Lesson 6 - The Theory of Alienation

According to Marxist theory, our everlasting discontent with one's own social status is rooted in the idea of estrangement from humanity in its rawest essence. 

Entfremdung is Marx’s theory of alienation, which describes the separation of things that naturally belong together; and the placement of antagonism between things that are properly in harmony.

The four types of Entfremdung are:

(I) Alienation of the worker from the work — from the product of his labor. 

ll) Alienation of the worker from working — from the act of producing. 

III) Alienation of the worker from himself, as a producer — from his Gattungswesen (species-essence). 

IV) Alienation of the worker from other workers. 

Theoretically, Entfremdung describes the social alienation of people from aspects of their human nature as a consequence of living in a society stratified into societal classes. 

Alienation (Entfremdung) is the systemic result of living in a socially divided society, because being a mechanistic part of a social class estranges a person from their humanity.

The conjectural basis of alienation within the capitalist (German Ideology) mode of production, is that the worker invariably loses the ability to:

-determine his or her life and destiny, when deprived of the right to think of oneself as the director of her actions; 

-to determine the character of said actions; 

-to define her relationship with other people; 

-and to own the things and use the value of the goods and services, produced with her labor. 

Although the worker is an autonomous, self-realized human being, as an economic entity, she is directed to goals and subsequently diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie. 

The bourgeois are those who own the means of production, driven by the demand, to extract from the worker the maximal amount of surplus value during the course of business competition among industrialists.

Marxist theoretics allow for an individual to identify with humanity through a political choice of acceptance. Societal classes exist and always have, because this is a distinguishing characteristic of humanity in its simplest form. One can mix Marxist ideologies with existentialist properties to further their own worth, as defined in comparison, to all other entities dominating the social world.