Re: The main differences between the theory of alienationandthe theory of exploitation

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> lnp3@xxxxxxxxx 11/21/00 12:01PM >>>
>I am a University student studying Marx's at the moment. I was
>just wondering if anyone had any thought's on the differences
>between the theory of alienation and the theory of exploitation. I
>have an assignment to do on it and the more views i get on it the
>better.
>
>Regards
>R. B

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Exploitation, in strict Marxist terms, by the way refers to the
appropriation of surplus value through the wage relationship. For an
excellent bibliographical guide to this term and other Marxist terminology,
go to: http://www.u-paris10.fr/ActuelMarx/economarx/econmare.htm. You might
also want to check: http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/index.htm which is an
online guide to Marxist and non-Marxist economics.


(((((((((((

CB: I agree with Lou's response. I would add that along with the technical 
definition
that Lou gives for exploitation under capitalism, Marxism also, considers that
feudalist and slave based modes of production, as well as other forms in other 
areas
of the world had exploitative relations of production , though different than 
those of
capitalism. In other words, private property relations mean that there is an
exploiting ruling class that lives off of surpluses produced by an exploited 
oppressed
class. The surpluses are extracted by different methods in capitalism, 
feudalism and
slavery. There have been different forms of private property. The initial 
Marxist
analysis of the origin of class exploitative society in general is in Engels' 
_The
Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_.  The original human 
societies
were not class exploitative, by most anthropological hypotheses. Class 
exploitative
society begins about 6 or 7,000 years ago with "civilization". The prev!
ious 50 to 200,000 years of human society were not class exploitative societies.


In this regard, Marxism sees the socialist revolution as an end not only to
capitalism, but to the longer history of all class exploitative societies. 
Communism
is a return to "primitive" communism with a higher level of technique.

The Marxist concept of alienation is complicated. Marx discusses it at length 
in _The
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_.  Perhaps a way to get to it is 
to think
of "alienation" as "separation".   Here it connects to exploitation, in the 
sense that
for a worker in capitalism, the surplus value that is separated from the worker 
whose
work is the source of that value, is not only exploited from that worker, but 
that
surplus value goes on to become capital. And capital , as it grows and becomes 
more
and more powerful, comes to dominate that worker and the mass of workers who 
produce
it. So, alienation is the workers' own labor and their labor's products 
"twisted" and
 used to oppress them and keep them under control. However, Marx traces a 
number of
other senses in which workers become alienated by their circumstance in 
capitalism,
such that they are separated - alienated from themselves, from each other, and 
other
ways, but all rooted in the alienation from the fruit!
s of their labor. It becomes a basis for explaining the widespread loneliness 
and
alienation many people in capitalist society, chronicled in much literature and 
other
sensitive expressions.

B. Ollman has a book _Alienation_.