The Theory Of Alienated Labour In The Paris Manuscripts

Marx’s discussion of alienation touches on many areas of life,particularly labour.Alienation means that the object breaks away from the control of the subject and becomes the power opposite to the subject in an independent form.Alienated labour makes people’s activities and products alienate of each other,and endows the relationship between people with the nature of things.As such,it is generally considered to be a purely critical concept.In fact,Marx’s critique of alienated labour also acknowledges its positive effects.So this paper reproduces Marx’s theory of alienated labour by means of text interpretation,and mainly studies Marx’s criticism and overcoming of alienated labour.The full text is divided into four chapters.First,in order to clarify the meaning of alienation in the context of Marx,the paper gives a brief overview of the philosophical development of alienation by Hegel and Young Hegelians.These statements are an important source of Marx’s ideas.On this basis,Marx uses alienation to show that man’s own creation has become an enemy that impedes man’s development,thus launching a critique of theology,speculative Idealism,and capitalism.Since then,alienation has permeated Marx’s work.Then,taking this as the philosophical premise,the author discusses various manifestations of alienated labour and their internal relations.The key of alienation lies not in material products,not in human or others,but in labour itself.Man realizes the unity of self and social development in his labour as his essential activity,and the alienation of activity destroys the unity.It severs the direct connection between man and his creation and others and puts them in opposition to each other.In this process,Marx argues dialectically that alienated labour,on the one hand,devalues labour as an animal and decomposes society into isolated atomic individuals;on the other,it has also created huge productive forces as well as new connections and ties between people,thus advancing the development of society.Therefore,Marx is not a purely negative criticism of alienated labour,but as an objective phenomenon,with historical characteristics.Chapter 3 mainly discusses the origins of alienated labour and its overcoming.On the basis of analyzing the relationship between private property and alienated labour,Marx traced the problem of alienated labour back to the capitalist division of labour,and put forward his communist assumption.Private property is the external manifestation of alienated labour.The specialization of division of labour leads to the alienation of labour fundamentally,which is the restriction of the all-round development of human beings.Thus,Marx proposed his vision of a future communist society.Although he did not give a detailed description of the future society here,his exposition is highly illuminating for overcoming alienated labour.To overcome the alienation of labour is not simply to deny or exceed its conditions,but to change the nature of labour with the help of material and social forces,and to dialectically sublate it by historical means.Finally,the article briefly examines the contemporary effects of Marx’s theory of alienated labour.The theory of alienated labour was developed by Lukacs,Marcuse,Habermas,and Baudrillard.Lukacs’s theory of reification is similar to that of alienated labour.Marcuse,Habermas,and Baudrillard extended this theory to a critique of modern technology,communication,and consumption.In addition,in the face of China’s modernization process,the theory is also highly enlightening.