Liberation Audio13 Tammi 2022

What is alienation? The development and legacy of Marx’s early theory

Editorial Collective Note: This is a new introduction to alienation that replaces our earlier introduction written in 2006. It’s part of our renovation and expansion of our “Fundamentals of Marxism” series and other articles on Marxist theory and the class struggle. Offering a brief introduction to Marx’s theory of alienation is not a straightforward task. This is due, in part, to conflicting interpretations of key aspects of Marx’s project directly related to alienation, the timing of the publication of Marx’s early manuscripts where the theory is articulated, and the political contexts in which it was taken up. Central to any theory of alienation are questions of the nature of existence, which are often posed this way: Is there a natural or timeless essence from which the human could be alienated? While this question has preoccupied many academics, our most important task is to consider the impact of debates around alienation on our practical, day-to-day organizing. In this article, we introduce Marx’s writing on alienation as they appear in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, before discussing the historical context of their publication. We then chart the development of Marx’s thought from the manuscripts to his later work that is grounded in dialectical and historical materialism. Marx’s early works conceive “human nature” as an essential and ahistorical condition from which capital alienates workers, while, as we show, his later work focuses on capital’s process of abstraction and conceives of the human as a process of production, and therefore as dynamic and contingent on the mode of production. Read the full article: https://www.liberationschool.org/13-what-is-alienation-html/

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Jaksot(364)

Overproduction: The absurdity of suffering amidst surpluses

A popular coal-miner’s riddle from the 1930s summarizes one of capitalism’s most visible and absurd contradictions. After a daughter asks her father why their home is so cold, he tells her they don’t ...

11 Tammi 202517min

Thomas Sankara: Assessing the 3rd year of a revolutionary process

The eighth installment in Liberation School’s series of previously untranslated works by Thomas Sankara is published on the day Sankara was born in 1949. We would like to thank Bruno Jaffré and the ed...

3 Syys 202451min

The class struggle in every commodity: Use value and exchange value

Every year, Pew Research publishes a study on the U.S. population’s political priorities. Their 2024 report shows that, like the previous years, “no single issue stands out after the economy,” with al...

31 Heinä 202415min

Capitalist contradictions and revolutionary struggle: An introduction

Hearing or reading about the “contradictions of capitalism” in an article or at a rally might be intimidating, like a foreign language or a term only a certain group can understand. While the contradi...

12 Huhti 202419min

Capitalist urbanization, climate change, and the need for sponge cities

According to the United Nations Population Fund’s 2009 report, 2008 was the first time in history that over 50 percent of the world’s population resided in cities instead of rural areas. Because of th...

19 Joulu 202320min

Extradition of Alex Saab: U.S. takes effort to starve Venezuelans to new lows

Note: Following the original publication of this article, Alex Saab was extradited to Miami on October 16th 2021, and remains in prison awaiting an appeal. On March 18, The Cape Verde Supreme Court a...

18 Loka 20238min

From allies to comrades

Despite its association with sovereign nations involved in wartime alliances, the term “ally” has become influential in activist circles on the US left. Attention to debates over what it means to be a...

16 Syys 202326min

Liu Liangmo: China’s anti-imperialist, anti-racist, Christian revolutionary (pt. 2)

Liu Liangmo’s story is as remarkable as it is unknown. An anti-imperialist, pro-Communist Christian, with a significant relationship to the Black Liberation Movement and the Indian Freedom Struggle, L...

26 Elo 202324min