Understanding Marx’s Alienation: Religious, Political, and Economic
Feuerbach: Religious Alienation
Reality is not the idea, but the subject, specifically humanity. Humans need to understand themselves, projecting their attributes onto an external being called God. This projection is religious alienation. To overcome it, humans must recognize their qualities within themselves, not in a created deity.
For Feuerbach, God represents humanity’s unfulfilled potential. Recognizing this allows humans to strive for what they project onto God.
Marx critiqued Feuerbach, arguing that religious alienation is a model for broader societal alienation. Religion conceals social contradictions and class struggles, serving as an “opium” that prevents people from recognizing and changing their oppressive conditions.
Marx: Political and Social Alienation
Political alienation arises from the contradiction between the ideals of freedom and equality and the reality of inequality in capitalist societies. This inequality is reflected in the class struggle between the bourgeoisie (owners of production) and the proletariat (workers).
Social alienation dehumanizes individuals by turning human relations into economic transactions. The dominant bourgeoisie controls political power, preventing meaningful change.
Marx: Economic Alienation
Commodities have use value (meeting human needs) and exchange value (based on labor). Money facilitates exchange but also reduces human relationships to economic ones.
The accumulation of capital leads to job destruction, reduced purchasing power, and periodic crises, exacerbating worker alienation.
Overcoming Alienation
1. Dialectical and Historical Materialism: Exploitation leads to capital accumulation, technological advances, and ultimately, overproduction crises, driving socialist revolution.
2. Class Struggle: The conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat will lead to revolution.
3. Dictatorship of the Proletariat: The proletariat will seize power, control production, and eventually lead to a classless society.
4. Classless Society: Private ownership is abolished, eliminating social classes.
Atheistic Humanism
Marx’s philosophy is naturalistic and materialistic, rejecting supernatural explanations. Humans are understood as natural beings, without religious or metaphysical elements.
Marx’s atheism stems from recognizing religious alienation. To overcome alienation, religion must be eliminated. Marxism is a humanism focused on liberating real historical individuals from oppressive conditions.