Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Note on translations
- Acknowledgements
- General introduction
- PART I PHILOSOPHICAL INTRODUCTION
- PART II MARX'S CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE
- PART III THE THEORY OF ALIENATION
- 18 The theory of alienation
- 19 Man's relation to his productive activity
- 20 Man's relation to his product
- 21 Man's relation to his fellow men
- 22 Man's relation to his species
- 23 The capitalist's alienation
- 24 The division of labor and private property
- 25 The labor theory of value: labor-power
- 26 Value as alienated labor
- 27 The metamorphosis of value
- 28 The fetishism of commodities
- 29 Class as a value Relation
- 30 State as a value Relation
- 31 Religion as a value Relation
- 32 Marx's critique of bourgeois ideology
- PART IV CONCLUSION
- Appendix I In defense of the philosophy of internal relations
- Appendix II Response to my critics: more on internal relations
- Notes to the text
- Bibliography of works cited
- Index of names and ideas
- Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics
20 - Man's relation to his product
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Note on translations
- Acknowledgements
- General introduction
- PART I PHILOSOPHICAL INTRODUCTION
- PART II MARX'S CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE
- PART III THE THEORY OF ALIENATION
- 18 The theory of alienation
- 19 Man's relation to his productive activity
- 20 Man's relation to his product
- 21 Man's relation to his fellow men
- 22 Man's relation to his species
- 23 The capitalist's alienation
- 24 The division of labor and private property
- 25 The labor theory of value: labor-power
- 26 Value as alienated labor
- 27 The metamorphosis of value
- 28 The fetishism of commodities
- 29 Class as a value Relation
- 30 State as a value Relation
- 31 Religion as a value Relation
- 32 Marx's critique of bourgeois ideology
- PART IV CONCLUSION
- Appendix I In defense of the philosophy of internal relations
- Appendix II Response to my critics: more on internal relations
- Notes to the text
- Bibliography of works cited
- Index of names and ideas
- Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics
Summary
The second of the four broad relations into which Marx divides alienation is the individual's relation to his product. This is, in Marx's words, ‘the relation of the worker to the product of labor as an alien object exercising power over him’. Between activity and product the link is clear and direct; man is alienated from his product because the activity which produced it was alienated. According to Marx, ‘the product is … but the summary of the activity, of production … In the estrangement of the object of labor is merely summarized the estrangement, the alienation, in the activity of labor itself.’ He asks, ‘How would the worker come to face the product of his activity as a stranger, were it not that in the very act of production he was estranging himself from himself?’
Man's alienation in his product can be viewed as one of the particular relations which constitute alienated activity or as a coequal general relation. If taken in the context of alienated activity, product alienation appears as a result alongside the ruination of the worker's own body and mind. However Marx, by treating product alienation on a par with alienated activity, wishes to stress its significance, some might claim its primary significance, for understanding the worker's overall alienation.
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- Information
- AlienationMarx's Conception of Man in a Capitalist Society, pp. 141 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1977