Karl Marx's Alienation And Consumption

When we are talking about Karl Marx’s alienation and how it is related to his claims on money and consumption, I think it is derived from estranged labor and the owning of private property. This also leads to the question of consumption and alienation today. When it comes to consumption today, there hasn’t been much change. Alienation however has seen some changes and Marx’s claim to why alienation happens still lingers to this day. To get to these claims we must start with Marx’s view on money, which I believe is the root of the alienation and consumption. Marx’s belief on money is put best when he quoted Shakespeare “That which is for me through the medium of money – that which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) – that am I, the possessor …show more content…
It is important to note that Karl Marx views still hold true in my example. When talking about the internet as a product it has little to almost no interaction with any other people. My example for this being Amazon people can spend money to buy packages and even food this further increasing alienation. The people who work for Amazon have even less interaction with the products that they sell because they do not even create the product. (This going off the assumption that it is not an Amazon product that is being sold). This would mean even more alienation for the workers of alienation according to Marx. Consumption because the internet has also changed because there is not virtual currency today and there was not in Marx’s time. My example for this is video games and the companies that run them. The primary video game company I am talking about is Xbox. You can use actual currency to but Xbox currency to get objects for the games that are made. This leads to the next point on how alienation has changed today through video games. Many people spend money on these games and divulge so much time into these games some, of which have four hundred hours of playing time. This being a double edge sword for Marx’s views on alienation today because one the people who play a game divulge so much time that isn’t their life so they are wasting that time much like working