Karl Marx on Labor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Karl Marx on Labor - Essay Example Marx therefore, was primarily concerned with the way in which people are related to the ‘means of production’ (Morrison 44) which embodies anything that people use in order to survive; in other words anything that provides the means by which man can â€Å"obtain livelihoods, produce income and acquire needs† (Morrison 44), such as tools, raw materials, employment that provides monetary rewards and land that provides food, drink and fuel. Further to Marx’s concept of means of production is that a person’s relationship to it, ascertains their position in society, their class (Ebeling 9). One class however, according to Marx has owned and controlled the means of production all through history; thus society is divided into classes based on economic status, with the owners of the means of production becoming the ruling class. His theory therefore, posits that the forces of production are conveyed through social relationships that are autonomous of individ ual purpose or will. Marx called the ruling class the bourgeois society and defined them as those who live on the profits of the labour of others; the important point here is that for Marx, the possession of money does not in itself define bourgeoisie but by the fact that the money is increased by the employment and exploitation of other people’s labour . ... For Marx, the social relationship is not only exploitative but is also contradictory, wherein the concerns of each party are opposed to each other (Quigley 3). He further argued that such a class system then was typified by dispute and class struggles (Giddens & Held 151) focussed on elements that encourage divides and disparities. In fact for Marx, every aspect of society is based on such factors; government, family, institutions and religion all help to promote and justify advantage and control for some at the detriment of others. His theories of conflict and power propose that capitalism manipulates the market and becomes more and more powerful, and that they endeavour to dominate not only the financial systems via means of production but also the political policies and government (Smith and Rickett 952). It is the ideologies of the ruling class that prevail within a capitalist regime and therefore the workers or proletariat are seen merely as an object of commodity (Quigley 2) an d simply a means to an end; in other words, profit for the ruling class. The proletariat, with no choice or control over production or distribution of the products they produce is therefore, according to Marx, disconnected from that which they manufacture and work on and they are only able to receive a small wage for that labour; thus what they produce does not belong to them in any way (Quigley 2). This separation from the product the workers produce is what Marx calls alienation of labour. Marx noted four aspects of alienation in terms of labour, the first of which is separation of the worker from the product they produce; these products within