Souls Closed to the Sky: Capitalism, Alienation, and the 19th Century

Souls Closed to the Sky: Capitalism, Alienation, and the 19th Century

Through the phenomenon of "alienation (enfremdung)," which lies at the root of capitalism, Marx depicted the process by which workers are separated from their own products, their labor, and their essence as human beings. During the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, when the factory system expanded, labor was no longer a creative activity but a mechanical means for the capitalists to multiply their profits. Workers could no longer own the commodity they created; it stood as "the other's" to be controlled under capital. Labor is then transformed not into a human expression but into an externally imposed obligation, and the worker is alienated from his activity and from himself.

Marx called man a "species-being" and considered him a being who can realize himself only in a free and creative relationship with nature. Under capitalism, however, this essence has been taken away, and labor has degenerated into a mere means of survival. The world in which craftsmen used to be united with their work through their skills has been fragmented by the division of labor and mechanization, and the worker has become a cog in the wheel without even knowing the whole picture of his or her own production process. In the great factories of England and the textile industry of Manchester, countless workers lost their creativity and pride as they performed repetitive, simple tasks. Capitalism thus transformed human beings from subjects of labor to "objects of labor," subordinating even their relationships with others to the value of exchange. Marx's theory of alienation brought this dehumanizing structure to light and became a theory that denounced the loss of human freed
om in the age of capital.