Alienation under Feudalism

[YouthLiberation]

Was there alienation under Feudalism as there is under Capitalism or does the fact that the vassals could consume or sell their own goods while only having to give a share of what they produced to the landowner mean that there wasn't? If there was alienation, what caused it?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Was there alienation under Feudalism as there is under Capitalism or does the fact that the vassals could consume or sell their own goods while only having to give a share of what they produced to the landowner mean that there wasn't? If there was alienation, what caused it?Marx spoke of social alienation as specifically related to commodity production in capitalism. In various ways, human labor is estranged from the worker and the worker's efforts are turned against the worker in that the more he/she creates in terms of wealth, the more power it gives to the exploiter and the less the value of that labor has... so de-skilling labor creates more wealth but reduces the power of the workers induvidually.

There may have been other ways that people in feudalism were alienated form things, but they were not alienated in this specific way that Marx talks about.

As you said, in feudal relations, exploitation was direct: laboerers produced and had control over that effort, but then were forced by social relations to give a portion of that product or their own labor directly to the exploiting class.