Student name & PNumber:YULAN FENG P298653

Module Code: PM606 Advanced Social Science

Class Group: AY22 GSep1
Module Tutor: Raphael Ejime
Date of Submission:26-04-2023
Assessment Type: Written assignment (individual): Summative Essay

I confirm that this assignment is my own work.

Where I have referred to academic sources, I have provided in-text citations and included the
sources in the final reference list.

Topic:

Critically assess whether Marx’s concept of ‘alienation’ is still useful in

explaining how employees’ experience work in contemporary societies

1. Introduction:

The theory of alienation has been recognized as a central concept of Marxism and has been
widely used by both Marxists and non-Marxists. However, before it was recognized as an
essential philosophical term, it was widely used outside the philosophical sphere. And, this
influence has a certain influence on the present social class. This influence is reflected not only
in social class, but also in the development of human society. Therefore, based on the analysis
of social class and historical events, this paper will try its best to discuss what role Marx's
theory of alienation has played in contemporary enterprises and society by combining data.

Marx's critique of alienation does not aim at the criticism itself. His aim was to open the way
to radical revolution and the realization of communism. This realization of communism is
understood as "the restoration or return of man to himself", "the situation of man's self-
alienation", and "private property is the positive sublation of man's self-alienation, so it is the
real possession of man's essence through and for man". （Marx，1876）Although Marx did
not frequently use the terms alienation and disassociation in his later works, all of his later
works, including Das Kapital, presented a critique of the alienated people and society that
existed, and called for the removal of alienation. The alienation of the products of their own
economic activity into the form of commodities, money, capital; He assimilated the products
of his social activities into the forms of state, law, and social institutions. In innumerable ways
man alienates himself from the products of his activity, and moulds them into a separate,
independent, and powerful objective world, to which he is a weak, clinging slave.
（Bottomore，2006）

The alienation theory of Marxism has had a significant impact on modern workers and
capitalists, and has contributed to the improvement of the working environment and the
welfare of workers. Even though Marxists have numerous differences in their theoretical
understanding of Marxist philosophy and the international communist movement, they have
yet to form a unified world people's socialist movement and socialist society. However, from
the labor movement after the first Industrial Revolution to modern society, the relationship
between capitalists and workers has received increasing attention from both governments and
capitalists. The Marxist theory of alienation improved the class situation and status of workers
in later communist movements and in the practice of the world labour movement.

Therefore, the analysis of the influence of Marxist alienation theory on modern workers and
capitalists should focus on the improvement and development of the worker's welfare and life
by corporations and capital, and the struggle of the international left movement against the
bourgeoisie.

2.Discussion
Human subjectivity is the basis for promoting the theory of alienation in the practice
of social class relations.In the first place, the idea of man must be made clear to a certain
extent. Marx believed that man is subjective, and that man knows how to work and practice
according to a scale. Therefore, as human beings, capitalists and workers must develop and test
reason in practice, and test whether all actions are consistent with their own development
（ Marx ， 1975 ） . In the stage of primitive capital accumulation in society, capitalists and
workers will focus on improving their living conditions and their own specific actions, driven by
the environment in which they live. Marx believed that class oppression and class exploitation
by capitalists during the stages of social development, including the support of capitalism by
capitalist governments and the oppression of the working class, resulted in workers' labor
processes and labor outcomes that were not spontaneous from Marx （ 1980 ） . Britain is
where the working class and industrial capital were born. After the first industrial revolution in
Britain, a large number of factories sprang up, and the enclosure movement caused large
numbers of unemployed farmers to seek work in the urban factories. Workers' groups and
classes were rapidly formed. With the rapid development of the economy, the social values of
different classes in society were rapidly highlighted, which also led to the rise of class
contradictions. Poor living conditions further contributed to the contradictions between the
ancient and modern British aristocracy, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. (Jones,1975)

Although the English bourgeois revolution had earlier established a constitutional

monarchy, the parliamentary system at the heart of politics did not shift the status of the
proletariat in a timely manner when social contradictions were acute. That is, Marx's theory of
alienation is based on his observation of the process of industrial production in capitalism:
workers inevitably lose control over their work, and thus over their lives and themselves.
（Marx，1876） The worker has never been an autonomous, self-fulfilling human being; he
can only exist in the mode in which the bourgeoisie wants him to exist. Capitalist society
creates alienation because everyone contributes to society through labor, but this social aspect
of the individual is expressed through private ownership, where the individual is merely a tool,
not a social being （ Marx and Engels ， 1973) Hence the repeated struggles and contests
between the bourgeois government of England and the proletarian community. The English
working class and industrial bourgeoisie began the Chartist movement in 1832, which included
the formation of the Labour Party. The status quo being exploited by capitalists, political
participation and constitutional change, concrete action to increase the popular vote to alter
lives and welfare. This practical action also reflects Marx's conclusion about the relationship
between alienated labor and private property: the emancipation of society from private
property, etc by Marx（1961） and from slavery is expressed through the political form of the
emancipation of the worker. Not because the emancipation of the workman alone is at stake
here, but because the emancipation of the workman also includes the emancipation of man in
general. Repeated labor movements have forced capitalists and bourgeois-based governments
to pay attention to social contradictions and improve working conditions for workers. Only the
growing unity and movement of the proletariat can promote the bourgeois government and
the monopoly capitalist class to pay attention to the actual relationship between the two sides
at anytime, such as The London Underground trade union can organize a strike to promote the
increase in the welfare of London Underground employees.

The evolution of Marxist alienation theory dialectically promotes the development of social
class relations.Second, the subsequent evolution of Marxist alienation theory is also crucial.
The proletariat's analysis of self-revolution and the bourgeoisie's changes in corporate
structure and management changed as Marx's theory of alienation evolved. The full
combination of Marx's alienation theory and Marxist philosophy has enabled Marxists to have
additional explanations for alienation theory, including his own more purposeful practice of
alienation theory in society, including "Das Kapital". A critique of the existing alienation of
people and society. In contemporary China, as a socialist state, it is even more so. The Marxist
theory of alienation, an essential part of Marxist philosophy, has been practiced and developed
dialectically over the course of the communist movement. A thorough respect for dialectics
entails the recognition that socialist society, like everything else, is a unity of opposites. Mao
Zedong had sharply criticized Stalin for denying the existence of internal contradictions in a
socialist society. What are the principal contradictions in socialist societies? Mao Zedong
always made it extremely clear that this was a struggle between two paths and two futures of
socialism and capitalism from Mao, （ 1937 ） If "alienation" refers to the possibility of
capitalist restoration in a socialist society, then Mao Zedong held a positive view on this from
Chen （ 2019 ） . In history, "the development of things continually turns to its opposite. Mao
Zedong pointed out in his comments written in the book "A Course in Dialectical Materialism"
that the change of things "is the development in a specific direction", which is the "negation of
At the same time, the negation of negation only completes a link in the development of things,
but it by no means the end of development. As a result, the influence of Marxist alienation
theory on businesses and employees followed the International Communist Movement.
Gradually it was transformed by the struggle with the proletariat.
The interpretation and practice of Marx's theory of alienation are different.Marx's
employment relations between societies are summarized in Das Kapital into three relations:
simple cooperation, artisanal industry in the workshop and machine industry. In fact, wages are
part of the value created by workers, and the value created by labour is greater than the actual
value. Even the most radical representatives of this optimistic view argue that all self-alienation
has been largely eliminated in socialist states; there, alienation exists only in the form of
individual insanity and insignificant "remnants of capitalism". It is not difficult to see the
problem with this view. Absolute elimination of alienation is possible unless human nature is
something permanently fixed and unchangeable. However, from the point of view of facing
reality, it is easy to see that in the so-called "socialism", alienation exists not only in the form of
"ancient", but also in numerous "modern" forms. Thus, in contrast to these advocates of
absolute alienation, there are those who hold that only relative alienation is possible. In this
view, it is impossible to eliminate all alienation, but it is possible to create a society that is
essentially free of it. Such a society would promote the development of true human
individuality, which is not self-alienating. Some who regard self-alienation as a psychotic
phenomenon invariably adhere to a psychoanalytic approach to it. At the other extreme are
philosophers and sociologists who rely on a degenerate variant of Marxism known as economic
determinism, which holds that individuals are passive products of social (especially economic)
organization. Such Marxists have reduced the problem of alienation to the problem of social
change, and the problem of social transformation to the problem of the elimination of private
property.

3.Conclusion:
As social and individual alienation are intimately connected, it is impossible to remove the
one without dissolving the other, or to attribute the one to the other. In the same way, the
problem of eliminating alienation from economic life cannot be solved by the elimination of
private property alone. The conversion of private property into state property did not lead to a
fundamental shift in the situation of the worker or the producer. The elimination of alienation
from economic life also requires the elimination of state property and its transformation into
real social property. This transformation cannot be effected unless the whole of social life is
organized on the basis of the self-government of the immediate producers. But if the self-
government of the producer is a necessary condition for the elimination of alienation in
economic life, this condition is not in itself sufficient, for it does not automatically solve the
problem of alienation in distribution and consumption, or even solve it by itself. The problem
of alienation elimination in production is also insufficient. In production, some forms of
alienation are rooted in the nature of modern means of production, and therefore cannot be
eliminated purely by changing the way production is managed. It is possible to create a social
system that favors the development of individuals without alienation, but it is impossible to
organize a society that will automatically produce such individuals. It is only by his own agency
that a man can become a non-alienated, free, creative being. Not only does de-alienation not
reduce to de-alienation of society from Rupert (1993). ; Nor can the de-alienation of society be
conceived merely as an automatic change in all other spheres or aspects of human life as the
economic organization changes. Regarding the influence of the bourgeoisie and proletariat on
the employees: On the one hand, there is a specific direction of development, which is both
tortuous and forward. It constantly needs to go through different things, from small to large,
from weak to strong, with twists and turns. The process of finally beating the ancients.
Development, on the other hand, is endless.（Jones，1975）
In general, Marx's theory of alienation holds that the employment-labor relationship under
the capitalist system leads to various phenomena of alienation and estrangement between
workers and their own labor processes, products, other workers and their own humanity. From
this point of view, Marx's theory of alienation has implications for both employees and bosses.
For employees, it reveals the alienation between workers and their own labor and products,
causes workers to think and reflect on their own labor processes, and promotes worker
organization and struggle. For bosses, it reveals the supremacy of profit and the exploitation of
workers under the capitalist system, reminds bosses of their responsibility and responsibility
for production and products, and promotes social concern and improvement in the conditions
of production and the welfare of workers.

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