Answer to Question #290336 in Sociology for sabbir ahmed

Question

Do you think that Karl Marx's concept of Alienation is still relevant to explain the condition of the working class? Support your stand with reasons.

Answer 1

Although alienation may be felt and even understood, fled from and even resisted, it is not simply as a subjective condition that Marx is interested in it. Alienation is the objective structure of experience and activity in capitalist society. In our society now, we see that production of goods and services indirectly affect the meeting of our immediate and non-immediate needs; and the money that we earn become means for obtaining the goods and services that we need. For example, your work as a hairdresser directly meets the aesthetic needs of someone else and someone else’s work, say, as a waitress meets your need for food. One reason that I see was that Marx focused solely on the productive process than on the consumption and consumerism. We cannot change the fact that we humans are dependent and interdependent upon each other.

Also, because in Marx’s time, peasants are not given enough wages for the work that they provide and privileges are the least concern of the owners to provide for their workers, labor is thought of as something oppressive. But if we are to think about it and relate it to our society today, our society has changed overtime. Rights have been established and are being improved for the workers. Marx’s is rather pessimistic than optimistic in this idea of alienation as for him, the body is being reduced in a certain way or is devalued by labor and how good the laborer’s product turns out.