Marx & Alienation of the Term Paper

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In such a system, "the worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he produces. The devaluation of the human world grows in direct proportion to the increase in value of the world of things. Labor not only produces commodities; it also produces itself and the workers as a commodity," as workers sell their labor on the marketplace. (Marx, 1844)

The more money the factory owner makes, the more workers he can hire and thus the more command he can have over an increasingly alienated workforce. According to Marx, "this alienation has a profound psychological effect upon the worker. For it is clear that, according to this premise, the more the worker exerts himself in his work, the more powerful the alien, objective world becomes which he brings into being over against himself, the poorer he and his inner world become, and the less they belong to him." (Marx, 1844) the worker becomes a creature of brute strength, the owner has the leisure time to pursue education and seek 'the higher life.'

In other words, unlike working one's own property, and producing the goods one will eat, the process of factory labor generates profits for those who do not work, namely the owner, goods for those who do not produce the items, and place holding value in the form of money rather than actual goods for the worker.


What would Marx make of our current, global economic community? Marx's analysis reflected a society that had recently undergone a shift from agriculture and trade to industry. His analysis of estrangement seems especially apt in contemporary life when viewed through the eyes of globalization, whereby poor workers in factories produce expensive shoes for individuals living far away from their native lands, in excess of their own needs. But are the psychological effects different when one cannot see the wretched excess in use that one helps to produce as an exploited worker?

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