Marx’s Dialectical Materialism: Reality and Alienation
Marx’s Dual Philosophical Aims
Marx aimed to transform philosophy into a science capable of explaining all reality. Simultaneously, he intended his theory to critique the historical reality of his time and thereby help transform it. For this reason, Marx’s philosophy had two dimensions:
- Theoretical: A scientific explanation of reality, seeking to understand human reality, society, and history to develop a theory of consciousness that illuminates ideological and alienated existence.
- Practical: Aimed at developing a political program with revolutionary action guidelines to guide the proletariat in transforming the bourgeois mode of production and its associated forms of consciousness.
Marx’s Materialist Conception of Reality
Marx’s conception of reality is materialist and dialectical. It does not pose the problem of the primacy of spirit over matter, rejecting both traditional idealism and simplistic materialism. Marx prioritizes concrete reality over thought or consciousness. Reality, considered by him, is a dialectical process of material production and transformation, not spiritual. Real is material activity; real life is practical and productive human activity. The real man is the man who produces materially. Real history is the dialectical history of material production methods. Marx considers nature and man jointly. Therefore, his approach is often called “dialectical materialism” (a term initiated and developed primarily by Engels).
Alienation in Marx’s Thought
Materialism rests on the man-nature relationship. Man is a natural being arising from nature. Separating man from nature leaves neither complete; one is nothing without the other. As a natural being, man has needs and must turn to nature to satisfy them.
Man is an active-practical being who needs to engage in progressive self-fulfillment through his relationship with nature via work. Thus, he updates and develops his skills.
Man is a social being: human self-realization through work is both communal and individual. Man needs to engage with others to produce and realize himself.
Man is a historical being. Man always works, but not always in the same manner. These different ways of working are called modes of material production.
Alienation, particularly under capitalism, has several negative aspects:
- Alienation from the product: The object produced does not belong to the worker. The producer is external to and alienated from his product; it becomes strange to him. What is alienated is not only the product but also the worker’s life manifested in the product.
- Alienation from the activity of working: There is an alienation of the worker’s activity because he does not experience his work as something belonging to him but as something external and forced. Therefore, the worker is not fulfilled in his work.
- Alienation from species-being and fellow humans: As work becomes socially divided and forced, the bond between the individual and society (and other individuals) is distorted. Collaboration becomes coerced rather than cooperative, alienating humans from their essential social nature and from each other.
Marx’s Model of Society: Base and Superstructure
Society is composed of two fundamental structures:
The Socio-Economic Infrastructure (Base)
This is the foundation upon which society rests and which ultimately shapes all other aspects. This production process is composed of two levels:
- Forces of Production (Economic Level): Represent the level of development of productive capacity a society has reached at a determined time (e.g., technology, labor power, resources).
- Relations of Production (Social Level): The relationships established between people according to their position in the production process (e.g., owner/worker, lord/serf).
The Ideological Superstructure
This is the set of ideas, beliefs, and institutions derived from the infrastructure, serving to maintain and justify it. It is composed of two levels:
- Political-Legal System: The state organization and the set of laws governing society.
- Cultural Values and Ideas: The set of beliefs, ideologies, philosophies, religions, and art that characterize a society.