Karl Marx

The theories of Historical Materialism and the

Alienation of Workers

Kevin Berganza
11/23/2017
HIST 4101

Dr. Angel Cal

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Karl Marx

Karl Marx is credited as one of the world’s most prominent German philosopher,

economist, historian, political theorist and revolutionary socialist of the 19th century. Born in

Trier in 1818, he entered the university of Bonn and later Berlin, where he studied law, history

and philosophy. He submitted a doctoral thesis on the philosophy

of Epicurus which ended his university studies in 1841. Marx

studied political economy and Hegelian philosophy, and later

became a Hegelian idealist, in which he belonged to a group of

“Left Hegelians” that was rapidly spreading across Germany, that

intended to produce revolutionary conclusions from Hegel’s

philosophy. In 1844, he went to Paris to publish a radical work,

where it was discontinued due to difficulties of secretly

distributing it in Germany. Nevertheless, he met German thinker

Figure 1: Karl Marx
Frederick Engels in Paris, who became his lifelong closest friend (12).1 As he was exiled from

Paris and Germany, he later moved to London, England, where he became stateless and

developed his ideas along with Frederick Engels. In England, Marx developed theories about

society, economics and politics, commonly known as Marxism that dictates that human societies

develop through class struggles. The bourgeoisie (ruling class) and the proletariats (working

class), according to Marx, are in constant face off due to class antagonism. The bourgeoisie are

the owners of the means of production, while the proletariats sell their labor power that

complements the means of production, in order for them to survive (35).2 Marx noted that,

“Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a
1
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Selected Works: Manifesto of the Communist Party (Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1982), 12.
2
Ibid, (35).
 2

word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an

uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary

reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes” (35-36).3

Marx’s ‘Communist Manifesto’, an 1848 political pamphlet in collaboration with Engels, sought

to revitalize socialism and the European revolutions of 1848 that somewhat sprouted from the

effects of the French Revolution in 1789. Nevertheless, his life as a political exile, was a

consequence of his radical thoughts that posed a threat to the capitalist governments of Europe

that feared a socialist revolution. In essence, Marx sought to interrupt the fabric of the ruling

classes and to unchain the shackles of the proletariats by developing the theories of historical

materialism and the alienation of the worker.

Studying history from the Marxist point of view is known as historical materialism or the

materialist conception of history. Karl Marx developed the materialist conception of history right

before the middle of the 19th century and has since then become the first and only scientific view

of history. The concept sought to give a rather materialistic perspective of history other than the

usual idealistic perspective embraced by many philosophers of history including Hegel. Though

historical materialism or materialistic dialectics, developed primarily by Marx, Engels and Lenin,

sprouted out of Hegel’s dialectics, Marx rejected Hegel’s idealism because he believed that

Hegelian dialectics obscures society from the ‘real’ world of the ideal.4 Thus the material

conditions of how people view their lives are distorted as a result of certain ideologies that blind

them. The Workers Party of New Zealand wrote, “Marx belonged to the materialist school of

philosophical thought; that is, he held that being, matter and nature were primary, while thinking,
3
Ibid, (35-36).
4
The Workers Party of New Zealand. Historical Materialism: Understanding and Changing the World: A scientific
Marxist-Leninist new explanation of mankind’s development from primitive society to socialism and today’s world
(The Workers Party of New Zealand, 1995), 3. Accessed on November 18th 2017.
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/new-zealand/nunes-marx-mao/hist-mat.pdf
 3

mind and spirit were secondary, derivative. The philosophical idealists held the opposite view.

Thus, the great idealist thinker Georg Hegel who developed dialectics asserted that society was

ruled by divine will” (1).5 Prior to the discovery of historical materialism, many European

philosophers, like Hegel, asserted that history was driven by subjective thought which meant that

any historical event was merely the result of an idea put to action in the real world. However, the

philosophical idealists limit the causality of history, being that history is first subjective, as they

cannot explain how ideas come to existence at a particular time in history relying solely on

thoughts. Ideas, in Marx’s view, are reflections of the material world.6 This is to say that matter

and nature are of the two most important elements that influence the way we think. Historical

materialism provides a substantial background to better understand how thoughts are modeled

and as a result, how history is made.

In spite of this, Marx went deeper into history to arrive at historical materialism by

examining the developments of human societies in an evolutionary process commencing from

man’s prehistoric days. Marx, along with his closest friend, Engels, mentioned that human labor,

one of the most significant aspects of a society’s development, started when apes first realized

the difference between their hands and feet. This meant that man realized that the hands were

meant to hold the tools that were necessary for the advancement and creation of a society. This

significant phase of human evolution was known as the ‘erection gait’ and has thus differentiated

man from animal. As a consequence of labor in prehistoric man, social productivity emerged

through man’s need to change his environment which fostered social interactions with each other

and created a static social structure. (3).7 Prehistoric man then developed languages to better
5
Ibid. (3).
6
Benedetto Croce. Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx (Blackmask Online, 2001), 9. Accessed
on November, 18th 2017. http://home.lu.lv/~ruben/Croce,%20Benedetto%20-%20Historical%20Materialism
%20And%20The%20Economics%20Of%20Karl%20Marx.pdf
7
Ibid. (3).
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communicate with each other and this allowed for the development of the human brain and

consciousness. Engels wrote, “First labour, after it and then with it speech – these were the two

most essential stimuli under the influence of which the brain of the ape gradually changed into

that of man, which, for all its similarity is far larger and more perfect. Hand in hand with the

development of the brain went the development of its most immediate instruments – the senses”

(67).8 The human senses were major contributing factors of complex human societies that arose

during the primitive stages of mankind. Dr. Nellickappilly mentioned that”

He argues that the development of society can be seen as a process of social production.

The different stages of human evolution from the apes to complex society formations are

examined in order to develop his theory… Marx says that, in the process of social

production human beings come together and enter into definite relations that are

indispensable and independent of their will and desire. He thus sees the crucial role of

labour, both in human origin from the apes and in the evolution of different forms of

complex social formations (2).9

Prehistoric man were able to develop a social structure with the combination of

consciousness and labor. These allowed man to establish a stable society as agriculture

demanded for man to settle in a particular environment. Consciousness and labor also allowed

for prehistoric man to properly transition into a diverse society as each individual developed

skills that were properly attired to their labor. Engels, in accordance to Marx’s materialistic

conception of history, noted that, “…then came spinning, weaving, metalworking, pottery and

navigation. Along with trade and industry, art and science finally appeared. Tribes developed

8
Sang Hun Lee. The End of Communism. (USA: Unification Thought Institute, 2013), 67.
9
Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly. Aspects of Western Philosophy: Karl Marx: Historical Materialism. (IIT Madras,
n.d), 2.
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into nations and states. Law and politics arose, and with them that fantastic reflection of human

things in the human mind – religion” (43).10 Trade was therefore brought about, the means of

production increased and capitalism started to shape society. As a result, Marx saw history as the

distinction between the means of production and the social relations of production that when

combined, creates the mode of production. The Worker’s Party of New Zealand went further to

state:

The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the

means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is

the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the

manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is

dependent on what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged.

From this point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are

to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better insight into eternal truth and justice,

but in changes in the mode of production and exchange (3).11

The objective reality of a society, as seen by Marx, is a direct consequence of the modes

of production which is independent of man’s will and consciousness. The modes of production,

is a substantial force that is driven by the ever-changing relations of production which, as a result

of its instability, transforms a society’s structure and political ideas. He argued that the modes of

production, throughout the history of human society, are ever so changing that within it lies a

contradiction that can lead to its destruction and replaced by an advance system of economy. For

instance, the economic system that existed in Europe’s medieval ages was feudalism, which

10
Democratic Socialist Party. Education for Socialists: Class Guides for the Study of Marxism, Volume 1,
(Austrailia: Resistance Books, 2008) 43.
11
Ibid, (3).
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required monarchs to allow trade with other states. Thus resulting in the creation of a merchant

class that led to the advancement of a capitalist society. One of the main problems with

capitalism, as Marx stated, was that as it reach its peak, it disregards the workers through the

overproduction of goods.12 Capitalists, with the use of money, pay for labor power as a means of

producing more goods at a given time and maintaining the proletariats at the bottom of the social

ladder. The surplus, or profit, that is acquired through trade, is increased through the

overproduction of goods, more investments in technologies and a lower wage in labor power.

According to Morgan, “Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labor is the

source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. When

the rate of profit falls below a certain point, the result would be a recession or depression in

which certain sectors of the economy would collapse” (82).13 Marx not only went in depth in

theorizing macro economy from a capitalist view point, but sought to explore the capitalist

exploitation of the workers in a more micro level. He argued that the capitalist system of

production alienated workers from the world.

Alienation, as Marx sees it, distorts man’s right to freedom. He proposed that the

proletariats are facing four types of alienated labor under capitalism. The first is, the workers

alienation from the product. Mankind, unlike animals, are connected to nature through labor.

Mankind then creates subsistence by objectifying labor through the creation of what he has

produced. In this sense, mankind uses nature as an expression that becomes a mere extension of

himself through labor objectified and therefore, man’s self-creation (7).14 The objectification of

12
Taylor and Francis Group. New Connections to Classical and Contemporary Perspectives: Social Theory:
Rewired. Capital. Accessed on November 22nd 2017. http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/historical-
materialism
13
John H. Morgan. Naturally Good: A Behavioural History of Moral Development from Charles Darwin to E. O.
Wilson. (Indiana: Cloverdale Books: Cloverdale Corporation, 2005), 82.
14
Ibid. (7).
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labor is the product itself, and alienated labor occurs when a product is separated from the maker

as it enters capitalism. Marx wrote,

The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production

increases in power and ex tent. The worker becomes a cheaper commodity the more

commodities he produces. The increase in value of the world of things is directly

proportional to the decrease in value of the human world. Labor not only produces

commodities. It also produces itself and the worker as a commodity, and indeed in the

same proportion as it produces commodities in general….The worker puts his life into the

object; then it no longer belongs to him but to the object. The greater this activity, the

poorer is the worker, what the product of his work is, he is not. The greater this product

is, the smaller he is himself. The externalization of the worker in his product means not

only that his work becomes an object, an external existence, but also that it exists outside

him independently, alien, an autonomous power, opposed to him. The life he has given to

the object confronts him as hostile and alien (1-2).15

Marx argued that the monetary system causes us to become slaves to capitalists. As the

labor objectifies, and stands independently of the worker, the product is taken away from him

and exchanged for wage labor since the worker does not own the means or production. The

money exchanged for labor becomes a symbol of the workers alienation as it is the driving force

for a worker to survive under capitalism.

Nevertheless, this is not the only form of alienation. Workers become alienated through

the overall process of production. The capitalist mode of production offers little satisfaction of ‘a

15
Joel J. Kupperman. Human Nature: A Reader (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, Inc, 2012), 197.
 8

job well done’ to workers. The psychological dilemma is a result of the relationship of the

workers objectification of labor in exchange for labor wages paid to him by the capitalist. Marx

stated, “First is the fact that labor is external to the laborer that is, it is not part of his nature-and

that the worker does not affirm himself in his work but denies himself, feels miserable and

unhappy, develops no free physical and mental energy but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind”

(3).16 The worker does not perform to the best of his ability because, due to his misery, he is not

at work but outside of work. His work becomes forced and not voluntarily, leading him to work

in a state of force labor. This is to say that when he is objectifying his products, he is merely an

extension of his employers and not of himself since the product is not of his but for his

employers, the capitalists (3).17 This results in the worker completely loosing himself, and as a

result, labor is avoided when he has the chance, like a disease. The worker then becomes a

commodity in that he owns nothing but the labor he sells to the capitalists. The final stage of

workers becoming alienated from production is that the properties are owned by the capitalists

and the workers become propertyless (49-50).18 Marx coined the term commodity fetishism

when he explored the obstruction of market exchange on the human relations of production

between the employee and the employer. Fine noted that, “In this light, commodity fetishism can

be made the basis of a theory of alienation or reification. Not only are the workers divorced from

the control of the product and the process of producing it, but also the view of this situation is

normally distorted or at most partial. Further, the capitalists are subject to social control through

competition and the need for profitability” (43).19 As alienation detaches the worker from his

creation, much power and influence are transferred by the worker to the object creating

16
Ibid. (3).
17
Ibid. (3).
18
Amy Wendling. Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation (New York: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2009), 49.
19
Ben Fine and Saad Filho. Marx’s Capital (London: Pluto Press, 2004), 26.
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commodity fetishism. Thus, commodity fetishism is the transfer of certain animated powers and

properties to the product made by man. As a result of the exchange of products through the

relationship that both the producers and the products share, the worker becomes a laborer of

society.

However, the final stages are that workers become alienated from their fellow human

beings and as a species. The objectification of labor derives from what nature provides to the

producer. Man needs nature more than nature needs man. As mentioned by Marx, “The workers

can create nothing without nature, without the sensuous external world. It is the material in

which his labor realizes itself, in which it is active and from which, and by means of which, it

produces” (40).20 Nature then appears as an alienated reality as man enters commodity fetishism

as a worker that obscures the very nature of man himself, thus how each individual sees other

men. Man is a specie in that he is aware of being a free, conscious and universal being unique

from all other animals that are limited to instincts. Nature is man, and man is nature. This is to

say that man lives from the natural products he objectifies from nature. In this context, the

solidification of nature through man becomes a part of his inorganic nature. Marx noted:

Nature is man's inorganic body -- that is to say, nature insofar as it is not the human body.

Man lives from nature -- i.e., nature is his body -- and he must maintain a continuing

dialogue with it is he is not to die. To say that man's physical and mental life is linked to

nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature. Estranged

labor not only (1) estranges nature from man and (2) estranges man from himself, from

his own function, from his vital activity; because of this, it also estranges man from his

species. It turns his species-life into a means for his individual life. Firstly, it estranges
20
Karl Marx. The economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Institute of
Marxist-Leninism, 1993), 138.
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species-life and individual life, and, secondly, it turns the latter, in its abstract form, into

the purpose of the former, also in its abstract and estranged form” (41-42).21

In spite of this, Marx proposed a bold way in which proletariats could overcome the

alienation that capitalism harbors. He states that the abolition of private property would alleviate

alienation as private property is the overall achievement in the materialist world in which

capitalism dominates. A classless society emerges as a consequence of the dialectical

relationship between the conflicts of the proletariats and the capitalists. He believed that material

forces can be overthrown by material forces and he identifies it with the proletariats

overthrowing the existing capitalist mode of production to create a free and classless society –

communism.

To conclude, Karl Marx, sought to explain history and human reasoning using a

materialistic perspective of society. His ideas sprouted out of the idealist philosophers, mainly

Hegel, who argued that history is a direct result of human ideas objectified into reality. Marx did

not fully disagree with Hegel, but he did argue that it could be looked at from a more scientific

point of view or rather, from a more analytical point of view. This generalization may not be true

for the entire world, but it certainly is for the most part. Capitalism has shaped the entire world as

it allows for a certain hegemony to obscure human reasoning with the natural world. Contrary to

this, Marx gave hope to the lower class by providing them with a higher level of reasoning as

seen through historical materialism and the alienation of workers. He wanted all workers around

the world to know that capitalism is haunting them and that the only way to free themselves is

through unity and revolution.

21
Ibid. (41-42).
 11

Bibliography

Ben Fine and Saad Filho. Marx’s Capital. London: Pluto Press, 2004.

Croce, Benedetto. Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx. Blackmask Online,
2001. Accessed on November, 18th 2017. http://home.lu.lv/~ruben/Croce,%20Benedetto
%20-%20Historical%20Materialism%20And%20The%20Economics%20Of%20Karl
%20Marx.pdf

Democratic Socialist Party. Education for Socialists: Class Guides for the Study of Marxism,
Volume 1, (Austrailia: Resistance Books, 2008) 43.

John H. Morgan. Naturally Good: A Behavioural History of Moral Development from Charles
Darwin to E. O. Wilson. Indiana: Cloverdale Books: Cloverdale Corporation, 2005.

Kupperman, J. Joel. Human Nature: A Reader. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, Inc, 2012, 197.

Lee, Sang Hun. The End of Communism. USA: Unification Thought Institute, 2013.

Marx, Karl. The economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics:
Institute of Marxist-Leninism, 1993.

Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick. Selected Works: Manifesto of the Communist Party. Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1982.

Nellickappilly, S. Aspects of Western Philosophy: Karl Marx: Historical Materialism. IIT

Madras, n.d.

Taylor and Francis Group. New Connections to Classical and Contemporary Perspectives:
Social Theory: Rewired. Capital. Accessed on November 22nd 2017.
http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/historical-materialism

The Workers Party of New Zealand. Historical Materialism: Understanding and Changing the
World: A scientific Marxist-Leninist explanation of mankind’s development from
primitive society to socialism and today’s world. The Workers Party of New Zealand,
1995. Accessed on November 18th 2017. https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/new-
zealand/nunes-marx-mao/hist-mat.pdf

Wendling, Amy. Karl Marx on technology and alienation. New York: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2009.