Marx's Theory Of Alienation Essay

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 …show more content…
He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor, therefore, is not voluntary, but forced--forced labor. It is not the gratification of a need, but only a means to gratify needs outside itself. Its alien nature shows itself clearly by the fact that work is shunned like the plague as soon as no physical or other kind of coercion …show more content…
This arises where ‘alienated labour tears the object of his production away from the man…tears away from him his species-life…and transforms his advantage over the animal into the disadvantage that his inorganic body, nature, is taken away from him’ (Marx, 1983: 140), and so they are deprived of social relationships, which may result in a notion of ‘anomie’ (Durkheim), due to the lack of social integration. Very relevant to todays society, anomie, therefore, is a ‘by product of rapid social change’ (Durkheim 1897) and the ‘adaptive response of an individual in an open stratification system’ (Merton