(EPE, pp. 10-13)
In its most basic meaning, the detachment or separation of
something important or essential from oneself. In traditional
legal usage, one alienates one's property from oneself by transferring
to another person one's RIGHTS to it, as in a sale or gift. Certain
kinds of rights are so essential or fundamental that they are
supposed to be "inalienable", i.e., they may not properly
be transferred to, nor taken by, someone else. Thus when such
rights are alienated nonetheless, profound political and moral
issues are raised. The question also arises, if people's NATURAL
RIGHTS may be alienated, what other essential aspects of human
life, perhaps even of 'human nature' itself, may also be alienated?
These issues have important political economic dimensions, hence
have been a major concern of heterodox economists ever since Marx
conceived alienation to be the heart of a radical critique of
CAPITALISM.
Marx's philosophical predecessor, Hegel, had used the concept
of alienation as a central element of his philosophy of the evolution
of mind or consciousness in human history. Hegel believed in an
Absolute Mind or Spirit (or God) that was immanent within the
natural material world [see MATERIALISM & IDEALISM]. The natural
world was a manifestation or expression of this Absolute Mind,
an actualization or materialization of Spirit: Hegel described
the world as the Absolute Mind's "alienation of itself".
Humanity was part of the natural world, of course -- but humanity
was also a Finite Mind engaged in a gradual comprehension of the
natural world in history, hence represented the Absolute Mind
comprehending its own alienated self, 'de-alienating' itself in
the process of human history.
Feuerbach, a critical follower of Hegel, had abandoned idealism
in favor of a materialist philosophy, and saw RELIGION, including
Hegel's own belief in an Absolute Spirit, as itself a kind of
alienation. Humanity was actually 'godly', and religion represented
humanity's alienation of its own spiritual essence: people conjure
up and bow down before an alien 'higher being' that is pictured
as embodying what are actually humanity's own inherent qualities.
For Feuerbach, humanity's de-alienating itself necessitated abolishing
this imagined God and comprehending His qualities as humankind's
own.
Marx too wanted to "turn Hegel back on his feet", adding
that in human history, there are many other forms of alienation
besides that manifest in religion. Marx saw these as having been
brought to their highest level in CAPITALISM, the latest and most
developed form of CLASS society. In his analysis of capitalist
wage-labor, Marx [1992] drew clear connections between alienation
in the moral and philosophical senses, and alienation in the narrower
sense applied to property-rights.
First, in wage-labor the worker produces a product that is immediately
alien to him/her in the narrow sense, as it is the property of
the capitalist. Sold by the latter for profit, which is then reinvested
in capitalist enterprise, the product becomes alien to the worker
also in the sense that it becomes part of the structure of domination
to which the worker is subject: Workers produce the machinery
and materials to whose physical nature and rhythms they must then
submit directly in the workplace; and they produce the CAPITAL
that, when reinvested, sustains and expands the socio-economic
system of capitalist wage-labor by which they are dominated.
Second, the worker alienates his/her labor in the act of selling
it to the capitalist in the wage-labor contract. Workers thereby
turn over to capitalists their life-activity for the length of
the work-day, and with it what were formerly their own self-initiative
and self-command. Having thus lost their creative self-determination
for the length of the workday, workers also become, to some extent,
alienated from their general capacity for these things, i.e.,
even outside of the workplace.
Having foregone some of their capacity to inter-relate with the
physical and social world in their own self-determined ways, workers
are alienated, thirdly, from nature, their own as well as that
of the material world about them. Denied full actualization of
themselves in the material world, they are equally denied a full
comprehension of it, as well as of themselves as a part of it,
i.e., as conscious, active physical creatures.
Finally, being alienated from the social world too, workers are
accordingly alienated from each other. They cannot actualize themselves
in fully free and self-determined relationships with each other,
hence cannot fully comprehend each other in such relationships.
Furthermore, this alienation among workers extends throughout
the whole of society. Workers are alienated from members of the
capitalist class, since they certainly cannot relate with the
latter any more freely than they can with each other. And capitalists
and other non-workers are simultaneously alienated from workers
as well, since the latter are unable to freely relate with them.
More recent commentaries have taken further a number of themes
intimated in Marx's analysis [Mandel & Novak, 1970; Ollman,
1971; Weisskopf, 1971; Ellerman, 1973]. First, wage-workers themselves
must be seen as only partly the agents of the alienation of their
labor, since they are, at least to some extent, compelled to enter
the wage-labor contract [see ECONOMIC POWER]. Rather than saying
that workers alienate their own labor, their product, etc., it
is better to refer either to members of the dominant capitalist
class as the agents or initiators of the alienation to which workers
are subject -- or else to refer to a broad social process of alienation
without any clear agents at all.
Second, there are other processes of alienation in capitalism
that are historically, or at least logically, prior to those of
capitalist wage-labor itself. Any social system of private property,
since it places manifest barriers between people, constitutes
an alienation of people from each other and from a full inter-relationship
with their world. The DIVISION OF LABOR that necessarily accompanies
MARKETS also restricts people's effective comprehension of others
and of their own capacities for diverse activity. And the monetization
of economic relationships, reducing these to a mere "cash
nexus", compounds these effects. Moreover, all CLASS societies,
not just capitalism, constructed as they are upon POWER relationships,
involve alienation: since members of the subordinate class labor
to one extent or another in the interests of members of the superior
class rather than their own, in effect they forego a portion of
their life-activity to superiors [see EXPLOITATION].
Perhaps most important from the viewpoint of their critical implications
for modern capitalism are the behavioral and psychological aspects
of alienation. It is widely appreciated -- not merely among Marxists
-- that if people's capacities for certain kinds of activities,
or their opportunities for certain forms of self-actualization,
are denied, then they are less likely to achieve comprehension
of related aspects of their world and themselves. Even Adam Smith
expressed deep concern about the "deformity" of over-specialized
and over-routinized workers [Skinner, 1986, pp. 81 & 97 (fn.
101)]. Certainly wage-labor, like other power relationships, must
have repressive effects in people's personal development, and
feelings of impotence and meaninglessness would seem straightforwardly
implied, at least at some point in the course of people's accomodation
to subordinacy. Social and political passivity would also seem
to follow directly, and various 'compensatory' behaviors as well
-- religion may be an "opiate of the people", or perhaps,
in more affluent capitalist societies, consumerism or other distractions.
People's alienation from each other -- widely acknowledged to
be an inherent feature of all "pecuniary societies"
[see VEBLEN, THORSTEIN] -- would seem directly to imply not only
feelings of estrangement and loneliness but also relationships
of mutual indifference, competitiveness and even predation, and
various 'strategic behaviors' like dishonesty and social inauthenticity.
Of course, generalized ailments and pathologies like these may
have their roots in other things than capitalism per se. Material
phenomena of modern life like suburbanization and the automobile,
television and more recently personal computers, have been variously
blamed for such maladies perceived in society today [see MODERNISM
& POST-MODERNISM IN POLITICAL ECONOMY]. Yet such profound
changes in material life are arguably themselves determinant products
of the capitalist economy [see MONOPOLY CAPITALISM]: their historical
appearance may represent as much an effect of pervasive alienation
as it is a cause. Perhaps only an already deeply alienated society
could so enthusiastically embrace something like, for example,
the INTERNET.
What can be done? A secular or materialist version of the religious
doctrine of 'Origin Sin', alienation represents a kind 'fallen-ness'
of humankind, humanity's estrangement not from its God but from
itself and its world. So understood, it could be that alienation
is, to some extent, an essential and unavoidable aspect of the
life and consciousness of the human species [but see Kovel, 1988].
For most Marxists, however, alienation is understood to arise
specifically in 'civilized' human history, reaching its nadir
(so far, at least) in modern capitalism. And while the implications
for humanity are nonetheless radically devastating, of course,
'atonement', if there be any, can only result from the worldly
action of real human beings in real material history [see REVOLUTIONARY,
EVOLUTIONARY & INCREMENTAL CHANGE].
What might 'atonement' look like? The 'opposite' of alienation
must be a kind of comprehension that is the fullest possible grasping
or appropriation of things, not only intellectually but emotionally
and sensually, and in concious, self-directed activity. At the
least, the point then must be to construct social relations conducive
of such a comprehensive humanity in all people, to provide people
with "the real possibility of access to all essential realms
of activity ... right up to the highest functional level".
[Bahro, 1981, p. 273].
REFERENCES:
Bahro, Rudolph (1981). The Alternative in Eastern Europe. Verso, London.
Ellerman, David (1973). "Forward: Capitalism and Workers' Self-Management" in G. Hunnius, G.D. Garson & J. Case: Workers' Control: A Reader on Labor & Social Change, Vintage Books (Random House), N.Y.
Kovel, Joel (1988). "Human Nature, Freedom & Spirit" in The Radical Spirit (pp. 289-305). Free Asociation Books, London.
Marx, Karl (1992). The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (trans. T.B. Bottomore) in Erich Fromm's Marx's Concept of Man (Continuum Pub. Co., N.Y.).
Mandel, Ernest and George Novak (1970). The Marxist Theory of Alienation. Pathfinder Press, N.Y.
Ollman, Bertell (1971). Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society. Cambridge Univ. Press, N.Y.
Skinner, Andrew (1986). "Introduction" in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Books I-III (Penguin Books, New York).
Weisskopf, Walter A. (1971). Alienation and Economics. Dell Pub. Co., N.Y.