Marx’s Conception of Alienation

For Marx alienation under the capitalist mode of production is not just a subjective state of mind, that one enters, but an objective process that develops from the reality that we experience through labor in capitalist society. Alienation in a generalized abstract sense, is the loss of control over an attribute of the self, one in which the actor is separated from any sense of agency in relation to the attribute. It is a historical objective process that comes into being from the relations and forces of production in the specific mode of production in existence. Alienation derives from a disconnect and loss of control over a thing or process, similar to the sense of alienation one experiences through religion. The alienation that Marx refers to comes into being through the relations of production found in capitalist society. Within the capitalist mode of production we find the conditions necessary for alienation to emerge. Those conditions are the reality that workers in capitalist society are forced by the necessity of subsistence and lack of ownership over the means of production to sell their labor-power as a commodity to someone else: the capitalist. Vital to the emergence of capitalist alienation is the specialization of labor, the reserve army of labor, and the establishment of routine work flows like an assembly line. There are four aspects of alienation that Marx wrote about as corresponding to the capitalist mode of production, those being: the alienation of the worker from the products of their labor, the alienation experienced in the production or labor process, alienation from our species-essence or human essence, and finally the alienation of man from man or from society. They might be viewed as being nested together with one leading to the other, however they are just aspects of one reality: alienated labor.

The first aspect that Marx refers to is the alienation that workers experience by the estrangement from the product of their labor. The commodities that workers produce through their labor is not their own but ultimately belongs to another and is produced for another. Here alienation is manifested in the product that work produces. Their product becomes, through their lack of control/ownership, an alien object. An object that actively works against their interests and whose hostility increases the more the worker produces. So that the more the worker produces the less the worker has and the more powerless they become. This is so because they do not have control or own a right to the commodity they produce nor to the exchange value that it will obtain in the market. So as the workers produce more, increasing productivity, they enrich the capitalist who owns the products they produce. Therefore the commodities that the workers produce increases the wealth and thus power of the capitalist who controls the fruits of their labor and who controls them through the purchasing of their labor-power that they sell for their own survival and reproduction. They thus help to perpetuate the system, the mode of production, that works against their interests and that produces the alienation in the first place.

The second aspect that Marx mentions is the alienation resulting from their lack of control over the labor process or production activity. This alienation occurs because to not have control over the products of labor implies that one also does not have control over the process of production that produced the commodities. This alienation is emerges from the lack of control over the means of production and the work activity that one is involved in. The fact that workers do not have a say in how production is organized and what is produced or how something is produced, is how this aspect of alienation come into being. This sense of alienation is further reinforced through a worker’s lack of control in their job function and from the lack of say in the relations within production. It is also formed from the reality that workers do not own the means of production and so are forced to sell for survival the one thing they do own, their labor-power, as Marx writes about the worker “his work, therefore, is not voluntary, but coerced, forced labor.” (Simon, p.62).

The third aspect of alienation Marx referred to as alienation from our species-essence/human essence or in a reduced sense our human nature. For Marx humanity’s species-essence is labor itself. Labor is our ‘conscious life activity’. Marx claims that humans are by nature creative conscious beings and that we objectifying ourselves in the products that we produce. To objectify ourselves is to use our conscious life activity to see ourselves as the subject in relation to nature and to manifest or make real our conscious thoughts, our objects, through our manipulation of nature. Unlike the species-essence of most animals which is instinctual life activity. Since most animals operate and meet their needs through the use of their instincts, whereas we operate and meet our needs through conscious thoughts and our ability to transform nature into the objects of our thoughts. In effect by being alienated from our species-essence: our creative conscious life-activity, we alienate ourselves from our human nature to create what we want at will and from the potential that our species-essence provides us. Put simply capitalist society makes man’s free conscious activity, labor, a means to an end, instead of an end in of itself. Marx articulates this when he states: “In taking from man the object of his production, alienated labor takes from his species-life, his actual and objective existence as a species.”(Simon, p.64).

The fourth aspect of alienated labor for Marx can be derived from the fact that we are alienated from our own human nature or essence which is also according to Marx social. So alienation emerges in the relations of production in capitalist society. In the capitalist relations of production we are alienated not just from the product and the process of production but given that we are alienated from our human nature implies that we are also alienated from ourselves and in turn each other. So this aspect of alienated labor deals with the fact that our social relations themselves are alienated. For Marx our conscious life activity is embedded in a social framework since we are a social species from birth. This alienation is manifested as hostility or competition between workers and members of society. As Marx wrote: “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, p.65). It is experienced in the competition for promotions at work and through the stand off between production workers and workers in management. It is further reinforced by the capitalist mode of production through the existence of a reserve army of labor: the unemployed. Since full employment is not possible within the capitalist mode of production, there is always a percentage of the population at various times that is unemployed and seeking employment. This fact alone pits worker against worker for the opportunity to sell one’s labor-power as a means to an end, that end being sustenance and our individual reproduction. This aspect or type of alienation is also reflected in other areas of our social relations. This can be viewed for example in the political arena in how workers vote against their own interest and the interests of other groups such as the stigmatized victims of the capitalist mode of production: the poor on welfare.

Marx’s theory of alienation can help us understand work and human nature by framing how we examine the two and how they are connected. As Sayer’s analysis showed there are many thoughts on what work is and what it means to us and Marx’s theory offers a refreshing take on how we should perceive work. As Sayer outlined, a popular conception of work is the one posited by utilitarianism. Mainly that work is toil and unpleasurable, and that pleasure or happiness can be derived through the absence of work. Marx would argue, however, that such a conception of work is itself a by product of alienated labor. In his analysis of alienation we find that such feelings or understanding of the nature of work can be described by the estrangement of the worker from himself, his fellows, their products, and the process of production. This estrangement is the result of private property in the economic arena or said differently of productive property, not to be confused with personal property. The fact that productive property and the means of production are privately owned and that workers are forced by this fact to sell their labor-power and in turn alienate themselves in the ways mentioned above illustrates how a utilitarian conception of the nature work is intrinsically wrong in condemning work, since labor is part of our human essence or nature. This also gives us the answer on how to experience work in the way Marx describes. In order to experience work as the expression of our species-essence, our creative life-activity, requires that we overcome our alienation and reorganize our society so as to establish relations that allow us all to act in accordance to our species-essence.

Since alienation is the by product of an objective experience stemming from the relations of production within capitalist society the solution to overcoming it also lies within it. Alienation can be more directly described as the result of the producers or workers not being in control or owning the products they produce as well as the production process in which they work. Put simply alienation is the result of private (productive) property. Since only a few, the capitalists, own the means of production and rest, the workers, must sell that which they own: their labor power in order to gain access to the means of production. So to overcome this alienation requires that we correct this inherent antagonism within the capitalist mode of production so as to bring about a new mode of production. Marx considered this new mode of production to be Communism and its is the overcoming of private property. Marx wrote: “Communism is the ultimately the positive expression of private property as overcome [aufgehoben].”(Simon, p.69). Meaning that Communism is a mode of production in which private productive property no longer exists, and therefore alienation no longer exists since it is a symptom of private property. To rid ourselves of private property is therefore to Marx a way of overcoming alienation in all its manifestations since it emerges from the social relations in which private property exists. This is stated clearly by Marx when he wrote: “The overcoming of private property as the appropriation of human life is thus the positive overcoming of all alienation…”(Simon, p.71). We may ask ourselves how would a society who’s mode of production does not include private property look like? Well we can begin to realize that answer by focusing on the fact that private property, in this case commercial & industrial productive property, is essentially composed of the companies and corporations in which labor produces commodities and services. So to overcome the antagonism between those who own the companies and those who work in the companies, the internal ownership structure of the work place must be changed. The internal structure of private property must therefore be changed into its opposite which is cooperative property. So to overcome private property and thus alienation, society must replace the private enterprises which compose its economy with worker owned and managed enterprises known commonly as worker cooperatives. Worker owned and managed cooperatives are therefore the fundamental building blocks within a Communist society’s economy. Any society whose economy does not include cooperative ownership over productive property is not a Communist society, but an intermediate stage like Socialism or some other manifestation of Capitalism as is the case with the Soviet styled societies that have come into existence. They are in fact what can be called State Capitalist societies.

Sources: “Karl Marx Selected Writings” Edited by Lawrence H. Simon, Hackett Publishing Company.