According to Marx, history of humankind has a double aspect. There has been an increase of control of man over nature. Based on his definition, alienation is a condition in which men are dominated by forces that they create by themselves. He refers to these forces that confront humans as alien powers. According to Marx, alienation is marked by the changes in the institutional spheres of capitalist society. These spheres include religion, political spheres, economy and the state. All of these spheres depend on the other. Karl pointed out that alienation results from objectification. As long as a man is engrossed in religion, for example, he can objectify his essence by an alien and Supreme Being (Rojek, 2013) . Marx argued in his theory that alienation is a natural consequence of capitalism due to different reasons. Workers, for example, are manipulated by various forces so that they can increase their productivity and in turn their output. On the contrary, the workers might lose hope and determination. This is due to strive by capitalists to ensure that the activities of the workers are goal and objective oriented. Firms, on the other hand, have a desire to exploit employees to gain maximum value. Employees are only paid enough cash to survive rather than to develop themselves.
Marx also argued that capitalist systems create an imagination that workers are adequately paid their salaries for the work they have done. By compensation, the capitalist regimes try to control workers by deriving their activities. Such alienations may result in severe consequences to the society at large. Consumers, on the other hand, are offered products as a way of manipulation. Consequently, the profits that are obtained through the capitalist system may cause resentment by the employees. Marx believed that the capitalist system was repetitive and encouraged mechanical work patterns which do not create value to the employees. The efforts of the employees are transformed into products and are rewarded through salaries or wages. The destinies of the employees are controlled by the capitalist systems through supervision and directing employees on their respective work.
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Argument Critique
Although Marx’s theory of alienation of labor has been lauded by many people as to how it addresses issues, there are some weaknesses it contains. First, the theory points out that the only source of value is the human labor. It goes on to point out that wage differential is determined by the cost of producing the labor but not by the price of the product produced by workers. He states that the cost of educating, training and giving the worker time to practice costs more than the payment provided by the employer. This analogy of exploitation brought forward by Marx is limited and does not consider the contributions made by other people including those that stay at home. Moreover, the capitalists that organize labor are indirectly related to the contribution of value to the organization Marx, however, fails to take into account the contribution of these individuals hence appearing as a weak analysis (Foster, 2014) . Further, Marx assumes that only the junior employees are the ones contributing to the production. This argument fails to note that production is a process which involves people that directly or indirectly contribute to it.
Although Marx believes that the capitalists are responsible for ensuring that raw materials are available, he argues that proletariat or the employees deserve everything while the capitalists deserve virtually nothing. This in itself is a failure to observe that contribution is made by capitalists. Additionally, in his analogy, Marx states that proletariats produce not their own but what is of benefit to the capitalists. He fails to appreciate the fact that the capitalists and the proletariat mutually benefit from one another in the sense that while the capitalists get labor from the working class, the latter on the other hand get a salary in return for their services. Further, in the analysis brought forward by Marx, he neglects other non-economic forces that exist in the society such as law, politics, morality and religion.
Solutions to the weaknesses of Marx analysis
The theory of alienation of labor should notice that value is created not only by human work but also indirectly by other means as well. There ought to be a realization of the contribution brought about by different people and not just by the direct employees of a given company. These contributions can either be both direct and the indirect ones. Marx also ought to have identified the fact that both the capitalist and the worker benefits mutually from the capitalist systems that have been set. While the workers are paid for their work, the capitalists, on the other hand, get services of the workers as a result of the payment they make to the workers. It is also wrong to state that the proletariats deserve everything while the capitalists deserve nothing despite providing raw materials to the organization. However, the theory should have appreciated the contribution made by these people and allow them to share the profits with the workers.
Lastly, while it is true that educating, training, and allowing the workers to train is expensive, it is also important to appreciate the fact that work in itself is a form of training. From the work opportunities provided by capitalist systems that have been put in place, training opportunities have been made possible hence benefiting the organization and the worker mutually.
References
Foster, J. B. (2014). The theory of monopoly capitalism. NYU Press.
Rojek, C. (2013). Capitalism and Leisure Theory. Routledge.
