Marx's Theory of Alienation"The alienation of humankind, in the fundamental sense of the term, means the loss of control: its embodiment in an alien force which confronts the individuals as a hostile and potentially destructive power. When Marx analysed alienation in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, he indicated four principal aspects of it - the alienation of human beings from: (1) nature ; (2) their own productive activity ; (3) their 'species being', as members of the human species; and (4) each other. He forcefully underlined that all this is not some 'fatality of nature' - as indeed as the structural antagonisms of capital are characteristically misrepresented, so as to leave them in their place - but a form of self-alienation. In other words, not the deed of an all-powerful outside agency, natural or metaphysical, but the outcome of a determinate type of historical development which can be positively altered by a conscious intervention in the historical process, in order to 'transcend labour's self-alienation'." -- From preface |
Contents
Origins of the Concept of Alienation | 27 |
Genesis of Marxs Theory of Alienation | 66 |
Conceptual Structure of Marxs Theory of Alienation | 93 |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute abstract achievements actual Adam Smith aesthetic Arbeit artistic aspects assertion become bourgeois capital capitalistic alienation character complex conceived concept of alienation concrete contradiction course criticism critique determined dialectical division of labour Economic and Philosophic egoistic essential powers estrangement existence external fact feudal Feuerbach framework freedom fundamental grasp Hegel Hegelian historical human nature Ibid ideal ideology individual inherent man's mankind Manuscripts of 1844 Marx's theory Marxian Marxism mature Marx means moral Moses Hess necessity needs negation object objectification ontological opposed opposition Paracelsus partiality particular Philosophic Manuscripts political economy positive transcendence postulate practical principle private property problematics problems productive activity property-relations question radical reality realization reification relations of production relationship Rousseau second order mediations self-alienation self-mediating sense simply social relations socialist socio-historical specific sphere standpoint structure supersession surplus-value theory of alienation tion transcendence of alienation universal utopian whole young Marx