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Alienation

 

In some cases workers may not even have a good idea of what they are producing. If they are working on an assembly line they might only be working on one little section of a product. If they are putting the same piece on the same part of an engine of a car day in and day out they might not really have an idea of what the whole product is. In the case of an assembly line worker building a car they would not even make enough money to purchase the end product, which further alienates them from it. .
             Workers are also alienated from their co-workers because of the unnatural way they are made to work together. Marx believes that people want to work cooperatively with other humans in order to get what they need to survive. With the way capitalism works that natural harmony is disrupted when workers are forced to work with others for the benefit of the capitalist. The workers may be isolated from one another by means of separate working conditions or being given so much work to do they have no time to get to know their fellow workers. In the capitalist system workers are forced to work competitively against one another in order for recognition or reward from the boss. This creates hostility between workers, which also takes away the hostility that they could be directing at the boss. .
             Finally the worker is alienated from himself by way of the labor he produces. By doing the same mundane task day in and day out the laborer gradually losses their humanity in their work because they are becoming like an animal or a machine that mindlessly produces. Their conscious mind is numbed and their relationships can become severed. When they are at work the worker feels nothing and thinks of nothing because they are like animals that just work. The only time the worker feels human is when doing basic human tasks such as eating, drinking, sleeping, and making love. The worker mainly feels human while participating in basic animal functions, and his human functions are reduced to that of an animal while at work.


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