In the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Marx discusses four ways in which the worker is alienated under the capitalist mode of production. In the first place, they can be alienated from the product towards which their labor is directed: the worker spends 8 hours a day making widgets for the factory owner, and when that time is up, no widgets stay with them. Rather, the widgets are either advanced to the next step in production (they become a part of some further product down the line) or are sent to the market as goods. In either case, the worker then encounters them not as products of their labor, but as objects with independent value belonging to the owner of the means of production. The product appears to the worker as something set apart from them with its own autonomous and independent life.
Academia, Unalienated Labor, and Despair
Academia, Unalienated Labor, and Despair
Academia, Unalienated Labor, and Despair
In the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Marx discusses four ways in which the worker is alienated under the capitalist mode of production. In the first place, they can be alienated from the product towards which their labor is directed: the worker spends 8 hours a day making widgets for the factory owner, and when that time is up, no widgets stay with them. Rather, the widgets are either advanced to the next step in production (they become a part of some further product down the line) or are sent to the market as goods. In either case, the worker then encounters them not as products of their labor, but as objects with independent value belonging to the owner of the means of production. The product appears to the worker as something set apart from them with its own autonomous and independent life.