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Introduction
In this presentation, we have decided to focus on Marx’s concept of alienation, and tackle the
research question: What is alienation and what is its place in Marx’s communist politics? We
will analyse alienation in a comparative perspective, first explaining the mechanisms in which this
phenomenon occurs in a capitalist society, and then arguing that communism would successfully
eradicate it, thus ending class struggle, which is what Marx advocates for
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Before diving into our main topic, let’s have a look at some key terms and concepts: private
property, conflict between capital and labour, wage and profit
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Private property exploits the worker, turning
into a slave, and we can understand this exploitative relationship by looking at two opposites: wage
and profit
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e
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Concretely, this means that the worker is
not able to consume the fruit of his hard work, since he won’t be able to afford the object he has
produced
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Part I: The process of alienation of labour in capitalism
Alienation, or estrangement, is described by Marx in the Economic and philosophic manuscripts
of 1844 and features three components
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71), “an alien object”
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In fact, the higher the value of the product, the more unlikely will the
worker be to ever afford it
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In other words, “the worker becomes a slave of his object” (73)
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g
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73), which means that alienation also occurs within the production
activity itself
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75) because it is external to him, it is a
burden that deprives the worker of his mental and physical energy, it is something that men accept
only when it is not an option, when their alternative is to die
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The worker’s main concern is to
put food on the table, thus having to sacrifice all other forms of interest
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75)
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76), defined by his production activity, whereas animals only follow
their instincts
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His work is not the
expression of free, imaginative creation, but the mere repetition of mechanic moves, with no
pleasure or reasoning whatsoever
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Communism as the solution of alienation
Given the clearly suboptimal condition of the worker, Marx argues that only a communist
revolution would put a halt to exploitation and alienation
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His main argument is expressed in The Capital, where he presents his theory
of the tendency of the profit rate to fall:
“The progressive tendency of the general rate of profit to fall is, therefore, just an expression
peculiar to the capitalist mode of production of the progressive development of the social
productivity of labour” (p
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The first is spent on raw materials and
machinery and does not produce any wealth, whereas the latter is the one used by the worker and
eventually converted into the final product
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According to Marx, in the long run the fixed capital will
equal the revenue, with the disappearance of profit
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What is more, industrialization led to the agglomeration of
workers and the strengthening of trade unions, whose claims cannot be ignored anymore
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“The development of modern industry cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the
bourgeoisie produces are appropriates products
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483)
Capitalism vs
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” (Oxford
dictionary)
“classless society” (Business dictionary)

The concrete implications of the shift from capitalism to communism
A classless society is a society where there is no conflict, where the population shares a common
interest
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Marx justifies communism exactly for this reason: it
would emancipate workers from slavery, and in doing so it would also emancipate society as a
whole by eliminating class struggle, therefore acquiring a universal role
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84)
Implications:
 “sensuous appropriation for and by men of the human essene and of human life” (p 87) humanism
 “Just as society itself produces man as man, so is society produced by him” p
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486 - Communist manifesto) → removal of injustice & focus on
meritocracy
Conclusion
We argued that Marx’s concept of alienation is intrinsic to the capitalistic system, due to the
presence of private property
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Paradoxically,
technological progress introduced by industrialization constitutes a step backwards in terms of
human evolution for the workers, reduced to a state of semi-animality
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Debate questions
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Why do you think that communist societies did not reach the degree of equality Marx hoped
for?
Why do you think that most capitalistic societies still flourish today, in spite of the theory of
the tendency of the profit to fall?
Do you think that “alienation” is still a dominant feature of Western economies?
Would you characterize capitalistic societies as inevitably greedy and founded upon the
“having mode of existence” (Erich Fromm, To have or to be)?



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