Marx's Theory of Alienation and Capitalist Exploitation

Marx's Theory of Alienation

The Concept of Alienation

Alienation, from the Latin "alienus" (meaning foreign), describes the circumstances of a person who is not in control of themselves, and is not ultimately responsible for their actions or thoughts. This individual's way of being transforms into something alien. Marx inherited this concept from Hegel and Feuerbach, distinguishing several types:

• Economic Alienation: Occurs in paid work. The worker suffers an expropriation of the fruits of their labor, and ultimately, of themself, by the capitalist. The worker becomes a commodity, exchanged for funds necessary for survival.
• Legal-Political Alienation: Occurs when the individual surrenders their freedom to the State, trusting it as a superior institution to defend their rights.
• Ideological Alienation: Occurs when a doctrine serving the interests of the ruling class is imposed upon the subordinate classes as their own ideology.
• Religious Alienation: Occurs because religion, a human invention, comforts suffering in this world by promoting an illusory world of happiness through resignation. This diminishes the revolutionary capacity to transform the real cause of suffering and oppression, which it legitimizes.
• Philosophical Alienation: Occurs when philosophy is merely theoretical and not practical.

For Marx, the subject of history is not theoretical man, but the proletarian, the working man. If the separation between worker and job is not eliminated, the worker remains alienated. In the capitalist system, characterized by private ownership of the products of labor, the worker's output, instead of enabling them to produce their life, ends up in the hands of a few: the capitalists. The proletariat is alienated because the qualities that constitute their personality do not return to them; they belong to the owner of the means of production. Consequently, human relationships between employer and proletarian become conflictual, forming two antagonistic social classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Analysis of Commodities and Surplus Value

A commodity is an object produced in capitalist society, possessing both use value and exchange value. Gain, in general, is the increase in a commodity's value due to the transformation it undergoes during manufacture or because circumstances have changed. Surplus value, for Marx, is the increase in a commodity's value resulting from the difference between the cost of paying for the worker's minimum needs and the value of the goods entering the market under the control of the capitalist.

Two key aspects of surplus value are:

• Rate of Surplus Value: The ratio of surplus labor to necessary labor. It increases as the working day is lengthened. The struggle to reduce the working day is a struggle against surplus value extraction.
• Surplus Value from Technological Advancement: The reduction of necessary labor time due to increased productivity from machines; capital increases.

In a market economy, the dominant cycle is M-C-M (commodity-money-commodity), where the usefulness of goods prevails. In a capitalist economy, money becomes an end, and goods are used to obtain D-M-D' (money-commodity-money'). The capitalist seeks profit through capital appreciation. Surplus value is added to form capital, which is accumulated labor. The capitalist seeks to grow capital through surplus value, leading to intensified exploitation of workers and the concentration of capital in fewer hands.