Marxist Analysis: Class Struggle & Alienation

A New Social Order

Establishing a new social order should be achieved through a revolutionary process. The mode of production would culminate with the class struggle, and all classes would be eliminated. In this way, the emancipation of workers will occur, overcoming past social situations. Economic and material factors determine social and political intervention. Marx gave much importance to the economic issue.

Alienation in Capitalist Society

Feudalism and the Industrial Revolution

Marx analyzes the evolution of work in different societies and states how it changed throughout history as a function of the mode of production of each era. The medieval economy was based on feudalism, which superseded slave societies. The key was the property of farmers, and it was based on methods of farming land. The lord received much of the fruits of cultivating the land. Peasants would abandon their undertaking and remain servants of the land. Later, transformed into the bourgeoisie, they developed world trade in urban cities and a transition to a new mode of production. The progress of society was convinced that freedom would advance, and work would be equal.

In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution came to its culmination. Workers started to work in factories in the cities. They were needed to produce in workshops. Here, there were men, women, and children with working hours from 14 to 16 hours. The historical development had been described in Marx's time as a dialectical process of overcoming previous systems, from the bourgeois capitalist system.

Labor Alienation

Work in the capitalist system involves labor alienation. Alienation consists in transforming an object or raw material using instrumental means and human activity, applying their energies and skills. Alienation is something that is proper and is transferred to other hands, other people, and themselves. In effect, in the bourgeois system, as described by Marx, the operator loses labor forces. The product of their work is not seen, appreciated, or enjoyed by themselves. That merchandise is transformed into existence, and vigorous activity is maintained only to keep the worker alive. These are, according to Marx, achievements of the bourgeoisie.