Marxs Labour Essay Research Paper Description This

Marx`s Labour Essay, Research Paper

Description: This paper discusses Marx’s argument on "estranged labour."

This is a rather microcosmic topic but it is important because estranged labour

is the basis for all of Marx’s writing, most importantly, ‘The Communist

Manifesto.’ Revealing Marx In Karl Marx’s early writing on "estranged

labour" there is a clear and prevailing focus on the plight of the labourer.

Marx’s writing on estranged labour is and attempt to draw a stark distinction

between property owners and workers. In the writing Marx argues that the worker

becomes estranged from his labour because he is not the recipient of the product

he creates. As a result labour is objectified, that is labour becomes the object

of mans existence. As labour is objectified man becomes disillusioned and

enslaved. Marx argues that man becomes to be viewed as a commodity worth only

the labour he creates and man is further reduced to a subsisting animal void of

any capacity of freedom except the will to labour. For Marx this all leads to

the emergence of private property, the enemy of the proletariat. In fact Marx’s

writing on estranged labour is a repudiation of private property- a warning of

how private property enslaves the worker. This writing on estranged labour is an

obvious point of basis for Marx’s Communist Manifesto. The purpose of this paper

is to view Marx’s concept of alienation (estranged labour) and how it limits

freedom. For Marx man’s freedom is relinquished or in fact wrested from his true

nature once he becomes a labourer. This process is thoroughly explained

throughout Estranged Labour. This study will reveal this process and argue it’s

validity. Appendant to this study on alienation there will be a micro-study

which will attempt to ascertain Marx’s view of freedom (i.e. positive or

negative). The study on alienation in conjunction with the micro-study on Marx’s

view of freedom will help not only reveal why Marx feels labour limits mans

freedom, but it will also identify exactly what kind of freedom is being

limited. Estranged Labour Karl Marx identifies estranged labour as labour alien

to man. Marx explains the condition of estranged labour as the result of man

participating in an institution alien to his nature. It is my interpretation

that man is alienated from his labour because he is not the reaper of what he

sows. Because he is never the recipient of his efforts the labourer lacks

identity with what he creates. For Marx then labour is "alien to the

worker…[and]…does not belong to his essential being." Marx identifies

two explanations of why mans lack of identity with labour leads him to be

estranged from labour. (1) "[The labourer] does not develop freely his

physical and mental energy, but instead mortifies his mind." In other words

labour fails to nurture mans physical and mental capacities and instead drains

them. Because the worker is denied any nurturing in his work no intimacy between

the worker and his work develops. Lacking an intimate relation with what he

creates man is summarily estranged from his labour. (2) Labour estranges man

from himself. Marx argues that the labour the worker produces does not belong to

him, but to someone else. Given this condition the labourer belongs to someone

else and is therefore enslaved. As a result of being enslaved the worker is

reduced to a "subsisting animal", a condition alien to him. As an end

result man is estranged from himself and is entirely mortified. Marx points to

these to situations as the reason man is essentially estranged from his labour.

The incongruency between the world of things the worker creates and the world

the worker lives in is the estrangement. Marx argues that the worker first

realizes he is estranged from his labour when it is apparent he cannot attain

what he appropriates. As a result of this realization the objectification of

labour occurs. For the worker the labour becomes an object, something shapeless

and unidentifiable. Because labour is objectified, the labourer begins to

identify the product of labour as labour. In other words all the worker can

identify as a product of his labour, given the condition of what he produces as

a shapeless, unidentifiable object, is labour. The worker is then left with only

labour as the end product of his efforts. The emerging condition is that he

works to create more work. For Marx the monotonous redundancy of this condition

is highly detrimental because the worker loses himself in his efforts. He argues

that this situation is analogous to a man and his religion. Marx writes,

"The more man puts into God the less he retains in himself….The worker

puts his life into the object, but now his life no longer belongs to him but to

the object." The result of the worker belonging to the object is that he is

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