Marx’s Theory of Alienation and Historical Materialism
Marx’s Theory of Alienation
For Marx, the subject of the story is the man who is attempting to find himself in his work. Work is the creative activity of man. The alienated man lives, but religious alienation is a secondary alienation; this will disappear when you remove economic alienation, which is the root of the other alienations.
The working man is establishing himself, being himself, through the transforming power of nature. He develops his personality while dominating nature through his work. Man’s work is projected onto the products of their labor: into every product, he puts his being, his whole energy, his qualities, his imagination, his effort, his love, his mind. The product is an objectification of the worker, the creator of the product.
Man is externalized (Entäusserung) in nature; this is humane. The door is humanized: the worker’s personality, its essence, still remains within the product. If this separation between the worker and the job is not deleted, if no reunion occurs, the worker is estranged (loss of freedom), separated from itself, because the work product is himself, his essence. The working man himself becomes the product of their work, becomes a commodity. If there is no reunion, the personality is broken, is alienated, and loses his freedom to have something of its essence that was in the product.
Man is made and releases products that he makes through his work, leading to the production of life so that he can live. Looking at what happened in history, men are not created themselves through work. Historically, there has been no meeting; man goes one way and the products go another, different way. Because the means of production are based on private ownership, the products made by the employee have not been returned to him. This is a complaint of lack of human rights and labor exploitation.
Historical Materialism
Marx rejects the interpretation that historical materialism has been given, saying it is just a theory without worrying about the transformation that would have to be performed. Things are not there to be contemplated, continuing the life of a theoretical way, but are there for processing by a human being whose essence is work activity. Man is situated in the midst of the reality expressed in the transformation that should make nature its true essence.
Through praxis (work, practice), Marx tries to unite things too far away from idealism and materialism too attached to them; he has to find a middle ground. Man and reality are intimately linked through work, the essence of man, which in turn performs it and transforms nature.
This must be understood as a theory of economy, society, and history in which there is a single engine: the contradiction and class struggle. In capitalism, the economy generates a contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie through surplus value (the profit which the capitalist makes with the sale of goods produced by the worker). The bourgeoisie provides the raw materials, and the proletariat provides the means of production and all the labor force. Those gains will stop completely in the hands of the bourgeoisie, so the proletariat cannot access the benefits.
The capitalist buys labor power whose value in the market price is higher than the salary of the proletariat. When labor is shared in a commodity exchange, the worker is tied to the bourgeois, and alienation occurs.