Alienation

The concept of alienation is regarded today as one of the central concepts of Marxism, and widely
used by both Marxists and non-Marxists.

Before alienation was recognized as an important philosophical term it was widely used outside
philosophy: in everyday life, in the sense of turning or keeping away from former friends or
associates; in economy and law, as a term for the transfer of property from one person to another
(buying and selling, stealing, making a gift); in medicine and psychiatry, as a name for deviation
from normality, causing insanity.

The concept was first used by Hegel in the nineteenth century to pinpoint the moment when human
beings encounter obstacles and limitations in the world which act against them to block their
progress and their self-realization. Alienation remained one of Karl Marx’s central concerns
(Barbalet, 1983:95). Marx expanded the concept by looking at the effects of the modern economy
on the human labor process. In Marxism, including the writings of the young Marx, the process of
alienation, instead of being a process which is philosophically or metaphysically inevitable,
becomes the expression of a sociological process by means of which men or societies construct
collective organizations in which they become lost.

In Marx’s sense alienation is always self-alienation forming the very essence and basic structure
of alienation. ‘Self- alienation’ is not merely a (descriptive) concept; it is also an appeal for a
revolutionary change of the world (de-alienation). Sociologically interpreted, alienation is at once
a historical, moral, and sociological critique of the present social order created by the capitalist
structure.

Marx analyzed the peculiar form that our relation to our own labor has taken under capitalism. We
no longer see our labor as an expression of our purpose. The relationship between a bourgeoisie
and a worker is that of a cash nexus that is based on cash and no emotional exchange. We labor
for the capitalist who hires and pays us. Labor in capitalism is reduced to just earning money
(Marx, 1932/1964:173). Because our labor is not our own, it no longer transforms us. So, we are
alienated from our labor. Thus, the root of all alienation is economic alienation.
Marx uses the concept of alienation to reveal the damaging effect of capitalist production when
workers lose control over their labor and laboring activity. To survive, workers are forced to sell
their labor time to capitalists. Marx’s basic concern was with the structures of capitalism that cause
this alienation (Israel, 1971). In the capitalist régime, men are alienated; they are themselves lost
in the collectivity; and the root of all alienation is economic alienation. The structures, especially
the division of labor, are the basis of alienation.

Alienation can be seen as having four basic components/types.

1. Workers in capitalist society are alienated from their productive activity. They do not
produce objects according to their own ideas or to directly satisfy their own needs. Instead,
workers work for capitalists, who pay them a wage. Because productive activity belongs to
the capitalists, and because they decide what is to be done with it, we can say that workers are
alienated from that activity. Furthermore, many workers who perform highly specialized tasks
have little sense of their role in the total production process. For example, automobile
assembly-line workers who tighten a few bolts on an engine may have little feel for how their
labor contributes to the production of the entire car.

2. Workers in capitalist society are also alienated from the product. The product of their labor
belongs not to the workers but to the capitalists who own it as private property.
If workers wish to own the product of their own labor, they must buy it like anyone else. For
example, workers in a bakery can starve if they don’t have the money to buy the bread that
they make. Things that we buy—that are made by others—are an expression of ourselves than
 the things we make at our jobs. For example, people are judged more by the cars they drive,
the clothes they wear, the gadgets they use—none of which they have made.

3. Workers in capitalist society are alienated from their fellow workers. This is because people,
often strangers, are forced to work side by side for the capitalist. For instance, even if the
workers on the assembly line are close friends, the nature of the technology makes for a great
deal of isolation. Much the same is true for the office cubicle. The capitalist forces the workers
into competition, and sometimes conflict, with one another. This interpersonal competition in
capitalism alienates one worker from another worker.
4. Workers in capitalist society are alienated from their own human potential. This means
people perform less like human beings and function more like machines because their relations
with other humans are controlled within capitalism.

George Ritzer argues that consumption in the modern economy encourages some creativity and
that provides some wage labor jobs that are not alienating. For example, people who create video
games or direct movies or perform popular music are less alienated from their work, even in a
capitalist system. Although there are only a few such jobs, their existence gives hope to the
alienated workers, who can expect that they, or at least their children, might someday work in
interesting and creative jobs.