Alienation
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Defintion
Alienation is a theory written by Karl Marx. Alienation refers to estrangement, division, or distancing of people from each other, or of people who are important to you, or of a person from their own self.
Types of alienation
According to Melvin Seeman there are five varieties of alienation. These five are powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-estrangement. In his view, these five varieties are all used, although not exactly the same, by Karl Marx as one concept. By separating the different varieties, Seeman wanted to make the concept more organized and make the traditional interest in alienation more amenable to sharp empirical statement.
Alienation and work
The theory of alienation means that people who are working can be estranged from themselves, their work and their own life. The capitalism is one of the aspect that leads to alienation. Alienation is an underpinning for the critique against the capitalism as an economic system.
Karl Marx used the term alienation for the relation between the proletariat and the bourgeois. He showed that the wage labour was the most explicit example of alienation. The workers sell their labour power in order to make a living. It is the capatalist (bourgeois) who owns the labour process. It was not the product of the workers anymore, but the product of the capitalist. In this case the workers are alienating from the product which they are producing. The working people get the feeling they lose control over their lives because they lose control over their work. Human beings are autonomous creatures that need social aspects within their work. In big industrial companies workers are seen as a number that produces goods that makes profit for the company. But the workers are human beings what means that they want to be seen as an human being with social contact and feelings for what he’s producing.
This was for Karl Marx a reason to conclude the capitalism has to be abolished as an political system. Not only the political aspect is important in capitalism, but also the social en economical aspect are important to make capitalism complete.
References
- Bramann J,n.d.,Marx: Capitalism and Alienation, http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/Marx.htm, 5 October 2010.
- Encyclopedia of Marxism (2008), retrived from: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/index.htm
- Seeman, M. (1959). "On the meaning of Alienation". American Sociological Review, Vol. 24, No. 6.
Contributors
- Published by Robbert Vossers (4080939) and Thijs Koolhof (4048385)
- Edited by IrisVanDiest --IrisVanDiest 16:53, 21 October 2012 (CEST)
- Edited by Lotte den Boogert, 22 October 2012
- Page enhanced and edited by--HennyLi 21:43, 25 October 2012 (CEST).
