Feuerbach, Marx, and Human Alienation
Feuerbach and Religious Alienation
Feuerbach argues humans create gods, not vice versa. This leads to alienation, where humans submit to their own creation, losing their true selves.
Marx’s Extension to Economic Alienation
Marx expands on Feuerbach, applying alienation to labor under capitalism. In production, humans express their essence. However, under capitalism, workers lose control over their labor’s fruits, becoming estranged from their work and themselves.
Objectification and Reification
The worker’s product becomes an alien object, and the worker is treated as a commodity, leading to reification.
Exploitation and Loss of Autonomy
Capitalism exploits workers by appropriating surplus value and reducing them to mere appendages of machinery, stripping them of autonomy and satisfaction.
Social and Political Alienation
Capitalism creates social divisions (classes) and political divisions (civil society vs. state), further alienating individuals.
Ideological Alienation
Ideology justifies exploitation, creating a false consciousness. Workers accept the capitalist’s appropriation of surplus value as legitimate, perpetuating the cycle of alienation.
Ideology is a distorted view of reality that serves the interests of the exploiters, making exploitation seem natural and unavoidable.