Revealing Marx Essay

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Description: This paper discusses Marx's argument on "estranged labour."

This is a rather microcosmic topic but it is important because estranged

labour is the basis for all of Marx's writing, most importantly, 'The

Communist Manifesto.'

Revealing Marx

In Karl Marx's early writing on "estranged labour" there is a clear and prevailing focus on the plight of the labourer. Marx's writing on estranged labour is and attempt to draw a stark distinction between property owners and workers. In the writing Marx argues that the worker becomes estranged from his labour because he is not the recipient of the product he creates. As a result labour is objectified, that is labour becomes the object of mans existence. As labour is objectified man becomes disillusioned and enslaved. Marx argues that man becomes to be viewed as a commodity worth only the labour he creates and man is further reduced to a subsisting animal void of any capacity of freedom except the will to labour. For Marx this all leads to the emergence of private property, the enemy of the proletariat. In fact Marx's writing on estranged labour is a repudiation of private property- a warning of how private property enslaves the worker. This writing on estranged labour is an obvious point of basis for Marx's Communist Manifesto.

The purpose of this paper is to view Marx's concept of alienation (estranged labour) and how it limits freedom. For Marx man's freedom is relinquished or in fact wrested from his true nature once he becomes a labourer. This process is thoroughly explained throughout Estranged Labour. This study will reveal this process and argue it's validity. Appendant to this study on alienation there will be a micro-study which will attempt to ascertain Marx's view of freedom (i.e. positive or negative). The study on alienation in conjunction with the micro-study on Marx's view of freedom will help not only reveal why Marx feels labour limits mans freedom, but it will also identify exactly what kind of freedom is being limited.

Estranged Labour

Karl Marx identifies estranged labour as labour alien to man. Marx explains the condition of estranged labour as the result of man participating in an institution alien to his nature. It is my interpretation that man is alienated from his labour because he is not the reaper of what he sows. Because he is never the recipient of his efforts the labourer lacks identity with what he creates. For Marx then labour is "alien to the worker...[and]...does not belong to his essential being." Marx identifies two explanations of why mans lack of identity with labour leads him to be estranged from labour. (1) "[The labourer] does not develop freely his physical and mental energy, but instead mortifies his mind." In other words labour fails to nurture mans physical and mental capacities and instead drains them. Because the worker is denied any nurturing in his work no intimacy between the worker and his work develops. Lacking an intimate relation with what he creates man is summarily estranged from his labour. (2) Labour estranges man from himself. Marx argues that the labour the worker produces does not belong to him, but to someone else. Given this condition the labourer belongs to someone else and is therefore enslaved. As a result of being enslaved the worker is reduced to a "subsisting animal", a condition alien to him. As an end result man is estranged from himself and is entirely mortified. Marx points to these to situations as the reason man is essentially estranged from his labour. The incongruency between the world of things the worker creates and the world the worker lives in is the estrangement.

Marx argues that the worker first realizes he is estranged from his labour when it is apparent he cannot attain what he appropriates. As a result of this realization the objectification of labour occurs. For the worker the labour becomes an object, something shapeless and unidentifiable. Because labour is objectified, the labourer begins to identify the product of labour as labour. In other words all the worker can identify as a product of his labour, given the condition of what he produces as a shapeless, unidentifiable object, is labour. The worker is then left with only labour as the end product of his efforts. The emerging condition is that he works to create more work. For Marx the monotonous redundancy of this condition is highly detrimental because the worker loses himself in his efforts. He argues that this situation is analogous to a man and his religion. Marx writes, "The more man puts into God the less he retains in himself....The worker puts his life into the object, but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object." The result of the worker belonging to the object is that he is enslaved. The worker belongs to something else and his actions are dictated by that thing. For Marx, labour turns man into a means. Workers become nothing more than the capital necessary to produce a product. Labour for Marx reduces man to a means of production. As a means of production man is diminished to a subsisting enslaved creature void of his true nature. In this condition he is reduced to the most detrimental state of man: one in which he is estranged from himself. To help expand on this theme it is useful to look at Marx's allegory of man's life-activity.

Life-activity and the Nature of Man

Of the variety of reasons Marx argues...

1Marx, Karl, The Early Marx, (reserve packet)

2Marx, Karl and Engles, Freidrich, The Communist Manifesto, London, England, 1888 You should cite this paper as follows:

MLA Style
. EssayMania.com. Retrieved on 25 May, 2012 from
    <http://essaymania.com/30600/revealing-marx>

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