Marx's Social and Economic Philosophies

" Rather, this early test attempts to make water the cause-effect linkage between man and his activities that is the foundational process of a capitalistic society - and results in the disenfranchisement ("alienation") of the individual from the fruits of his own labor.

essentially speaking, the argument of " modify Labor" views society from an economical billet ("political economy") and proceeds thus:

When man produces, by whatever activity, something for himself, he controls this activity and this product. Scarcity gives the product rank - and, inherently, imbues the producer (a) with an identification to the product, and (b) with a sense of self-worth, both to himself and in relation to society. However, once man causes a "worker" the stainless relationship to his activity changes - and, as a consequence, so does his value, both to self and to society. He becomes "alienated" from the product of his activity.

In Marx' definition of the process, a worker is a man who engages in activity, labor, for " hire" - i.e., the labor results in product(s) that are non for the man's personal consume (spiritual or physical), but have now become "commodities" that others ordain purchase with their wages. Thus is the worker's labor an alienated "objectification" of the product. No yearlong is there a self/spiritual connection among man-labor-product.

The more(prenominal) product a worker's labor produces, the less scarce those commodities become - and the less valuable to society the w

By now, in the mid-1990s, we are used to accepting as de facto argument that the failure of the Soviet Union proves conclusively the unworkability of loss philosophy. We ignore the fact that a philosophy is notable not exclusively for the solutions it proposes - but also for the questions nearly the human civilise that it raises. In "Alienated Labor" the questions raised in this 1844 essay remain alive and vital to anyone seriously concerned about the human condition today.

---. "Manifesto of the Communist Party." In [client must(prenominal) supply references]: 141-167.

This process of labor-and-product-for-wages is, in Marx' analysis, the staple factor in and description of "private property" - and the foundation of "capitalism": i.e.

, any political economy where there are producers trapped in the cycle, and non-producers who benefit from the cycle. Marx sees wages and private property as one-in-the-same (50), and considers any proposals for wage reform to be perpetuators of the exploitative status quo (51). For, in fact, by definition of the process, non-producers are exempt from the denigrations of the cycle. Non-producers are not alienated from their labor/product/self-worth/worth-to-society because, in fact, they are not participants in the process - they exploit it:

Bereft of empirical example, "Alienated Labor" could easily fall victim to its own cant, curiously in its reliance upon such sweeping statements as "The only wheels which political economy puts in motion are greed and the war among the greedy, competition" (Marx 43). Where this essay derives its strength of argument, however, lies not so much in its philosophic aspirations, nor in its logical progressions of economic development, as in its psychological perceptiveness regarding a worker's localize in the political economy.

orker becomes. The relationship of commodity scarcity-to-value is a basic tenet of capitalism, and in its practice a vicious travel of cause-effect ensues. As the worker
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