Content

 HUMAN POTENTIAL
 LABOR
 ALIENATION
 STRUCTURE OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY
 CRITICISM
Means of Production-Class Struggle
Stages of Society
Human Potential
 Marx often used the term species being.
 By this he meant the potentials and
powers that are uniquely human and that
distinguish humans from other species.
 Labor
 Labor is a process in which both man and nature
participate.
 There is a relation between man and nature.

 The objectification of our purpose

Process in which we create external objects out of
our internal thoughts objectification.
Our labor creates something in reality that previously
existed only in our imagination. Our production reflects our
purpose.
 Labor is material
Our Labor works with material aspects of nature
(e.g. raising fruits and vegetables, cutting down trees for
wood)
 The transformation of our human nature

Marx believed that this labor does not just transform the
material aspects of nature but also transforms us, including
our needs, our consciousness, and our human nature.
 Labor is in response to our needs but it transforms our
needs

Satisfaction of needs Creation of new needs

Production of cars creation of highways
 Capitalism
“An economic and political system in which a
country's trade and industry are controlled by
private owners for profit, rather than by the state.”

People and companies make most of the decisions,

and own most of the property. ... The means of
production are largely or entirely privately owned
(by individuals or companies) and operated for
profit.
 Alienation
The relation between labor and human nature is
spoiled by capitalism. He calls this perverted
relation alienation.

Labor is no more an expression of our purpose.

Instead, we labor in accordance with the purpose of
the capitalist who hires and pays us.
i.e. earning money not an expression of human
capabilities.
Because our labor is not our own, it no longer
transforms us.
Instead we are alienated from our labor and therefore
alienated from our true human nature.
Marx uses the concept of alienation to reveal the
devastating effect of capitalist production on human
beings and on society.
Capitalists
 own workers
 own the means of production
 own ultimate products
To survive, workers are forced to sell their labor time
to capitalists for survival

“the labor is external to the worker, it doesn’t belong

to laborers interest he’s unhappy with it mortifies his
body and ruins his mind, labor therefore is not
voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is merely a
means to satisfy needs.” (Marx)
Types of Alienation
Coworkers

Human Alienation Productive

Potential From Activity

Product
 Alienated from their productive activity

 Productive activity belongs to the capitalists, and they

decide what is to be done with it.
 Workers who perform highly specialized tasks have little
sense of their role in the total production process
 They do not objectivate their ideas
 They are not transformed by the labor

 Alienated from the product

 The capitalists’ private property
 They must buy it like anyone else. No matter how
desperate the workers’ needs
 Alienated from the co-workers
 Cooperation and interaction are opposed in capitalism.
 Work next to a guy without even knowing his name.
 Competition of production or working quickly that lead
to conflict that in turn lead to isolation and interpersonal
conflict
winner extra rewards
loser discard

 Alienated from the own human potential

 Function like machines
 Programmed smiles and greetings
 Individuals are unable to express their qualities
Purpose of Production
How economic crisis leads to
establishment of communism
Revolutionary
Economic Immiseration
class
Crises of proletariat
consciousness

Withering Dictatorship Capture of

away of state of proletariat state power

Establishment
of
Communism
 Commodity
 Commodity
In Marx's theory, a commodity is something
that is bought and sold, or exchanged in a
market.
Labor—the thing that, according to Marx,
makes us truly human—becomes a commodity
that is bought and sold.

Fetishism of commodity
Marx meant that we make things ourselves
and then worship as if it were a god.
 Criticisms

 The failure of communist societies and their turn

to a more capitalistically oriented economy.
 Marx’s theory places the proletariat at the heart
of the social change leading to communism, the
proletariat has rarely assumed this leading
position and often is among the groups that are
most opposed to communism.
 The missing dimension of gender.