Econ 107 Marx Alienation

How is a worker in a civil society dehumanized?

1) He merely produces for physical needs he is reduced to a level of an animal. 2) He is dehumanized in that he is reduced to a machine. Until his sense and feelings are cultivated or humanized man is not truly human. 3) "Life is not truly human unless it is a "social" life, life in genuine "community" with other men. If one is alienated from other men, therefore, one's existence is "inhuman" existence. It fails to manifest one's essential sociality; thus one is self-alienated.

What is the first processes?

1) That the produce of the worker becomes alien to himself—In this case, the produce becomes a power independent of the producer and something alien. The product of labor becomes an objectification of the labor. This is to the extent that there is a loss of reality in the labor's realization, the objects necessary for his life and for his work are robbed from him, the worker possess the more objects he produces. The more the worker spends on himself the poorer his inner world becomes and the alien objective world becomes more powerful. His life belongs to the object not to himself. The object exists outside him as something alien to him, as a power confronting him.

What is the second process?

Alienation of the worker from the producing activity. This alienation first means that the worker does not affirm himself. The work feels outside of himself and he feels himself outside of his work. His work is also forced labor. Labor is mortification and self-sacrifice. The labor belongs to someone else and not his own. It is thus a loss of his self. The worker relates activity as an alien activity. It does not belong to him. SELF-ENSTRANGEMENT.

What is civil society based on?

Egoism, based on antagonistic, atomistic individuals.

What is the fourth process?

Estrangement of man from man. A man is confronted by other man if man is confronted by himself. His relation to the produce of his labor, his work and to himself also holds his relation to other man, and "...the other man's labor and object of labor." The worker's activity belongs to another because the products of labor confronts him as an alien power as does not belong to him. Through his relationship to other man man's relation to himself becomes real and objective for him. Someone else who is alien, powerful, hostile and independent of him when man's labor is objectified, alien powerful object independent of him and alien. Real practical relationship to other man manifests itself in a world of real practice world of alienation. The relationship of the worker to other man is alienated through alienated labor.

When is the most alienated form of labor?

In a capitalist society because men depend on machines and men are transformed into thing in their dependence on capital.

When does alienation reach its peak?

In a capitalist society while it existed throughout history.

According to Marx, how is self-alienation used?

In the sense that separation resulting from separation of the person from his essential nature, and the separation from a person or something which is very much part of a person.

What are the essential characteristics of men?

Individuality, sociality and sensuousness.

What is labor?

It is a mortification and self-sacrifice.

What are man's species life?

Labor, social life and sensuous life.

What does he equate?

Life activity and labor. Labor is an end itself—It has worth and has human significance.

What is the difference between production and labor?

Marx doesn't differentiate between the two.

What is the third process?

Relates to man being a species thing. "He treats himself as the actual living species, because he treats himself as a universal therefore free being." Alienated labor alienates species from man because man is alienated from his own active function, himself and from nature. "It turns him The life of the species into a means of the individual life. First is estranges the life of the species and individual life, and secondly it makes individual life in its abstract for the purpose of the life of the species, likewise in its abstract and estranged form." The worker relates to other man as hostile, powerful, alien, and independent of him his labor is hostile, powerful object independent of him and alien to him.

What is alienation?

The effect of capitalism on personality.

What does Marx view as a necessary consequence?

The external relation of the worker to himself and nature is private property. Marx states that "the emancipation of society from private property, from servitude, takes the political form of the emancipation of workers; not in the sense that only the latter's emancipation is involved, but because this emancipation includes the emancipation of humanity as a whole."

What is man's essential nature based on?

The kinds of activity or life which corresponds to it is considered on the grounds that the species character of man is its type of life activity.

How many processes of alienation are there?

There are four processes.