Definition of Alienated Work

The concept of alienation comes from the Latin alienatio, which means to become another. In other words, a person becomes alienated when he becomes something other than what he really is. It should be noted that alienation and alienation are terms that can be used synonymously. In any case, if we apply this idea to the world of work, we are faced with alienated work.

The idea of ​​alienated labor is a fundamental aspect in Marxism

According Marx the division of labor is the origin of three social realities:

1) there is an uneven distribution of the work and the products that are created,

2) private property appears and 3) the different social classes emerge.

The different social classes generate the appearance of conscience of class in each social group (The worker has a worker consciousness and the capitalist has a bourgeois consciousness). This implies that some exercise command and others have to obey. This situation inevitably leads to a class struggle.

In capitalist society there are two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat

Each of these classes has a specific position in relation to the system of production. In other words, the worker sells himself to the bourgeois for a salary and the bourgeois benefits from the worker's work. The fact that the proletarian is not the owner of what he does at work causes him a profound imbalance as a human being, and this imbalance is a form of alienation. In this way, alienated work generates misery and unhappiness because the worker feels oblivious to his own activity and because he does not He works to satisfy his own needs, but works for a capitalist system that pays him at a salary of subsistence.

On the other hand, the work carried out within the framework of capitalism limits the Liberty and individual happiness. In addition, capitalist production systems are an obstacle to cooperation between workers, who are forced to compete with each other in a weather hostility. In short, alienated work for Marx is a form of dehumanization of man and of society as a whole.

Marx's critique of the capitalist system is based on the concept of alienated labor

In the capitalist system the worker does not own the means of production. His Energy and her time belongs to another, to the bourgeois capitalist. In this way, for the human being to stop living in an alienated way, it is necessary to break the chains that oppress him and end the capitalist system through a revolutionary process.

According to Marx, in the communist model that he defends there will no longer be social classes or class struggle and, consequently, it will be possible to overcome the state of alienation.

Photos: Fotolia - Coramax / Agarkova Elena