Man as a species is a natural being, which develops in the course of world history. Man is primarily a creative being, with desires and powers, faculties, creative abilities, which have their outcome in production. Mankind in its history has transformed the objects of the natural world and has created the entire world of culture. The vast historical and natural accumulation of the material and cultural objects mankind has produced are the manifestations or externalizations or embodiments of man's creative powers. Man actualizes himself in the world. In Marx's own powerful; language:
The whole so-called world history is nothing other than the production of man through human labor [sic]...
Marx firmly believes that the history of the world is the developing process in which human beings have created the great totality of objects in nature and in human culture, and in this process, the human species will find itself objectified and achieve self-realization. So, for example, the whole of modern industry is man's product - industrial mechanization is the externalization of human hands, ears, eyes, brains. Mills, mines, factories and their expanding technologies, have all been produced by human beings and are externalizations of their creative powers. But the n human species does not realize that it is the creator of the world of natural objects and of culture. What man sees when he looks at these objects which he has produced are alien things in "an alien hostile world standing over against him." This is so because man's productive activity is done in servitude to the God money, rather than in spontaneous self-determination. The result has been that the history of human creative production has been a history of man's alienation from his own productive nature.
.:. Alienation
Human alienation takes four main form, according to Marx in the 1844 Manuscripts: Man is alienated from the product of his own work, from the act of producing, from his own social nature, and from his fellow men. First, the worker in industrialized capitalism is alienated from his product, which "exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him...the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien." His product is not his own but is utilized by strangers as their private property. And the more the worker produces, the less is his productivity valued. "The worker becomes an even cheaper commodity, the more cheap commodity he creates." The worker's wages are just sufficient to maintain him with what is necessary to keep him working. Second, the capitalist system alienates man from his productive activity. His activity is not determined by his personal interest or his creativity, but is something which he is compelled to do in order to remain alive. "His labor [sic]...is forced labor [sic]." As a result, in Marx's words, "The worker only feels himself outside his work, and in his work he feels outside himself." The more he works the less human he becomes. He finally feels at home only in the animalian functions of eating, drinking, and sexuality.
Third, capitalist society alienates the worker from the essential qualities of the human species. Unlike animals, says Marx, who produce only for their immediate needs, human produce knowledge and culture (such as art, science, technology) for the whole human race. Humans produce as universal beings for universal ends. But the capitalist system degrades man's urge to produce for all mankind into animal labour, into a mere means to satisfy his personal physical needs. The fourth form of alienation is the "estrangement of man from man." His fellow man is a stranger competing with him as a worker and for the products of their labour. Moreover, both are estranged from "man's essential nature."
.:. Capitalist System and Exploitation
Capitalism: Definition: What is capitalism? A capitalist mode of production is one in which a few humans own and control the major forces or means of production as their private property and they employ as workers those who have nothing to sell but their own labor power.
Labour theory of value: The commodities that the workers produce have a value equivalent to the amount of labour needed to produce them.
Surplus value: Directly related to Marx's theory of value is his crucial concept of surplus value. This is the concept which explains both the profit of the capitalist and the exploitation of the worker. Marx defines surplus value as the differences between the value of the wages received by the worker and the value of what he has produced. That difference, the difference between what the capitalist must pay the worker as wages and what the capitalist can sell the worker's product for, makes up the capitalist's profit.
Exploitation: The working class is forced into the position of selling on the market its labour power for the going rate of wages; the capitalist exploits the worker by selling the goods the worker produces form more money than he pays to the workers in wages. Capitalism is a system of exploitation, Marx argues, in which capitalists profiteer by paying the workers only the existing rate of wages in place of the full market value of the products the workers produce.
