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The Significance Of The Alienation Of Labour In Karl Marx
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1.6.4 The Capitalist Society
The capitalist
society was more progressive when compared to the previous societies.
This epoch of history was characterized by invention of machines and
population migration from their local homes to large industrial cities
to search for work.
Here, workers are distinguished from owners of
the means of production. For workers to exist, they sell their labour
power for wages. Men and women are no longer associated with their
produce. The product of their labour goes to the owners of the means of
production. Consequently, workers are alienated from themselves and
their labour, because what they produce no longer belong to them, but
belong to the owners of the means of production, which amasses wealth
for the sake of amassing wealth.
As a result of these, the society is
sharply divided into the rich owners, and the poor workers, and Marx
describe them as the “bourgeoisie†and the “proletariats†respectively.
Here, the war and class struggle intensified, more than the previous
societies. Marx, who saw contradictions in the society, envisaged the
abolition of capitalism. For him, capitalism will give way to more
progressive, liberal stage—communism or classless society.
Following
Marx’s view, one tends to question the extent his parlances on the
condition of labour in the capitalist state could be helpful to the
contemporary labourers, especially as it concerns the present situation
of the Nigerian workers.
[1] P. Edward, Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. II (Chicago: Willeam Bentom Collier Macmdlian pub., 1974), p.554.
2 D. Mcclellan’s, Karl Marx Viking press 1975, p.3
3 S. MADAN, A History of Western Thought , Gunner Skirbekk, and Nils Gilje. (London: Routledge, pub., 2001), p. 321.
4 E. Craig, Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge vol.1, 1998), p.178
5 S. Madan, Marxism and Education (London: Routledge and kegan Paul LTD., 1978), P.110.
6 k. Marx, Labour and Capital, in The Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984), p. 145.
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