Marx's Concept Of Wage Labor

He also believed that alienation is a necessary feature of capitalism because for the wage earner, work is alienating because it serves solely to provide the means such as money for maintaining physical existence (p.47). Marx believed that people worked just for money –and not for the creative potential of labor itself, which was akin to selling your soul (p.47). For example, many factory workers are hired to work for wages and support capitalism. It creates a sense of alienation from everything around them. According to Marx, the worker is just the subject to the demands of the production process and has little control over the production.

The working class, through trade unions and other struggles becomes conscious of itself as an exploited class. As Marx’s theory suggests exploitation of this kind will result in revolution in the favour for social change. Elster’s criticises this as he explains how at times, surplus can be thinly spread over the exploiters trade partners. Moreover, an independent farmer producing more than he can consume may not know of his exploitation status and therefore may not be motivated to revolt. One may argue that this way, Marx’s requirement for us to compare the amount of labour a person performs and the

In “The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels”, the concept of socialism is also accompanied by the concept of communism. They explained that this concepts are two ideological systems, and how they arise in response to the Industrial Revolution. During the industrial revolution, many capitalist factory owners, meaning the Bourgeoise became extremely rich by exploiting their workers, meaning the Proletariat. The Proletariat exploitation begin from being paid with an unfair wage, working for long hours and where age and sex was no longer a problem. These two ideological systems emerge, with the aim of providing a better situation to workers and to promote an economic growth through different strategies.

This is because capitalists ensure that workers can be exploited to attain the maximum surplus value while being isolated from the products they produce. Such alienation means they don 't feel a strong pride in their personal identification with the products and ultimately the workers see the product they made as belonging to someone else. Also, unlike non-industrial jobs, industrial jobs do not permit people to work with relatives or acquire a job due to friendly

The modern working classes, or proletariats, own only their labor. Proletariats work for the capitalists, who own the product that was produced and then sell it for a profit. In other words, the capitalists benefit most from this system. The result of this was often alienated labor, which is one of Marx and Engels’ main critiques of capitalism. Marx explains, “It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine

Both political theorists are extreme in their visions and neither seem entirely attainable but they are both inspiring ideals of what society could achieve. Although Arendt makes a very persuasive argument for economics and freedom as separate from one another, Marx’s argument is more convincing. Socialism presents every individual with the opportunity to live the best life suited for their own creative development. If every individual is creating what they want to create and the benefit of their creation goes towards the entire community than there is no reason for economic classes. The idea of socialism and communism may be slightly unrealistic and challenging to implement but in a utopian society, Marx’s view of the political structure is ideal.

Marx saw a similar use of appeasement in his economic system, where the rich capitalists conceded the bare minimum to maintain control of the working class. In his capitalist system “the worker receives means of subsistence in exchange for [their] labor power,” which serves no purpose but “immediate consumption,” whereas the capitalist receives “a greater value” than they had previously (Marx 209). The worker, despite creating additional earnings for the capitalist, only receives their “means of sustenance,” or their bare minimum for survival. Because the worker has been alienated from their work and the system however, they normalize this exchange, and are content with receiving a mere fraction of what they produce, unaware of their exploitation. Alienation provides the framework for both Douglass’ and Marx’s economic systems to function, as it allows the ruling class to establish a norm of

Thus there is the alienation of the worker in the capitalist economy; the worker lacks control over the' disposal of his products, since what he produces is appropriated by others, so that he does not benefit from it. It is the core principle of the market economy that goods are produced for exchange; in capitalist production, the exchange and distribution of goods are controlled by the operations of the free market. The worker is alienated in the work task itself: if the product of labour is alienation, production itself must be active alienation; the alienation of activity and the activity of alienation. The work task does not offer intrinsic satisfactions which make it possible for the worker ‘to develop freely his mental and physical energies ', since it is labour which is imposed by force of external circumstances

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx refers to the "proletariat" or the working class as the group with the most "class struggle". Marx defines the classes as 1) bourgeois, the "capitalists" who own the social production and employ the labor of others; and 2) proletariat, who sell their labor power to make a living but don 't own their own production. Marx argues that the wealth and prosperity of the bourgeois depends on the proletariat 's production of labor. Their products are sold for a larger value that the labor itself thus exploiting the working class and allowing the bourgeois to control the production. Marx states that the nature of these classes will inevitably result in conflict and revolution.

Social classes were more of a social relationship rather than a position or rank in society. The bourgeoisie could not exist without the proletariat, or vice-versa. Classes are an essential aspect of production, the division of labor and the labor process. The relationship between the rich and the poor is further contradictory in that it is not just two sets of interests, but there is no resolution of the capital-labor contradiction within the organization of capitalism as a system. As stated by Rummel (1977), Marx observed the society to its main classes, and the struggle amid them as the engine of modification.

According to Marx society was divided into two classes that were in eternal conflict in the battle for resources, or as Marx coined; “the means of production”. The first class were the bourgeoisie, which Marx described as the sole owners of the means of production as well as the media. The bourgeoisie used their power and influence to exploit the second class, which Marx called the proletariat which consisted of all the workers of the world. Marx rejected the idea that the wealthy pulled themselves from their own bootstraps, which he called “false consciousness” and in return coined the term “class consciousness”, which referred to a persons awareness of their own social status, especially in terms of class conflict. Overall, Marx concluded that social order is created maintained by domination and power.