Historic phenomenon.............................................................................20
9. Problems with marx view of Alienation......................................................................22
10. Solutions of Alienation................................................................................................23
11. Major findings..............................................................................................................25
12. Conclusion....................................................................................................................26
13. Reference......................................................................................................................27

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 Marx Theory of Alienation

For Marx, the history of mankind had a double aspect: It was a history of increasing control
of man over nature at the same time as it was a history of the increasing alienation of man.
Alienation may be described as a condition in which men are dominated by forces of their
own creation, which confront them as alien powers. The notion is central to all of Marx's
earlier philosophical writings and still informs his later work, although no longer as a
philosophical issue but as a social phenomenon. The young Marx asks: In what circumstances
do men project their own powers, their own values, upon objects that escape their control?
What are the social causes of this phenomenon?1

To Marx, all major institutional spheres in capitalist society, such as religion, the state, and
political economy, were marked by a condition of alienation. Moreover, these various aspects
of alienation were interdependent. "Objectification is the practice of alienation. Just as man,
so long as he is engrossed in religion, can only objectify his essence by an alien and fantastic
being; so under the sway of egoistic need, he can only affirm himself and produce objects in
practice by subordinating his products and his own activity to the domination of an alien
entity, and by attributing to them the significance of an alien entity, namely money." "Money
is the alienated essence of man's work and existence; the essence dominates him and he
worships it." "The state is the intermediary between men and human liberty. Just as Christ is
the intermediary to whom man attributes al his own divinity and all his religious bonds, so
the state is the intermediary to which man confides all his non-divinity and all his human
freedom." Alienation hence confronts man in the whole world of institutions in which he is
enmeshed. But alienation in the workplace assumes for Marx an overriding importance,
because to hi man was above all Homo Faber, Man the Maker. "The outstanding achievement
of Hegel's Phenomenology . . . is that Hegel grasps the self-creation of man as a process. . .
and that he, therefore, grasps the nature of labor and conceives objective man. . .as the result
of his own labor."2

Economic alienation under capitalism is involved in men's daily activities and not only in
their minds, as other forms of alienation might be. "Religious alienation as such occurs only

1
http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/s3002.htm
2
http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/assets/files/society/pdfs/ro2012.pdf

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in the sphere of consciousness, in the inner life of man, but economic alienation is that of real
life. . . . It therefore affects both aspects."3

Alienation in the domain of work has a fourfold aspect: Man is alienated from the object he
produces, from the process of production, from himself, and from the community of his
fellows.4

"The object produced by labour, its product, now stands opposed to it as an alien being, as a
power independent of the producer. The more the worker expends himself in work the more
powerful becomes the world of objects which he creates in face of himself, the poorer he
becomes in his inner life, and the less he belongs to himself."

"However, alienation appears not merely in the result but also in the process of production,
within productive activity itself. . . . If the product of labor is alienation, production itself
must be active alienation. . . . The alienation of the object of labor merely summarizes the
alienation in the work activity itself."5

Being alienated from the objects of his labor and from the process of production, man is also
alienated from himself-he cannot fully develop the many sides of his personality. "Work is
external to the worker. It is not part of his nature; consequently he does not fulfill himself in
his work but denies himself. The worker therefore feels himself at home only during his
leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless." "In work [the worker] does not belong to
himself but to another person." "This is the relationship of the worker to his own activity as
something alien, not belonging to him activity as suffering (passivity), strength as
powerlessness, creation as emasculation, the personal physical and mental energy of the
worker, his personal life. . . . as an activity which is directed against himself, independent of
him and not belonging to him."6

Finally, alienated man is also alienated from the human community, from his "species-
being." "Man is alienated from other men. When man confronts himself he also confronts
other men. What is true of man's relationship to his work, to the product of his work and to
himself, is also true of his relationship to other men. . . . Each man is alienated from others . .

3
http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/
4
Supra note-1
5
http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/marx7.html
6
Supra note-3

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. each of the others is likewise alienated from human life." Marx would have liked the lines of
the poet, A.E. Housman, "I, a stranger and afraid/In a world I never made." Only Marx would
have replaced the poet's I with We.

The term alienation cannot be found in the later writings of Marx, but modern commentators
are in error when they contend that Marx abandoned the idea. It informs his later writings,
more particularly Das Kapital. In the notion of the "fetishism of commodities," which is
central to his economic analysis, Marx repeatedly applies the concept of alienation.
Commodities are alienated products of the labour of man, crystallized manifestations, which
in Frankenstein fashion now dominate their creators. "The commodity form," writes Marx in
Das Kapital,7

And the value relation between the products of labour which stamps them as commodities,
have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations
arising there from. It is simply a definite relation between men that assumes in their eyes the
fantastic form of a relation between things. To find an analogy, we must have recourse to the
nebulous regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain
appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one
another and with the human race. So it is in the world of commodities, with the products of
men's hands. This I call the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor, as soon as
they are produced as commodities.

Explicitly stated or tacitly assumed, the notion of alienation remained central to Marx's social
and economic analysis. In an alienated society, the whole mind-set of men, their
consciousness, is to a large extent only the reflection of the conditions in which they find
placed. This is the subject matter of Marx's sociology of knowledge, to which we now turn.

7
Introduction to Sociology thought by C.N Shankar Rao, page-742, para-4

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 The concept of alienation of Marx with that of Hegel’s

The concept of alienation is one of the most important and fruitful legacies of Hegel's social
philosophy. It is strange therefore that Hegel's own account is widely rejected, not least by
writers in those traditions which have taken up and developed the concept in the most
influential ways: Marxism and existentialism. 8

Generalisation in this area is particularly difficult. The very claim that Marxism has a theory
of alienation is controversial. The term has a shifting meaning in Marx's early writings and it
plays only a peripheral role in his later work. Generalising about existentialism is even more
problematic. Existentialism is not a definite philosophical school at all. At best it is a loose
tradition, and many of the writers associated with it do not explicitly use the concept of
alienation.

Nevertheless, there is important common ground in the way philosophers in both these
traditions respond to Hegel's philosophy and in their concerns about the self and society.
These concerns, which play a central role in both traditions, are generally referred to by
means of the term `alienation'. So despite the problems, the concept of alienation provides a
useful focus by means of which to explore these Hegelian themes in contemporary social
thought. That is the purpose of this Project.9

8
www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/articles/alienation.htm
9
econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Theory/Marxism/Classics/hegel.htm

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 After Hegel

Partly for the reasons just mentioned, much of the discussion of alienation is murky and
confused. At times it appears that two quite different concepts have been mixed up in it
which have little real connection with each other. In the Marxist literature, alienation is often
taken to be a concept which describes and criticises the social and economic conditions of
capitalism. In existentialist writing, by contrast, the concept is used primarily to refer to a
psychological, perhaps even spiritual, kind of malaise which is pervasive in modern society
10
but not specific to it. Rather it is symptomatic of the human condition as such.

Some writers try to merge these two strands of thought together (Pappenheim 1959; Schacht
1971), but that is unsatisfactory. It is tempting simply to distinguish two quite separate and
distinct notions of alienation, a Marxist and an existentialist one; but that too is problematic.

Even within these two traditions, both strands are present. Thus it would be wrong to suggest
that Marx uses the term `alienation' exclusively to describe a social or economic condition.
On contrary, as Plamenatz argues, two `kinds of alienation' can be distinguished in Marx's
work, `social' and `spiritual' (Plamenatz 1975, 141ff).

Conversely, it is equally mistaken to think that philosophers in the existentialist tradition are
concerned solely with psychological or spiritual matters. A critique of the alienating
conditions of modern society is a prominent feature of much existentialist thought.

In short, both aspects are a part of both traditions. To understand how they are related and
how they differ we need to go back to Hegel

10
ibid

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 Two responses to the theory of alienation

The concept of alienation is central to Hegel's account of the development of Spirit, and thus
of the process of human self-development. In contrast to the enlightenment philosophers who
came before him, Hegel does not treat individual self-consciousness as an immediate,
unchanging given. The self is a historical and social creation. It develops through a process of
alienation and its overcoming, self-estrangement and self-recognition, a `fall' into division
and reconciliation.11

The story is often told of how, in the years immediately following Hegel's death, the Hegelian
movement split. A number of `right' or `old' Hegelians remained loyal to what had become
the conservative views of Hegel's later years. A larger and more influential group (which
included Marx and Engels) rejected Hegel's account of contemporary society and developed a
more radical approach. 12

For these `left' Hegelians, Hegel's claim that reason had been realised and reconciliation
achieved in modern society was absurd and untenable. Division and disharmony were all too
evident in the unideal conditions of Europe at the time, then undergoing the traumatic impact
of industrialisation. Alienation had clearly not been overcome. Nevertheless, the left
Hegelians maintained, the realisation of reason and social reconciliation remained valid as
ideals. What Hegel treated as an established reality, should be taken rather as an end, still to
be achieved. Reason had not been realised, but it ought to be. These ideas were taken up by
Marx in his early work, from which has grown one of the main strands of contemporary
thought about alienation.

This story is familiar enough. Accounts of the aftermath of Hegel's philosophy often go no
further. For a full understanding of Hegel's legacy, however, it is important to take a wider
view. For Hegel's philosophy also provoked a quite different critical response of a kind
apparent first in Kierkegaard's work. Kierkegaard was a close contemporary of Marx and
Engels. His philosophy was also formed in the Hegelian aftermath, but his rejection of Hegel
is more thoroughgoing, he does not regard himself as a `Hegelian' of any kind. Nevertheless,
his philosophy is formed in reaction to Hegel’s and directly under its influence. It is the first

11
http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/
12
Supra note-5

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example of a quite different, `existentialist', way of thinking about issues of the self and
alienation bequeathed by Hegel.13

Hegel on alienation

By `alienation' Hegel refers to the process by which `finite Spirit', the human self, `doubles'
itself, externalises itself, and then confronts its own other being as something separate,
distinct and opposed to it. Hegel rejects the atomic individualism of the enlightenment, and
its view that the self has a nature which is prior to society and which flourishes best when
unrestricted by it. Spirit, for Hegel, is social and historical. It develops through a process of
self-division, self-alienation and its overcoming. This occurs in both the theoretical and
practical spheres. `Finite' human spirit, in contrast to infinite spirit (God), is bounded and
restricted by its opposite, namely nature. This restriction ... the human spirit in its existence ...
overcomes, and thereby raises itself to infinity, by grasping nature in thought through
theoretical activity, and through practical activity bringing about a harmony between nature
and the spiritual Idea, reason, and the good. (Hegel 1975, 454) In practical life, this occurs
through work on the natural world and through relations with others 14

in society. Here, however, I shall focus particularly on the social aspect of alienation.

According to Hegel, self-conscious Spirit evolves through a series of different historical and
social forms. Subjectivity, individuality, and freedom develop through a process in which the
self is alienated from itself and then comes to recognise itself in its alienation, so that, at the
end of the process, the self eventually comes be at home with itself.

Contrary to the enlightenment individualist account, social relations and institutions do not
necessarily constitute barriers to individual development and freedom. On the contrary,
individuality and freedom involve the exercise of powers and capacities which can be
acquired only in and through community with others. Alienation can be overcome and
individuality developed and realised only through participation in a social world: by

13
Supra note-2
14
pruce.flint.umich.edu/~simoncu/485/marx/alienation.htm

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fulfilling, in Bradley's phrase, `my station and duties' (Bradley 1927, chap. 5, cf Hegel 1991,
§149). 15

Moreover, the self is also historical. It evolves by passing through a series of historical forms.

Hegel portrays human history as a progressive development which starts from the immediate
unity and harmony of the earliest communities. This initial phase culminates in the ancient
Greek Polis. With the breakup of the Polis, humanity then passes through a long period of
division, fragmentation and alienation. But the results of this are not purely negative. For in
and through this process, individuality, subjectivity and freedom grow and develop. Finally,
in the modern liberal State as it emerges after the French Revolution, free and self-conscious
individuals at last find reconciliation with the natural and social world (Hegel 1956). Thus for
Hegel, the two aspects of alienation, social and spiritual, are closely linked. Hegel himself
was well aware of the continued existence of social problems and divisions in modern liberal
(i.e., capitalist) society. He describes them in remarkably clear and uncompromising terms
(Sayers 2003). Nevertheless, he sees them only as `anomalies' which do not ultimately refute
his idealised picture of the present. To many subsequent thinkers, however, it has seemed
absurd to suggest that alienation has been overcome and reason realised in the modern world.
Both Marxism and existentialism take this view. They agree in rejecting Hegel's picture of
modern society in this respect, but they do so in very different ways. Contemporary theories
of alienation spring from these different responses.16

15
www.academia.edu/.../Hegel_Alienation_and_the_Phenomenological_D...
16
econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Theory/Marxism/Classics/hegel.htm

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 Marx on Alienation

Marx's account of alienation draws explicitly and directly on Hegel's work. He uses the term
to refer to a situation in which our own activities and products appear to take on an
independent existence and to be hostile powers working against us (K. Marx 1975a, cf Elster
1985, 100). Marx's main use of the concept is in reference to the form of labour in capitalist
society, but he also talks of `alienation' in the sphere of social and economic relations
(division of labour, `fetishism of commodities'), in the State and in religion (K. Marx 1975a;
K. Marx and Engels 1970; K. Marx 1967). 17

Marx's ideas in this area are directly inherited from Hegel, and there is a considerable
congruence between their social theories. Marx agrees with Hegel in regarding the self as a
social and historical creation. He regards self-alienation as a social and historical
phenomenon which is destined to be overcome with historical development and progress.
Thus in Marx, as in Hegel, the social and spiritual aspects of alienation and its overcoming
are united. However, as mentioned already, Marx rejects the Hegelian view that alienation
has already been overcome in present society. He also criticises Hegel's account of history as
the self-development of spirit for its idealism and instead propounds a materialist theory.
Present capitalist society is characterised by alienation. This has an economic and social
basis. Alienation will be overcome only when this is changed. Alienation thus serves as a
critical concept pointing towards the material transformation of the existing order. 18

17
Infra note 18
18
http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/marx7.html

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 Type of Alienation

In a capitalist society, the worker’s alienation from his and her humanity occurs because the
worker can only express labour — a fundamental social aspect of personal individuality —
through a privately owned system of industrial production in which each worker is an
instrument, a thing, not a person; Marx explained alienation thus:19

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1927), Karl Marx identified four
types of alienation (Entfremdung) that occur to the worker labouring under a capitalist system
of industrial production

The four types of Entfremdung area

1. Alienation From the Product-

The design of the product and how it is produced are determined not by the producers who
make it (the workers), nor by the consumers of the product (the buyers), but by the Capitalist
class, who, besides appropriating the worker’s manual labour, also appropriate the intellectual
labour of the engineer and the industrial designer who create the product, in order to shape
the taste of the consumer to buy the goods and services at a price that yields a maximal profit.
Aside from the workers having no control over the design-and-production protocol, alienation
(Entfremdung) broadly describes the conversion of labour (work as an activity), which is
performed to generate a use value (the product) into a commodity, which — like products —
can be assigned an exchange value. That is, the Capitalist gains control of the manual and
intellectual workers, and the benefits of their labour, with a system of industrial production
that converts said labour into concrete products (goods and services) that benefit the
consumer. Moreover, the capitalist production system also reifies labour into the “concrete”
concept of “work” (a job), for which the worker is paid wages — at the lowest possible rate
— that maintain a maximum rate of return on the Capitalist’sinvestment capital; this is an
aspect of exploitation. Furthermore, with such a reified system of industrial production, the
profit (exchange value) generated by the sale of the goods and services (products) that could
be paid to the workers, instead is paid to the capitalist classes: the functional capitalist, who
manages the means of production, and the rentier capitalist, who owns the means of
production.20

19
www.boundless.com › Sociology › Economy › Work
20
Supra note 19

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2.Alienation From the Productive-

In the Capitalist Mode of Production, the generation of products (goods and services) is
accomplished with an endless sequence of discrete, repetitive motions that offer the worker
little psychological satisfaction for “a job well done”. By means of commodification,
the labour power of the worker is reduced to wages (an exchange value); the psychological
estrangement (Entfremdung) of the worker results from the unmediated relation between his
21
productive labour and the wages paid him for the labour. That division of labour, within the
capitalist mode of production, further exploits the worker by limiting his or
her Gattungswesen (species-essence) — the human being’s power to determine the purpose
to which the product (goods and services) shall be applied; the human nature (species-
essence) of the worker is fulfilled when he or she controls the “subject of labour”. Hence
does capitalism remove from the worker the right to exercise control upon the value and the
effects of his and her labour, which, in turn, robs the worker of the ability to either buy
(consume) the goods and services, or to receive the full value from the sale of the product.
The alienation of the worker from the act of producing renders the worker unable to
specialize in a type of productive labour, which is a psychologically satisfying condition;
within an industrial system of production, social alienation reduces the worker to an
instrument, to an object, and thus cannot productively apply every aspect of his or her human
nature.22

3.Alienation from his Fellows-

The Gattungswesen (species-essence), the human nature of a man and of a woman is

not discrete (separate and apart) from his or her activity as a worker; as such, species-
essence also comprises all of his and her innate human potential as a person.
Conceptually, in the term “species-essence”, the word “species” describes the intrinsic
human mental essence that is characterised by a “plurality of interests” and
“psychological dynamism”, whereby every man and woman has the desire and the
tendency to engage in the many activities that promote mutual human survival and
psychological well-being, by means of emotional connections with other people, with

22
www.boundless.com › Sociology › Economy › Work

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 society. The psychic value of a man consists in being able to conceive (think) of the
ends of his actions as purposeful ideas, which are distinct from the actions required to
realise a given idea. That is, man is able to objectify his intentions, by means of an
idea of himself, as “the subject”, and an idea of the thing that he produces, “the
object”. Conversely, unlike a human being, an animal does not objectify itself, as “the
subject”, nor its products as ideas, “the object”, because an animal engages in directly
self-sustaining actions that have neither a future intention, nor a conscious intention.
Whereas a person’s Gattungswesen(human nature) does not exist independent of
specific, historically conditioned activities, the essential nature of a human being is
actualized when a man — within his given historical circumstance — is free to sub-
ordinate his will to the external demands he has imposed upon himself, by his
imagination, and not the external demands imposed upon him by other people.
 Relations of production

Whatever the character of a person’s consciousness (will and imagination), the worker’s
existence in society is conditioned by his or her relationships with the people and things that
facilitate survival, which is fundamentally dependent upon co-operation with others, thus, a
person’s consciousness is determined inter-subjectively (collectively), not subjectively
(individually), because Man is a social animal. In the course of history, to ensure human
survival, societies have organised themselves into groups who have different, basic
relationships to the means of production. One societal group (class) owned and controlled the
means of production, while another societal class worked the means of production; in
the relations of production of that status quo, the goal of the owner-class was to economically
benefit as much as possible from the labour of the working class. Moreover, in the course of
economic development, when a new type of economy displaced an old type of economy —
agrarian feudalism superseded by mercantilism, in turn superseded by the Industrial
revolution — the rearranged economic order of the social classes favoured the social class
who controlled the technologies (the means of production) that made possible the change in
the relations of production. Likewise, there occurred a corresponding rearrangement of the
human nature (Gattungswesen) and the system of values of the owner-class and of the
working-class, which allowed each group of people to accept and to function in the
rearranged status quo of production-relations.23

 Exploitation and revolution

23
Supra note 22

16 | P a g e
  Despite the ideologic promise of industrialisation — that the mechanisation of
industrial production would raise the mass of the workers, from a brutish life of
subsistence existence, to the self-respect of honourable work — the division of labour
inherent to the capitalist mode of production, thwarted the human nature
(Gattungswesen) of the worker, and so rendered each man and woman into a
mechanistic part of an industrialised system of production, from being a person
capable of defining his and her value through direct, purposeful activity. Moreover,
the near-total mechanisation and automation of the industrial production system
would allow the (newly) dominant bourgeois capitalist social class to exploit the
working class to the degree that the value obtained from their labour would diminish
the ability of the workers to materially survive. Hence, when the proletarian working-
class become a sufficiently developed political force, they will effect a revolution and
re-orient the relations of production to the means of production — from a
capitalist mode of production to a communist mode of production. In the resultant
Communist society, the fundamental relation of the workers to the means of
production would be equal and non-conflictual, because there would be no artificial
(class) distinctions about the value of a worker’s labour; the worker’s humanity
(species-essence) thus respected, men and women would not become alienated, from
themselves and their society.
 Communism

In the Communist socio-economic organisation, the relations of production would operate the
mode of production and employ each worker according to his abilities, and benefit each
worker according to his needs. Hence, each worker could direct his and her labour to
productive work suitable to his and her innate abilities — rather than be forced into a
narrowly defined, minimal-wage “job” meant to extract maximal profit from the labour of the
individual worker, as determined by and dictated under the capitalist mode of production. In
the classless, collectively managed Communist society, the exchange of value between the
objectified productive labour of one worker, and the consumption benefit derived from that
production, will not be determined by or directed to the narrow business interests of a
bourgeois capitalist class, but, instead, will be directed to meet the needs of each producer
and consumer, of each member of society. Although production will be differentiated, by the
degree of each worker’s abilities (by what work he and she can do) the purpose of the
communist system of industrial production will be determined by the collective requirements

17 | P a g e
of society, not by the profit-oriented demands of an individualistic bourgeois social class who
live at the expense of the greater society. Under the collective ownership of the means of
production, the relation of each worker to the mode of production will be identical, and will
have the social character that corresponds to the universal interests of the communist society.
Therefore, the direct distribution of the profits generated by the labour of each worker — to
fulfil the interests of the working class, and so to his and her own interest and benefit — will
constitute an un-alienated state of labour conditions, which restores to the worker the fullest
exercise and determination of his and her human nature.

4. Alienation of the worker from other workers-

Capitalism reduces the labour of the worker to a commercial commodity that can be traded in
the competitive labour-market, rather than as a constructive socio-economic activity that is
part of the collective common effort performed for personal survival and the betterment of
society. In a capitalist economy, the businessmen who own the means of production establish
a competitive labour-market meant to extract from the worker as much labour (value) as
possible, in the form of capital. The capitalist economy’s arrangement of the relations of
production provokes social conflict by pitting worker against worker, in a competition for
“higher wages”, thereby alienating them from their mutual economic interests; the effect is
a false consciousness, which is a form of ideologic control exercised by the capitalist
bourgeoisie. (See: Cultural hegemony) Furthermore, in the capitalist mode of production, the
philosophic collusion of religion in justifying the relations of production facilitates the
realisation, and then worsens, the alienation (Entfremdung) of the worker from his and her
humanity; it is a socio-economic role independent of religion being “the opiate of the masses”

Alienation as an objective phenomenon

There is a significant measure of truth in the existentialist insistence on the significance of
individuality and subjectivity for the modern self. Despite the fact that the existentialist
position is formed mainly as a critical response to Hegel, Hegel himself goes a long way to
recognising this. In the development of individuality, he too maintains, there must be a
moment of separation and detachment, a subjective and negative moment. Modern
individuality is not given simply through the performance a social role. To be for-itself and
free the individual must be able to reflect, to will and to choose. Hegel is well aware of this,
his philosophy cannot be reduced to one of `my station and its duties' alone. It is not

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sufficient simply to perform a social role, one's role must be inwardly willed and chosen if it
is to be an authentic expression of individuality and selfhood in the modern world. The
moment of subjectivity, of choice, of negative liberty, is essential too24. This is stressed not
only by existential philosophers, it is also a fundamental aspect of Hegel's account of the self
and self development (Hegel 1991, §§5-7). However, writers in the Marxist tradition have not
always appreciated this point and, arguably, neither do Marx. Marxism often presents itself as
a purely social philosophy. The self is portrayed as a mere social creation. Marxists often
seem to imply that social change alone will be sufficient to transform and realise the self – as
though `after the revolution' all conflicts between self and society will automatically be
resolved without any action on the part of the individual being required. This is untenable, as
the existential account quite rightly insists (Sartre 1960)

Alienation as a historical phenomenon

The existential view that alienation and in authenticity are universal features of the human
condition, `ontological' characteristics of the self, is questionable on historical grounds as
well. For there are good grounds for the view that specific social and historical circumstances
are needed for the development a self-conscious self – a self which can will and choose, and
for which alienation is an issue. The abilities to reflect, to will and to choose are not natural
human endowments. Rather they involve the capacity for self-consciousness and powers of
reason which can be acquired only socially and which develop historically. The very
existence of a self which can experience alienation and in authenticity and seek to overcome
them is a social and historical creation. Alienation and in authenticity are historical
conditions. Indeed, they are distinctively modern phenomena.25

In a pre-modern community the self is defined primarily by its social `place'. Identity is
determined by social role. In such societies, as MacIntyre says, `the individual is identified
and constituted in and through certain of his or her roles ... I confront the world as a member
of this family, this household, this class, this tribe, this city, this nation, this kingdom. There
is no "I" apart from these' (MacIntyre 1985, 160-1).

In the modern world, by contrast, the individual no longer has a fixed and given position in
society. The very notion of a social `place' or `station' has all but ceased to have any
application. The self has far greater independence from its roles. These are regarded as

24
http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/
25
http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/

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external to the self and contingent. Identity is no longer a social given. Individuals must now
choose their social place and role and, in doing so, create their own identity.

Only in this situation can issues of authenticity and self-realisation arise. For only now can
the self stand back from its activity and ask itself whether it is realising itself and living
authentically. The mere fact that the individual is fulfilling an allotted social role is no longer
a guarantee of this26

Hegel was one of the first authors to describe these changes. The historical theory of the self
is one of Hegel's great achievements as a philosopher. Marx follows and refines this historical
account, adding a realistic, material dimension to it. By contrast, writers like Kierkegaard and
Heidegger take the self-conscious self as directly given. In Kierkegaard this is simply
presupposed. `Every human being must be assumed in essential possession of what
essentially belongs to being a man' (Kierkegaard 1941, 318-19). Heidegger takes more care
to justify his initial assumptions. Nevertheless, the implications of his phenomenological
approach are similar. `Dasein' (self-conscious being) is taken as the immediate given starting
point.

This is not to suggest that either of these philosophers reverts to the atomistic individualism
of the enlightenment. On the contrary, Kierkegaard regards the self as essentially social
(Westphal 1987, 30-3); Heidegger insists that Dasein is always `with-others' and `historical'
in that it is necessarily oriented to the past and the future of its community. Nevertheless,
neither of these writers regards the particular forms of `Being-with' or `historicality' that they
describe as socially or historically specific. Both treat sociality and historicality as universal,
`ontological' features of the human self, and neither regards alienation or inauthenticity as
socially or historically specific. Thus for Heidegger, as we have seen, alienation is a
pervasive feature of everyday life. `Fallenness' is a normal part of the universal human
condition.27

For Hegel, by contrast, our `fall' into social division and alienation is an historical process;
and such `fallenness' can be and is being redeemed through the course of human development
and progress. Hegel's optimism on this score is, of course, a matter of controversy. However,
at least it is grounded in his historical theory of the development of the self. Whereas

26
http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/
27
http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/articles/sayers/alienation.pdf

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Heidegger's pessimism appears to be a mere artefact of his phenomenological method. In any
case it is not grounded on any theory, historical or otherwise, it is merely asserted.

Problems with Marx view of alienation

Some of the problems associated with Marx's writings on alienation are as follows.

(i) The explanation was not well worked out in terms of its implications and how it might be
eliminated. The solution of communism has not occurred, and does not seem a likely prospect
in the near future.

(ii) Marx's approach to the study of alienation helps explain a lot of what does occur in labour
markets, and alienation is an important concept in the sociology of labour. At the same time,
living and working conditions and the structure of the labour market have changed
considerably since the time when Marx was writing. The worst conditions he describes are
felt by some, but not by all workers. The division of labour has vastly expanded, with
different types of effects for different segments of working class, and with different working
classes in different countries.

(iii) Marx deals only with work for capitalists, seeing the roots of alienation only in exchange
of labour and private property. Similar feelings and causes of estrangement and alienation
may be related to ethnicity or race (alienation from the economic system, by being left out of
the system), region (Prairie or western alienation, which may be tied more to the distribution,
rather than production, of the surplus) or other aspects of society that are not directly tied to
production. In addition, by considering only labour in the market, Marx ignores all aspects of
life other than this -- in the home, relations between sexes, relations between those of
different ages, etc. Many of these social relations have effects that are very similar to the
aspects Marx is discussing. Work and labour as alienating refer only to work done in the
capital-labour relationship. But work in general and production may be alienating in some of
the same senses as Marx discusses.

(iv) Weber used rationalization and bureaucracy to describe some of the ways that people feel
trapped. Durkheim used the division of labour and anomie to describe the sense of
rootlessness and disconnection that people felt from society. What is interesting is that many

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of the same types of effects that Marx observed were important for later sociologists to
explain as well -- although these later sociologists used different terms and had different
explanations for these same or similar phenomena.28

Solution to Alienation

Marx connects alienation with the division of labour, wages and private property. In early
society, there was a very simple form of the division of labour, perhaps by sex and age.
People may not have specialized in particular occupations, rather there were often group or
communal activities. As the division of labour developed, and as people began to specialize
in different occupational activities, a surplus began to develop. Exchange of products became
necessary, and this created the possibility of alienation. At this stage, production was
generally small scale and exchange mostly at a local level, so that control over production
was close to the producer.

The development of private property creates a different situation. With private property and a
system of exchange that expands to create a money economy, the possibility of gain becomes
vastly expanded. As capitalism developed, some became property less and had to work as
wage labourers. After the middle ages, the alienation of the peasantry from their land
becomes a key part of this process. Once capitalism became more fully developed, the
different forms of alienation became part of the normal functioning of a capitalist system.

Marx's solution to alienation is outlined in Quotes 12 and 13 as Marx's early vision of

communism. In order to end alienation, it is necessary to abolish private property and abolish
the relationship between private property and wage labour. In quote 10 note Marx's early
vision of the role of the working class in accomplishing this. For Marx, the abolition of
private property removes the cause of alienation, and to accomplish this workers have to be
emancipated from a system of private property and wages. Since other forms of inequality
and servitude are a result of this, as workers emancipate themselves, this creates "universal
human emancipation."

28
http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/s3002.htm

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In order to carry out such emancipation, there would have to be more than destruction of the
current system, so that there is a positive abolition of private property. That is, a new society
could be created where there could be a "complete return of man to himself as
a social being."

Communist society will be based, not upon the egoistic self-seeking which the
economists assume to be characteristic of human nature in general, but upon the
conscious awareness of the reciprocal dependence of the individual and the social
community.

This communist society is not expected to be one that submerges the individual in the group,
but allow for the "expansion of the particular potentialities and capabilities of individuals." 29

Note that Marx does not have a well developed program to achieved this in his early writings.
He objected to some of the utopian or crude communist ideas that appeared in early socialist
writings. In these early writings there is no systematic theory connecting the development of
socialism and communism with the development of the working class or proletariat. But he
does argue that private property must be abolished in order to achieve the better society. His
conception of communism involves an integrated form of mental and manual labour, with
control over labour by the worker and the community, and the development of human
productive and creative capabilities. These ideas were further developed in Marx's later
writings.

29
(Giddens, p. 17).
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 Major Findings
The concept of Alienation has become very popular in modern literature, political

philosophy, existentialist philosophy, psycho analysis, psychology and sociology. In

the writing of Marx alienation is a principal term, and hence it has dominated the

history of political thought.

1. Due to Alienation man no more remains a Man but becomes an “improvised thing”.

Alienation is that condition when men does not experience himself as the active

brearer of his own power and Richness but as a improvised “thing” depedent on

power outside of himself

2. Alienation result from the lack of sense of control over the social world. The social

world thus environs people as a hostile thing, leaving them “alien” in the very

environment that they have created.

3. Accroding to Marx “religious alienation occurs only in the sphere of consciousness, in

the inner life of man, but economic alienation is that of real life. It therefore affect

both aspects i.e mind & action

4. Alienation leads to dehumanisation. This devaluation increases in direct proportion to

the increase in the production of commodities

5. Extreme division of labour is an important source of Alienation in this modern world

6. This situation is aggrieved in the capitalist economies, in which the profit produced by

the labour of the worker goes to someone else.

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 Conclusion

In spite of these weaknesses, the concept of alienation has proved to be a very useful and
fruitful one. It is widely used today in politics, in social psychology, studies of labour and
work, and so on. For Marx's system itself, the analysis of alienation is associated with the
early stage of his writings. The analysis of alienation allowed him to pull together his
philosophical background, his observations of early nineteenth century capitalism, his interest
in political issues, and his first forays into a discussion of political economy. In the Marxian
system, alienation becomes transformed into exploitation and surplus value, and it is the latter
that the late Marx is more concerned with explaining.

Marx's contribution was to provide a systematic analysis of alienation, and show how it had
material origin, being rooted in the organization of labour and private property. His
theoretical approach is also evident in the study of alienation, with a dialectical analysis
combining elements from various other writers, but developing a new approach to the study
of alienation

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 REFERENCES

Books Referred:

 Morrison and Ken, Formation of modern Social Thought (Sage Publications, London,
1995).
 Sujeet Kumar Choudhary, Thinkers and Theories in Sociology (Gagandeep
Publications, Delhi).

Websites Referred:

 http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/s3002.htm
 http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/assets/files/society/pdfs/ro2012.pdf
 http://cogitariumlancaster.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/marxs-theory-of-alienation-
and-its-relevance-to-religion.pdf
 http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/
 http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/marx7.html

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