Marxist Anthropology: Alienation, Dialectical & Historical Materialism
Marxist Anthropology
Marxist anthropology views humans as concrete, sensitive, active, and dynamic beings. Humans transform the world through labor, humanizing nature while simultaneously naturalizing themselves. However, Marx observed that 19th-century workers were often subjected to exploitation and alienation within capitalist societies.
Alienation in Capitalist Society
Marx examined the alienation of the worker in capitalist society, noting that workers are alienated with respect to:
- The product of their work
- Nature
- Other men
Private property is identified as the source of alienated labor, with the disappearance of one leading to the disappearance of the other. Humans correlate with nature through labor, and it is through work that humans develop consciousness. As Aristotle stated, man is by nature a social animal, but becomes human within society. Social formations (institutions) can emerge that oppress individuals, leading to alienation. Alienation is a process by which an individual’s ideas become contradictory to their expected condition or reality.
Alienation causes man to cease being a man.
Types of Alienation
- Alienation of Religion: Religion conceals the harsh reality of human existence with ideology, numbing people into submission to the powerful. If man places truth and life in another world (God), it is because life here is unbearable. Eradicating the causes of this miserable existence will cause religion to lose all meaning and disappear.
- Political Alienation: The state and law provide for equality and freedom, but these principles disguise inequality and domination by the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.
- Social Alienation: The bourgeoisie, having gained freedoms, becomes a ruling class that enriches itself at the expense of the poor.
- Economic Alienation: Work, which is the essence of man, becomes something alien to the worker and is sold as a commodity. The capitalist appropriates the gain. Man ceases to be man. The worker is released from the slavery of work through revolution, thus overcoming the alienation of capitalism.
Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical materialism, an explanatory theory of reality, comes from Engels. For Marx, matter is dynamic and carries within it the principle of movement. This movement is dialectical, an opposition of contrary or contradictory tensions that must be overcome and resolved. Thesis/antithesis/synthesis is applied to matter. Reality is a contradiction, the result of the struggle of opposites. This opposition produces movement and progress.
Ideology and Practice
Two major concepts in Marxist philosophy are ideology and practice. Ideology is the set of ideas that interpret reality, but also serve to mask it. Philosophy, religion, etc., are ideological forms that mask the reality of exploitation of the worker in capitalist society to maintain domination. The real task of philosophy and science is practice, discovering the contradictions of human life to resolve and overcome them.
Historical Materialism
Society determines consciousness (thinking), and this infrastructure evolves from contradictions dialectically.
Analysis of Social Structure: The Process of Production
For Marx, science is the final form of knowledge. The structure of society is based on the economic base or infrastructure, which gives rise to social classes. Upon this base sits the ideological structure or superstructure, which disguises the real relations of production and deceives men.
Concept of Surplus Value
Surplus value is the increase in the value of a thing due to external causes.
History as Class Struggle
History is driven by class struggle. This is the thesis of historical materialism. Class struggle signifies contradiction between economic classes. Overcoming this contradiction (by revolution) will produce a change and a new society. Thesis-antithesis-synthesis: proletariat vs. different societies in history… until a final synthesis will be communist society, where there will be no classes and the full realization of man, exceeding all alienations of capitalism.
Modes of Production
Humanity progresses through four modes of production:
- Asian, primitive society where there is no trade or exploitation.
- Ancient slave society where trade arises.
- Feudal lords/serfs.
- Bourgeois, capitalist, where capitalists hold privileges previously held by the nobility, leading to the revolution of the proletariat.