Marx's concept of alienation and its assessment

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, And the Development of the Concept of Alienation

In the year 1848, Western society has been 'enlightened' through the introduction of a new ideology put forward by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, proponents of the political treatise "Communist Manifesto." In it, the authors proposed and expounded on the issue of socialism as the new revolutionary movement that served as the anti-thesis of the principles of capitalism and eventually, modernism. The socialism-capitalism dichotomy was discussed based on the antagonistic relationships that emerged out of the unequal opportunities given to people at each point or stage of the socio-economic history of humanity. Thus, Marx and Engels posit that throughout history and until capitalism, human society has been in the "history of class struggles," wherein there existed inequalities among "[f]reeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman...oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted now hidden, now open fight..."

Through historical materialism, both political theorists determined that social experience -- that is, the existence of oppression in society -- is related to the conditions and mode of (economic) production. Mode of production consists of means (material objects), forces (type of labor and level of technology), and relations (ownership of means and participation in the labor force) of production. Put quite simply, because the land-owning or bourgeoisie have the means and forces of production, they then dominate the over those who are part of the labor force, identified as the proletariat or working class. Therefore, oppression emerges when the social system is divided into classes, and this classification is based on the ownership of the mode of production.

Marx's and Engels's discussion of class oppression ultimately centers toward the individual, or more specifically, the worker. Both believed that the process of individualization is dependent on the economic structures of the society, and where the individual is located in these economic structures. Marx, specifically, believed in the human agent as the creator of value. That is, capital is nothing but human labor disguised as an object, which, ironically, oppresses man, in turn. "Communist Manifesto" terms this event -- the oppression of man by the object -- as "alienation," explicated in more concretely in the following passage from the political treatise:

Owing to the extensive use if machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous and most easily acquired knack that is required of him...the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.

Alienation is the process in which the proletariat class is not given the opportunity to experience optimal individualization. Because workers live in poverty and are completely dependent, socially and economically, on the bourgeoisie, it goes without saying then that their political lives are dependent on the elite class, too. In his discourse, "Alienated Labor," Marx expressed further his view of how alienation occurs among the oppressed. In this discourse, he expressed alienation in theoretical terms, asserting that the conflict between "property owners" (bourgeoisie) and "propertyless workers" (proletariat) results to alienation, wherein "[t]he devaluation of the human world increases in direct relation with the increase in value of the world of things...The performance of work appears in the sphere of political economy as a vitiation of the worker, objectification as a loss and as servitude to the object, and appropriation as alienation [sic]" (Macionis & Benokraitis, 1998:263-4).

Marx's expression of alienation in theoretical terms had indeed reflected the real-life situation that most workers had experienced during the time his ideas were becoming rapidly known by the Western world. However, scholars on Marx's and Engels's concept of alienation believed that it was Engels, and not Marx, who had a stronger concept of the inherent oppression and existence of alienation in capitalist economy. Wheen (1999), in his biography of Marx's life, argued that Engels had greater knowledge and understanding of capitalism and its dynamics than Marx, thereby making the very concept of alienation as an idea that originated from and was put forth by Engels, and was only expounded upon theoretically by Marx (75):

Though he had already decided that abstract idealism was so much hot air, and that the engine of history was driven by economic and social forces, Marx's practical knowledge of capitalism was nil. He had been so engaged by his dialectical tussle with German philosophers that the condition of England -- the first industrialised country, the birthplace of the proletariat -- had escaped his notice. Engels, from his vantage point in the cotton mills of Lancashire, was well placed to enlighten him.

In the preceding passage, Wheen brought into light how, despite Marx's authority on the issues of oppression and alienation, the ideology of socialism emerged out of Engels's discourses. This discovery was not at all surprising, considering that "Communist Manifesto" was actually based on a draft on political economy created and authored by Engels. From Wheen's point-of-view, Engels's exposure to the realities of capitalism during the 19th century helped him become the authority on Socialist ideas.

Carver (1984) echoed Wheen's assumption in his analysis of the political discourses of Marx and Engels. While Wheen asserted that the important concepts of oppression and alienation originated from Engels, Carver went so far as to argue that the deterministic approach adopted by Marx and Engels in developing "Communist Manifesto" was influenced by latter, rather than the former. It was Engels's experiences engaging in a capitalist society, developing Socialist ideas, and knowledge of economy that allowed him to have a firmer concept of Socialism as an ideology. Once Engels's ideas took shape, Marx developed it further to create a political theory, which gave him greater credit than Engels (157).