Alienation

Karl Marx wrote about the concept of “alienation”, or how humans forced into certain relations are separated from the product of working, the work itself, himself as a producer, and from other workers. An understanding of alienation is essential to understanding the moral angle from which Marxism can attack capitalism — and I think it’s foolish to suggest that Marxism doesn’t have a moral angle.

Marx described four forms of alienation: Alienation of the worker from the work — from the product of his labour, alienation of the worker from working — from the act of producing, alienation of the worker from himself, as a producer — from his Gattungswesen (species-essence), and alienation of the worker from other workers.

I. Separation of the worker from the product of his labour entails the division necessarily resulting from the separation of the decisions affecting the workers’ work from the worker. “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, 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.” They are not the masters of their own product; thus, they are alienated from it.*

II. The second type of alienation, the separation of the worker from the act of working, is described as follows: “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 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.” Their work, all too often, is psychologically unfulfilling, their actions repetitive, their labour unspecialized. They are alienated from the very act of working.*

III. There is also the separation of the worker from himself, as a producer. Marx uses the term Gattungswesen (species-essence). This form describes how capitalism limits human potential both as a species and on an individual level by smothering the full expression of themselves that would otherwise be put into labour. If that sounds metaphysical, don’t worry. To make it sound more physical, it really just means that work under capitalism stays simply work in order to secure the means of existence, with no care taken to make it anything other than that, on both the part of the worker and the capitalist. Marx says that humans are distinct from other animals in that their labour can be done to objectify something other than immediate self-subsistence. That humans can labour for a future purpose, for an intent. But that intent is limited under capitalism, when labour is reduced to the same level as Max ascribes to animals; when people labour only for immediate self-subsistence. Under capitalism, most people are not free to pursue their full potential in labour.

IV. Finally, the worker is alienated with regard to other workers. One’s labour is “reduced 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 privatized 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 privatized 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.” The workers are convinced to not work together, to squabble among themselves, to compete unceasingly and unthinkingly; once again, alienated from each other. How much more could be achieved in a society characterized by the means of production held in common? When emphasis is placed on the betterment of society and yourself, as a worker not in contest with the others, but in collaboration; where one labours for the good of all and therefore oneself, too, and they for you and therefore themselves? … As Karl Marx wrote in his Critique of the Gotha Program, “after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!