The concept of alienation plays a significant role in Marx's early political writings, especially in the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1848, but is rarely mentioned in his later works. This implies that, while Marx found alienation useful in investigating some fundamental aspects of the development of capitalist society, it is less useful in proposing predictions of the collapse of capitalism. The purpose of this essay is to explain alienation and show how it fits into the scheme of Marx's thought. It will be concluded that alienation is a useful tool for explaining the effect of capitalism on human existence. In Marx's thought, however, the usefulness of alienation is limited to explanation. It helps neither predict the fall of capitalism nor the creation of communism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMarx takes his idea of ​​alienation from Feuerbach, who shows the alienation of man from God. In short, Feuerbach's argument is that God is created by man as a «projection of the essence of the species of man, of the totality of his forces and his attributes elevated to the level of the infinite".[1] Religion alienates man by inverting the relationship between subject and predicate: Divinity is supreme over man, even if it is created by man. Leszek Kolakowski suggests that the clearest material example of religious alienation is a bloody sacrifice. In general, therefore, man's alienation is the process that separates man from a part of himself. In Feuerbach the separation is between man and the god created in the image of man. In Marx, as we will see, alienation is the separation between man and his vital activity, his product, society and the species. Each of these four relationships can be seen as an aspect of man separate from himself. A man's vital activity is his work. In a capitalist society, the worker is alienated from his work: "he has no role in deciding what to do or how to do it".[2] The division of labor ensures that each worker does only one job and that the labor market decides which job each particular worker will do. During work, the worker uses capital that is not under his control. Available capital determines the nature of work. On top of all this, the worker has no choice but to work, since wages are necessary to provide him with the means of subsistence. Work is seen as "not voluntary but forced".[3] This shows that in a capitalist society, the worker is separated from decisions about whether or not to work, what the work will be, and what form the work will take. This alienation of work is the separation of man from his vital activity. The worker is not only alienated from his work, but is also separated from the result of his work, from the product. This is the most obvious manifestation of the worker's alienation; it has no power over what it produces. The wage contract guarantees that the products of labor are transferred to the capitalist, who then sells them on the market and pays a wage to the worker. Marx points out that the alienation of the product is twofold: not only is the worker separated from his product, but that product, as it increases the power of capital, effectively weakens the position of the worker.[4] Marx refers to the product of labor as “the objectification of labor.” The objectified labor of the worker is used against him in a capitalist society. Capitalism also alienates man from other men. First, and most clearly, there is the class antagonism that separates workers from capitalists. In addition to this antagonism, the labor market ensures that man is constantly opposed to other men through competition and conflicts of personal interests.This means that any form of community is impossible, "...the enslavement of the community to its own products entails the mutual isolation of individuals".[5] This shows that the alienation of society and the alienation of the labor product are closely linked. The links between aspects of alienation will be explored in more depth later. Marx also sees capitalism as an alienation of man from his "species being". A species-being is what defines man, that is, his humanity. Marx sees work under capitalism as a departure from man's humanity. He says: "he is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home".[6] This once again demonstrates the alienation of work, but also illustrates the fact that work is unpleasant to man. He is a "living appendage of the machine" and "when the compulsion to work disappears, he avoids work like the plague." The alienation of a man's vital activity leaves man with only “animal activities,” such as eating, drinking, and procreating, to realize his humanity. Man has become animal in his work, and therefore the only area in which he can be human is in those activities common to animals. This is called the “animalization” of man. All these four aspects of man's alienation under capitalism are interconnected. The alienation of labor involves the alienation of man from man through class conflict and competition. This is also reinforced by the alienation of the products of labor, as mentioned above. All the other three aspects contribute to man's alienation from his species-being. Indeed, this last form of alienation is very general but is useful in helping to show the alienation of man at work. All four are related aspects of man's alienation under capitalism. «The theory of alienation is the intellectual constraint with which Marx shows the devastating effect of capitalist production on human beings, on their physical and mental state and on the social process of which they are part».[7] All aspects of alienation, therefore, can be explained in terms of links between the mode of production and the actors involved. Marx explores the historical development of alienation in relation to the division of labor. As society forms into tribes and villages, labor is divided, and exchange is necessary for society to survive. When exchange increases, the difference between "exchange value" and "use value" emerges. Use value is the amount of utility an item has for someone, an indication of the demand for the good. The exchange value, on the other hand, is the number of other objects that can be exchanged for that object. In a capitalist society with a standard commodity of exchange, money, greater emphasis is placed on “exchange value.” This is due to the fact that the acquisition of money has acquired a value of its own, through the "fetishism of the commodity". This is also manifested in the fact that "...men work because their products have value, while, in reality, they have value because work has given it to them".[8] This is a form of "reification", defined as "...the process by which capitalist society causes all personal relations between men to take the form of objective relations between things".[9] Commodity fetishism in the Marxian sense is the attribution of an objective value to a commodity, while the value actually derives from the social relations underlying the production of that object. The idea of ​​fetishism permeates the entire investigation into man's alienation in capitalist society. This concept helps show how the capitalist, as well as the worker, can be alienated in a money-dominated society. Capitalists are alienated through the domination of money and exchange value. The wealthy capital owner actually can“buying” attributes, instead of pursuing natural ones. Marx says: "I may be bad, dishonest, ruthless and narrow-minded, but money guarantees respect for itself and its owner." Money is the supreme good and whoever possesses it must also be good".[10] Thus the capitalist is also alienated, in the sense that he is separated from his true self by the illusory power of money. This is the clearest example of the link between fetishism and alienation. It is the perceived power of money that allows it to take on or "change" attributes. The concept of alienation is useful for highlighting the differences between a capitalist society and a communist society. «Work in communism is the affirmation of human nature, while capitalist work is its denial».[11] Alienation, or the lack thereof, shows the effect of the mode of production on the spiritual, mental and physical lives of the people within that society. To some extent it also helps predict the collapse of capitalism.[12] Workers will be alienated under capitalism and will be unhappy and dissatisfied because of that alienation. Capitalists, through the power of money and commodity fetishism, will thrive on their alienation. If this difference becomes sufficient and workers become aware of their position and how to change it, there will be calls for revolution. The transition from alienation to revolution, however, is more difficult than it seems. It requires several factors separate from alienation. This is most likely why Marx stayed away from ideas of alienation in his later works, preferring to use the tension between the forces and relations of production and the concept of exploitation as the cause of revolution. One way to link alienation to production relations is proposed by Leszek Kolakowski. It suggests that alienation is the cause of private property. He uses a broad definition of alienation so that the division of labor appears as a particular form of alienation. It can therefore be seen that alienation is primary to the division of labor and private property relations, and therefore plays a fundamental role in Marx's thought. Finally, it is possible to clarify Kolakowski's definition so that it is possible to use alienation as a fundamental concept in Marx's formation of a capitalist society. The division of labor creates commodity fetishism due to the need for exchange. Fetishism is a form of alienation, in that the value that man invests in an object is taken away from him and man is enslaved by it. From this follows Marx's vision of capitalist society. It is important to note, however, that alienation will only lead to the collapse of capitalism under two other premises, as outlined in The German Ideology. It is about conditions becoming “intolerable” and man existing as a “world historical” (rather than local) being.[13] Thus, while alienation provides an understanding of the problems of capitalism, it does not provide a means of escaping them. Emancipation and overcoming have a profound political meaning for modernity and liberalism. Marx explains that there are three faces to his theory of alienation: God, the state and money. As a theorist of modernity, Marx explains what role religion has in political society. He believes that God and religion are the primary form of alienation. Since God is the essence of the human condition, we enrich God by imposing external rules on ourselves. God acts as an alien power in our lives, dictating our actions. This is one of the problems that Marx addresses in “On the Jewish Question”. He says: “The emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of humanity from Judaism.” Once humanity gets rid of these religions, the beings?”