Karl Marx Alienation Essay

Improved Essays
Dear John,
I am Karl Marx, it appears to me that you are feeling isolated in having lack of power in means of your generation. As a matter of fact power can make for a better society in a sense of everyone being treated as equals and have all peoples needs met. When you reference that “they say we stand for nothing” (Mayer 2006: “Waiting on the World to Change) you discuss alienation in a way that you feel you can not over come. To gain power brings attention to me, so I will tell you how to influence power among others. To replace alienation and extreme social class structure from society I believe that capitalism must come to an end to improve the situations and a socialist system would make all people equal and their needs would be shared. A good society is a set of establishments that empower its members to live together in equivalence with individuals and groups with differences such as interest and values to encourage similar power as those in high class societies. The institutions should prevent alienation and a lack of powerfulness by being co-operative rather than being competitive,
…show more content…
Due to the fact of isolation in capitalist economy they gain more control over people because of wealth and power. In order for a better, equivalent society I would address the problems and be motivated by personal gain. The basis of every social order in every society is the production of economic goods. These products often determine the differences in peoples wealth, power, and social status. Different locations in the class structure often lead to different class interests as well as differing views express existing class relations and undermine the power and authority of the dominant

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Marx argued that the bourgeoisie controlled the means of production, wage labour and amassed majority of the wealth as a result, which equated to the power to dominate and define society. The opposing end, the proletariat, were constantly oppressed and left alienated because they maintained no power or ability to rectify their position within society. In addition, specifically within a capitalistic society, there was no opportunity for a meritocracy; so even if the proletariats were highly skilled, they remained pigeonholed with no chance for social mobility without a direct shift within the economic structure of society. When examining this multifarious relationship, Marx asserted in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, “The modern bourgeoisie society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones” (Marx.)…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this piece, Marx discusses the concept of “Estranged Labour”, about which he goes into great detail. He begins by stating that the current political economy takes the worker from the level of a human, to that of a commodity. He describes this as “the most wretched of commodities”, as the commodification of the worker is always done in contrast to success of the land owner. This creates two classes, the property owners and the propertyless workers, with a stark distinction between the two. The political economy that creates this distinction is run by greed, which is fueled by competition.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A society is a civilization; survival is the act of continuing to live or exist even in difficult times. Although, some may say that the boys failed to follow the rules and order they set for themselves; however, they were not experienced and did not know how to set up a successful government and society. First of all, a government will protect the people’s rights. Secondly, the government provides law and order; finally, a government provides for people’s well-being and happiness. Therefore, a…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Karl Marx adamantly believed in the power of a classless society. The prerequisites to implementing such a system, however, include considerable regulations on property, economic activity, and other aspects of civilization that John Stuart Mill was a proponent of de-regulating. Marx argued, “[The fall of the bourgeoisie] and the victory of the proletariat is inevitable,” (80) essentially claiming that he believed the forces of the economy would naturally move towards communism. In a society where all citizens are treated equally and given the same amount despite what they put in, the economy will collapse. There is no force of self-interest to incentivize the population to push forward.…

    • 1335 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There is prima facie surrounding Marx and Durkheim’s concepts of alienation and anomie regarding their similarities. Marx and Durkheim both look at comparable topics such as the effects of a sense of exclusion and cohesion often both arriving at similar conclusions such as the agreeing that the rise of modernity can have negative effects on society. However, their methods, expertise and interests are completely different as they collective evidence from different areas of society. The two concepts are obviously different, hence why we have two separate terms for them, although, it is undeniable that they are loosely linked by an element of similarity; a feeling of being somewhat distant from society. Anomie is “a utopian concept of the political…

    • 1593 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this essay I will explain Karl Marx’s conception of the development of the bourgeoisie, the development of the proletariat and where Marx sees this struggle leads to. I will also explain the bourgeoisie's relationship to feudalism. I will then discuss how capitalism has limited human freedom and what Herbert Marcuse thinks capitalism has done to individual humans. At the end, I will analyze Marx and Marcuse’s criticisms and I will explain my opinion on their criticisms. Karl Marx is an economist and a philosopher that writes about the bourgeoisie and the proletariats.…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Karl Marx presents 2 major oppositions in the Communist Manifesto; both that have huge effects on society’s social structure as a whole. When illustrating “right vs. wrong” or “good vs. evil”, Marx uses capitalism as a symbol of what's evil or detrimental in society’s social structure and communism as a symbol of all things good or for the betterment of society. Marx explains that capitalism harms society with its inflexible/unstable ways, and its inability to maintain a state of content for all socio-economic classes. Capitalism essentially separates people into two groups: “The haves” and “The have nots”; which inevitably causes friction and ultimately makes an unstable social order. Marx goes forth to explain how communism is inheritably…

    • 173 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Marxism In Fight Club

    • 1340 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Given this power struggle class conflict is inherent. Marx’s critique of capitalism speculates that the proletariats…

    • 1340 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Society is defined as an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another. Citizens within a society must learn to navigate the social world and decided how to perceive it. However, certain groups with power can influence the way members view society. Sociologists, Pierre Bourdieu and Charles Tilly present different yet similar ways of defining how members within a state can shape a society. In both cases, political power is one of the main ways society can be transformed.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    When Karl Marx (2003) talks about labour in a political economy, he argues that the workers are “degraded to the most miserable sort of commodity” (p. 6)—in other words, the workers are being exploited by owners of private property. He introduces the concept of alienation, describing how workers become externalized not only from their labour and the product of their labour, but also from their species’ being and other workers. This, as a result reduces the workers’ capabilities of seeking their greatest potential, leaving them powerless. While Marx is able to explain how alienated labour is developed, are the ideas around alienation only confined to labour? This paper will discuss the ways in which alienation is conceptualized and applied…

    • 298 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This main contrast sets a myriad of opposite postures that have a socio-economic and political impact. For example, the capitalist system base individual prosperity on free market with a small government and the opposite, considers government controlled industries as a mean to social prosperity. While in capitalism companies are owned by the private sector; in socialism the government owns the companies. Individual freedom to property, competition and assets management contrasted by elimination of private property and government welfare programs that provide same social benefits. Capitalism can cause huge distance between the classes which can result in social uneasiness, while Socialism systems attempts to assure social equality.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Even if almost all the power is owned by the government in socialist countries, author David Schweickart states that production in service to the whole group, equitable distribution of wealth and the lack of social classes are important elements that build social justice in socialist communities (http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:xCQW2IDMFgMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy+David+Schweickart&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) .In other words, the only way social justice can be achieved is to eliminate the establishment of classes and the promotion of equality for all people, which is a goal of socialism. By contrast, the existence of economic classes in capitalistic society, such as high class, middle class, and low class, as well as private ownership of property, constitute inequality, exploitation, and misery (“Democratic Socialism”).…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The theory of alienation is ‘the intellectual construct in which Marx displays the devastating effect of capitalist production on human beings, on their physical and mental states and on the social processes of which they are a part’ (Ollman, 1996). Marx’s theory is based on the observation that within the capitalist mode of production, workers invariably lose determination of their lives by being deprived of the right to regard themselves as the director of their actions. Alienation refers to the social alienation of people from aspects of their human nature and can be defined as a condition whereby individuals are governed by institutes of their own creation in capitalist society such as; religion, the state and economy, all of which are…

    • 1914 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Marx's Class Theory Essay

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Marx's class theory determines what class you belong to depending on your means of production, meaning who owned the assets necessary to produce what people needed in order to survive. The people who owned the most land and factories were considered to be higher up in the social class hierarchy, also known as the first class the bourgeoisie. They would then control all of the elements in society as well as having control over the working class. Then there is the second class known as the proletariat, these were the people of the lower class who worked in the factories or land owned by the bourgeoisie for hourly wages. This shows that using Marx theory is a quick and simple way to determine someone’s rank in society.…

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The society has a good side to it: no suffering, loneliness, and . On the other hand, members of this society have to be willing to commit a high price to their actions. True love, beliefs of a religion, and abuse of science and technology are ruined. For the society to flourish, it must have these three qualities depend on each other. Happiness and the structure of a civilization, are the two main aspects that keep the World State…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays