Essay
Allienation sociology
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- University Of Westminster (UOW)
This document is an essay about Karl Max ideas on Allienation
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AlienationThe term alienation indicates the process where the man is estranged from himself,
losing his genuinely human identity. For Karl Max Alienation was unavoidable as was
the consequence of Modernity from the social upheaval causing people to migrate
from rural to industrial areas to look for better life opportunities; Therefor, these
industrial development and urbanisation all lead people from alienating from each
other and oneself from living in capitalist society.
Exploitation is strongly associated to the cause of alienation, and according to
(Hobbs, McKechnie and Lavallette, 1999, p. 83) exploitation is the term “to describe
certain types of employer-employee relationships”. In his time Karl Max identified two
social classes: the Bourgeoise (the owners) and the proletariat (laborers); the
Bourgeoise owned the means of productions, the products, the distribution and the
profit whereas the proletariat where the ones who did not have the resources to
invest in mass production and could only sell their labour. The proletariat gained
little in a capitalist society while on the other hand bourgeoisie gained more causing
proletariat to not own their work and causing them to no longer identify themselves
with the product their produce leading them to become a passive tool in the
production process.
Kal Max identified and argued that were four forms of alienation Alienation from the
product, Alienation from one’s Labour, Alienation from others and Alienation from
oneself.
The first one: alienation from the product: the proletariat take part in mass
production, and only responsible in a specific aspect to create a product that they do
not possess for someone else to consume and make a profit for the capitalist owner
leading to no to have little relationship toward the product, thus, proletariats “it
produces palaces – but for the worker, hovel” (K. Marx, p. XXIII). Following, alienation
from ones labour, as the job becomes repetitive and monotone, the labourer is only a
small part of the “puzzle” they work for, the job then becomes just a superficial
segment of their life as its labour it’s toward wedges for a product they can’t afford
and have no jurisdiction over but help produce. Because, proletarians have no power
and control in the factory system, their energy and power is revolted against them,
having no autonomy and only surviving on earning wedges turning into a production
object; in (Marx 1932 p. 40) Karl Max, quotes that alienation does “manifests itself
not only in the result, but also in the act of production, within the activity of production
itself. How could the product of the worker’s activity confront him as something alien
if it were not for the fact that in the act of production, he was estranging himself from
himself?”. Alienation from others, is then discussed, like we noted earlier the
labourers vision is reduced toward the salary, affecting their sense of cooperation
and no sense of collective responsibility competing against each other for more
benefits and increase of wedges and “social relations are dominated by economics”
(Brian, S. Turner, 2006, p. 39). Lastly, Alienation from oneself; or an estrangement
from their species essence: “ what we do is connected to who we are it define us”.
The labourer has detached himself from his creativity and from his identity as he is
selling “himself” to the Bourgeois and the capital, Karl Max cites in (Marx, 1994, p
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