Alienation and Revolution

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Simply put, alienation occurs when the worker is divorced from the product of his or her labour. It seems that the theory of alienation is central to Marxist thought regarding human emancipation and revolution. If the changes in mode of production drive history through its epochs, then alienation is the effect of the mode of production on humankind.
Alienation is not unique to capitalism. For Marx it was evident in feudalism with peasants, who worked the land, being subordinate to the landowners. The difference is that peasants worked their own land and were able to keep sometimes up to 70% of the produce whereas, in capitalist society, the worker does not have that luxury. The bourgeoisie completely owns the mode of production, in this case the factories and the machines in the factories. The worker gives up his autonomy to work in these factories, of which he has no say in the running. The product of labour is then in the hands of the factory owner who sells it for a profit. The worker is paid a wage which is less than the value of the product.
This is one aspect of alienation – alienation from the product of labour. Another aspect is alienation from each other. In the capitalist system, division of labour is important as this means lower individual wages leading to a boost in profits. More fundamentally, however, division of labour leads to individuals seeing each other as competitors. Greed and envy are side effects of division of labour.
The final aspect of alienation is alienation from self. To Marx, what separated humans from animals is consciousness. He concluded that both humans and animals need to work to survive but while animals such as spiders and bees can efficiently perform humanlike tasks, such as weaving in the spider’s case and construction in the bee’s case, humans have the vision to imagine the end product before the task is preformed. The coercion of labour from the worker means that he loses his vision in the task and eventually he loses himself in his work. He becomes exhausted through hard work and consequently he cannot enjoy his leisure time and is unable to socialise effectively.

Liberation from alienation is the key to human emancipation and for Marx the proletariat (the workers) were the only class capable of delivering human emancipation. The reason for this lies in Marx’s analysis of the two classes. In feudal times, before the bourgeois revolution in France and America, the bourgeoisie were a class both in society and of society. This meant that they were distinct from the ruling class at the time but they also enjoyed the benefits of that society i.e. wealth. The situation is different for the proletariat in capitalism. They are a class in society but not of society. They don’t enjoy the benefits of the system. This makes it easier to destroy the whole house rather than leaving the pillars standing as Marx said the bourgeois revolutions had done; the house being the ruling class and the pillars being the system of oppression used by the ruling class against others. This shows that bourgeois revolutions are incomplete as they merely offer political emancipation.
For Marx, a Proletarian revolution meant complete human emancipation because the bourgeoisie would be swept along with the revolutionary tide. However, this would only happen after violence. The bourgeoisie don’t see themselves as being alienated, Marx argued. They don’t understand that the pressures of the system alienate them as much as it does the proletariat. Therefore, they will not gladly give up what they have. Eventually, the proletariat will win and history would continue into communism as Marx predicted.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

D McLellan, Karl Marx: Selected Writings, ‘Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction’
D McLellan, Karl Marx: Selected Writings, 'Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts'
E Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man
G Petrovic, 'Alienation' in T Bottomore (ed), A Dictionary of Marxist Thought

[Edelweiss]

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