Alienation and chemical dependency....

[RadioRaheem84]

Has Marx or any Marxists ever written about drug addiction, alcoholism and chemical dependency in a capitalist society? Does it tie into alienation?

I've always wanted to know since so many conservatives gripe about workers and poor people being drug addicts.

There has to be link to structural/social problems.

Please post links, articles, journals etc.

[TomHPMc]

"Religion is the opium of the masses"

... I guess you could just as well say that "opium is the opium of the masses"?

[RadioRaheem84]

I guess.

Anyone else? I could use the help.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

this is a great question. honestly, I don't have any real answers other than the links below
there has to be some work on this somewhere
if not, maybe it's something you should consider writing about as part of your struggle

good hunting comrade, and good luck

Yahoo! Answers: Did Karl Marx ever write about drug use/abuse? (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110425204838AAw4MMq)
Google Scholar search for terms: Marx alienation addiction (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=marx+alienation+addiction&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=)

[Luís Henrique]

Has Marx or any Marxists ever written about drug addiction, alcoholism and chemical dependency in a capitalist society? Does it tie into alienation?

I've always wanted to know since so many conservatives gripe about workers and poor people being drug addicts.

There has to be link to structural/social problems.

Please post links, articles, journals etc.

It would seem that drugs are the essential commodity, leading to a very radical form of fetishism.

Luís Henrique

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

The first thing I thought of was Engels´s Conditions of the working classes in England where he writes a bit about alcoholism and/or alcohol abuse among workers.

Also found this article (http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/pages/back/Wnext9/Drugs.html) from What´s next journal?

[RadioRaheem84]

The question of it being a commodity and not only that an illegal one is one I want to figure out to. Also alienation of workers and their addiction of these commodities.

Marxists has to have talked about the drug war too.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

a comprehensive Marxist analysis of drugs, including alienation, the industry, and the drug war would be an incredible undertaking and a serious contribution to Marxian social theory.

[Derpington]

My first post.

This is from the Lacanian school:


The “new symptom” refers to symptoms such as addiction, anorexia, bulimia, cutting, depression, anxiety disorders, and so on. We might even be able to add things such as hoarding and compulsive shopping. While many of these symptoms existed in earlier eras, they are appearing in the clinic with greater and greater frequency. My suggestion, is that these symptoms indicate a fundamental mutation in how the symbolic order is structured. What is unique about these symptoms compared to those that dominated the clinic in Freud and Lacan’s time (hysteria, obsession, phobia) is that 1) these symptoms do not seem to signify, 2) that they are therefore not a veiled demand addressed to the Other, and 3) that they are a sort of immediate jouissance that doesn’t pass through the battery of signifiers (S2). This comes out most clearly, I think, in the case of addiction. Where the traditional neurotic symptom is one that is addressed to the Other and requires the support of the Other for the jouissance it attains, addiction seems to be a symptom in which the subject attempts to cut the Other as mediator of jouissance out of the picture. The addict attempts to refuse passing through the Other as a detour to jouissance, instead relating to an object or activity (alcohol, internet porn) as a way of attaining jouissance. Where the neurotic symptom signifies or is a sort of cypher, the new symptom is a direct jouissance without signification. Indeed, there’s a sense in which it attempts to repress signification altogether.

And probably my last, thanks to: "To be able to post links or images your post count must be 25 or greater. You currently have 0 posts."

This is so counterproductive.

[RadioRaheem84]

Well damn it's up to us! I'm sure APL Red Phoenix has already written something on it.

[Luís Henrique]

a comprehensive Marxist analysis of drugs, including alienation, the industry, and the drug war would be an incredible undertaking and a serious contribution to Marxian social theory.

It would.

I would also require a solid pharmacological and epidemiological knowledge about the most important drugs.

Luís Henrique

[RadioRaheem84]

Did not the Black Panthers write about drugs? Also Mao?

[Sasha]

Tiqqun devotes some space on the subject of drugs and alienation in theory of bloom if I remember correctly...

[RadioRaheem84]

def gonna need a link for that comrade, I've been looking all over the net for it. thanks.

[RadioRaheem84]

http://www.radioproject.org/2012/02/gabor-mate-illness-addiction/

I found this too. Dr. Gabor Mate

[Sasha]

def gonna need a link for that comrade, I've been looking all over the net for it. thanks.

a new improvedtranslation is linked in the comments: http://libcom.org/library/theory-bloom

[redfist.]

Question about Marx's theory of alienation: What is the core of Marx's theory of alienation? In Rius' Marx for Beginners, it was explained that Alienation (which, I assume, is in reference to Marx's theory of alienation) is the worker being turned into a "machine"? Is this what it is about? In which case, is alienation the result of the capitalist mode of production that was more machine-based than it's feudal predecessor? Am I completely off-base here?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Question about Marx's theory of alienation: What is the core of Marx's theory of alienation? In Rius' Marx for Beginners, it was explained that Alienation (which, I assume, is in reference to Marx's theory of alienation) is the worker being turned into a "machine"? Is this what it is about? In which case, is alienation the result of the capitalist mode of production that was more machine-based than it's feudal predecessor? Am I completely off-base here?
Don't worry it's not a common use of the term and mainstream economists like to act like the labor market is just like the consumer market and there is no exploitation: workers get paid the full value of their work according to them.

But Marxist ideas of worker alienation have to do with how workers sell their labor power which just enriches capital which then "enslaves" workers even more to a more powerful set of capitalist relations. Workers are obviously not literally made into machines, but more like the cog which creates the wealth of capital and reinforces their position as exploited labor.

This also doesn't have anything to do with the use of machines in production... I can't think of the quote you are talking about, but Marx often used analogies and colorful descriptions to get at a sense of what some rather abstract seeming economic relations mean in more tangible terms: capital is a vampire feeding off of the life force of others and enslaving the... The capitalist is like Faust, unable to control the demonic forces they conjure... Workers feel like machines in capitalist production and are treated as such in the view of capital.

[redfist.]

Thanks alot for the help! :)

There are still alot of concepts that I don't understand though, and find Marx's colourful writing easier than Rius' oversimplification and writing style of a teenager who scribbled some notes after skimming Marx' works.