The Study On The History And Contemporary Value Of Marx’s Alienation Theory

Criticizing man’s alienation, subletting man’s alienation, and realizing man’s liberation, is the lifelong pursuit of Marx’s theoretical study. So Marx never abandons the investigation and study of alienation. But Marx’s alienation theory differs from Hagel’s and Feuerbach’s on the question of the historical process of alienation’s generation, subletting alienation, and realizing man’s liberation. Marx’s alienation theory is not the one about the self movement of some absolute subject. He takes the realistic individual as the object of study, sets out from the view of historical materialism, and takes the process of alienation’s generation and its subletting as a social and historical process of dialectical development. For Marx, man is the realistic man, and realistic man is the man in certain social and historical relations. So social and historical activity is not the "objective activity" of some abstract individual, but is the activity of certain social production mode. Therefore, the root of alienation must be sought from people’s social relations than abstract individual.Alienation is that people’s social relations become the shackles of human independent activity from the conditions because it cannot meet the needs of man’s independent development at a certain stage of the development of productive forces. Alienation means that people’s social relations become the alien power for people. So the elimination of alienation can neither rely on the abstract individual, nor rely on a certain ysterious power outside people, but must rely on social power to change unreasonable social relations which affect people’s independent development. Visibly, we must break the old thinking mode in the investigation and study of Marx’s alienation theory, and carry out the study within the scope of the theory of Marx’s own while taking historical materialism as the basic method. This article will explore the connotation and theoretical characteristics of Msrx’s alienation theory, through the investigation to the generation history of Marx’s alienation theory as a whole, based on the study of Marx’s classical text, and in the unity of logic and history.Marx’s alienation theory is a historical generation process as a whole, which can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage is the germination period. This is the period before Marx’s historical materialism is established. In this period, Marx’s alienation theory still kept traces of the old philosophy, and only was the groundwork of the establishment of Marx’s own alienation theory. At the earliest, in his doctoral thesis, Marx still was studying alienation of self-consciousness in the scope of Hegel’s philosophy. In the political alienation theory of "criticism on Hegel’s legal philosophy", Marx had begun to turn to the civil society, and shown a certain tendency of historical materialism. In the labor alienation theory in "economic and philosophical manuscripts of1844", Marx had started to study alienation in the dual logic. One is the relationship between man and objects; the other is the relationship between people. He found that the root of alienation laid in the relationship between people rather than in the product or labor itself. The reason that things oppose man is that there always was a man who was the master of the thing. Though Marx’s alienation theory in this period was not mature, it also contained a lot of historical materialism factors, some of which became important contents of Marx’s alienation theory in mature period. The second stage is the establishment period. This is the period that Marx established his own alienation theory which based on the discovery of his historical materialism. The discovery of historical materialism is the fundamental change of Marx’s thought, because of which Marx’s alienation theory changes fundamentally. Historical materialism is the core and essence of Marx’s thought, so the alienation theory with the connotation of historical materialism is the alienation theory with the essence of Marx’s thought and the theory of Marx’s own. In "German Ideology", Marx found the rule about the contradictory movement between productive forces and production relations. In his view, alienation was the reasult that production relations could not adapt to the development of productive forces so that became the shackle of man’s independent activity. So it was necessary to change production relations to become the condition of man’s independent activity when subletting alienation. Since then, Marx got rid of the speculation of human nature, began to analyzing think alienation in social and historical relations. Alienation theory of this period ensured the true root of alienation and made sure the correct direction of the study of alienation theory. The third stage is the deepening period. During this period, Marx made his study of alienation theory go deep into the concrete process of the production in capitalist society, on the basis of the systemic and deep study of political economics. Marx discovered that the root of alienation lay in the unlimited proliferation nature of capital which driven capital to maximize the possession of labor. This made social production separate from the development of people and become alien power for people. So subletting alienation need sublate capital and make social production be subordinate to people. Visibly, the generation and development of Marx’s alienation theory is unified with Marx’s two great discoveries that are the historical materialism theory and surplus value theory. Marx’s alienation theory is generated in the generation of Marx’s theory as a whole.Two logical mainline run through Marx’s alienation theory which generated on the basis of historical materialism. One is the relationship between man and object, the other is the relationship between people. Marx never analyzes alienation only in the relationship between man and object, and never deems that alienation is the outcome of the independent activity of things or the outcome of the object activity of abstract individual. Marx investigates the relationship between man and object in the relationship between people, and finds that the relationship between people is the real root of alienation. Marx also never investigates the social relationship between people without the relationship between man and object. This is because man can’t do without things; man is part of nature; material production is the prerequisite for all of human history. Marx’s alienation theory is the dialectical development of dual logic. Not only should it make a clean break with the old materialism, but also draw a line with the speculative philosophy, but also clarify the relationship between humanitarian. The research on Marx’s alienation theory must avoid distorting or misreading in various directions.