Karl Marx basic thrust is liberally sprinkled with democratic principles, humanism and youthful idealism. He refused the abstractness of Hegelian philosophy which talks about the naïve dreaming of utopian communists. Rejecting that philosophy, Marx had laid the groundwork for his own life’s work. When Marx went to France where he saw industrial revolution was emerging in which working class (proletariat) were being exploited by capitalists (Bourgeoisie). Marx believed that the class struggle was the driving force of social change. Marx came to know that the capitalist society is based on masses production. From there he took his first hand experience and wrote Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844).
Marx believed that society is based on two structures; superstructure and base structure. In this way superstructure (religion, education, culture etc.) is determined by base structure (economy, labor force, etc.) He made his assumption that only way out of exploitation of labor force only could take place through class struggle in society which would lead to blood revolution because of two reasons; Surplus Value and sense of Alienation.
Concept of Surplus Value: as Marx already said above that capitalist society is made of mass production. He argued against Capitalist which produces nothing. It is labor force which produces wealth and money. He saw that worker did hard work in working hour and got paid meager amount. Their value of wages went in form of profit by capitalist. The workers were getting only 25% out of 100% and rest of the profit became the part of industrialists. The industrialist observed that there was no consumption of production of goods in the market so they decided to reduce the number of labor in order to save their surplus value. Now, workers found difficult to sustain and survive their family nourishment and livelihood. There was living in utter poverty due to unemployment. Subsequently, they made unity among themselves to overcome of this crisis and destroy the dominant of capitalism.
Concept of Alienation
The theory of alienation refers it as a result of modern industrial society or capitalism. Term ‘Alienation ‘denotes to dehumanization, lack of emotion and sentiment. Marx believed that there were four stages which led to alienation among working forces of industry against bourgeoisies (industrialists and capitalists). They are as follows; alienation to production, alienation to colleagues, alienation to nature (surrounding and world), alienation to himself.
Alienation to Production
This was a first stage when workers realized that we were part of the industry and result of it productions would happen. However, we are not able to purchase or consume it. The emotion and sentiment which they had with products now began to lose which led to alienation towards production.
Alienation to Colleagues
This was a second stage when workers felt that their life had become a part of machinery. They had to work for long hours in the industry but value of wages were paid in form of meager amount. They had no time to share their feelings with colleagues. Eventually they had grown up sense of alienation amidst workers due long hours of pressure.
Alienation to nature
This was a third stage when workers found themselves in confinement of industry. They began to feel suffocation due to long and hectic schedule of works. They found no time to interact with their surrounding and society. They had no time to think about community and its welfare. In this way, hectic schedule of work and made their life mechanical and due to less payment their lives of full of stress which led alienation towards the nature.
Alienation to himself
This was a last stage of alienation when they themselves realized modern industrial life made their life limited and burden of life. They saw that their value of wages which was being exploited by the industrialists. They found that there was no relation between products and them for which they worked hard. There was no use of goods in their life. They found their life confined in the boundary of industry, and their life had become part of machinery which resulted alienation themselves.
It is, therefore, apparent that prevailing dominant of capitalists and their surplus value and utter poverty led to class struggle among working forces which resulted in form of blood revolution and downfall of capitalists.
References
Ritzer,G. (2000).Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim: A Biographical Sketch, Modern Sociological Theory,5th Edition, Boston; McGraw Hill.
Marx: Sociology, Social Change, Capitalism. Edited by Donald Mcquarie,Published by Horizon Press, New York.
