Theory of Alienation by Karl Marx
Theory of Alienation In his "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844" first released in 1932 by researchers from the Soviet Union, German philosopher and economist Karl Marx presented the Theory of Alienation in which he argued that workers become estranged from their humanity as a consequence of living in a society in which capitalism is a mode of production. The Theory of Alienation specifically argues that an individual loses the ability to determine his or her own life and destiny, as well as the capacity to direct actions and characters of these actions, define relationships with other people, and own those items produced by his or her labor. A capitalist society does this through the mechanization of an individual. A privatized system of economic activities in which an individual is merely reduced as an instrument of productivity promotes an estrangement from humanity. In other words, a worker becomes alienated because he or she can only express labor. Nonetheless, M…