Revealing Marx Essay Example For Students

Revealing Marx Essay Revealing MarxIn Karl Marxs early writing on estranged labour there is a clear andprevailing focus on the plight of the labourer. Marxs writing on estrangedlabour is and attempt to draw a stark distinction between property owners andworkers. In the writing Marx argues that the worker becomes estranged from hislabour because he is not the recipient of the product he creates. As a resultlabour is objectified, that is labour becomes the object of mans existence. Aslabour is objectified man becomes disillusioned and enslaved. Marx argues thatman becomes to be viewed as a commodity worth only the labour he creates and manis further reduced to a subsisting animal void of any capacity of freedom exceptthe will to labour. For Marx this all leads to the emergence of private property,the enemy of the proletariat. In fact Marxs writing on estranged labour is arepudiation of private property- a warning of how private property enslaves theworker. This writing on estranged labour is an obvious poi nt of basis for MarxsCommunist Manifesto. The purpose of this paper is to view Marxs concept of alienation (estrangedlabour) and how it limits freedom. For Marx mans freedom is relinquished or infact wrested from his true nature once he becomes a labourer. This process isthoroughly explained throughout Estranged Labour. This study will reveal thisprocess and argue its validity. Appendant to this study on alienation therewill be a micro-study which will attempt to ascertain Marxs view of freedom(i.e. positive or negative). The study on alienation in conjunction with themicro-study on Marxs view of freedom will help not only reveal why Marx feelslabour limits mans freedom, but it will also identify exactly what kind offreedom is being limited. Estranged LabourKarl Marx identifies estranged labour as labour alien to man. Marx explains thecondition of estranged labour as the result of man participating in aninstitution alien to his nature. It is my interpretation that man is alienatedfrom his labour because he is not the reaper of what he sows. Because he isnever the recipient of his efforts the labourer lacks identity with what hecreates. For Marx then labour is alien to the workeranddoes not belongto his essential being. Marx identifies two explanations of why mans lack ofidentity with labour leads him to be estranged from labour. (1) The labourerdoes not develop freely his physical and mental energy, but instead mortifieshis mind. In other words labour fails to nurture mans physical and mentalcapacities and instead drains them. Because the worker is denied any nurturingin his work no intimacy between the worker and his work develops. Lacking anintimate relation with what he creates man is summarily estranged from hislabour. (2) Labour estranges man from himself. Marx argues that the labour theworker produces does not belong to him, but to someone else. Given thiscondition the labourer belongs to someone else and is therefore enslaved. As aresult of being enslaved the worker is reduced to a subsisting an imal, acondition alien to him. As an end result man is estranged from himself and isentirely mortified. Marx points to these to situations as the reason man isessentially estranged from his labour. The incongruency between the world ofthings 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 whenit is apparent he cannot attain what he appropriates. As a result of thisrealization the objectification of labour occurs. For the worker the labourbecomes an object, something shapeless and unidentifiable. Because labour isobjectified, the labourer begins to identify the product of labour as labour. Inother words all the worker can identify as a product of his labour, given thecondition of what he produces as a shapeless, unidentifiable object, is labour. PROJECT MANAGEMENT EssayAppendage 1. Marx on Freedom Marxs view of freedom would seem a rather broadtopic, and Im sure it is. For our purposes it is convenient to have just anidea of what type of freedom Marx favors. For the sake of ease the scope of thisstudy will be limited to two (2) classifications of freedom: prescribed(positive) freedom and negative liberties. Prescribed freedom would be guidedfreedoms, or freedoms to do certain things. Negative liberties would be freedomto do all but what is forbidden. In Marxs writing On The Jewish Question heidentifies (but does not necessarily advocates) liberty as the right to doeverything which does not harm others. In further argument Marxs states thatliberty as a right of man is not founded upon the relationship between man andman; but rather upon the separation of man from man. By this definition libertyis negative liberty, and for Marx it is monistic and solitary. Marx then arguesthat private property is the practical application of this negative liberty. Hestates private property isthe right to enjoy ones fortune and disposeof it as one will; without regard for other men and independently of society.Private property for Marx is the mechanism by which man can be separate fromother men and pursue his (negative) liberty. Marxs writings on estranged labourand in The Communist Manifesto are a clear repudiation of private property. Whatcan be deduced then is that Marx does not favor negative liberties. Negativeliberties require private property to exist and private property is for Marx theenslaver of the proletariat. Negative freedom eliminated from the discussion we are left with Positive orprescribed freedoms. Positive freedom, as was identified above, is the freedomto pursue specified options. That is, freedom to do certain things. Man is notnecessarily given a choice of what these options are, he is simply free topursue them whatever they may be. Posistive freedoms then are the freedoms Marxlikley wishes to uphold by denouncing estarnged labour. Bibliography1Marx, Karl, The Early Marx, (reserve packet)2Marx, Karl and Engles, Freidrich, The Communist Manifesto, London, England,1888 History