Gemienschaft or Gesllschaft

Most individuals go to work everyday and hate the jobs they are doing. Throughout this sort essay it will become apparent as to why many people have felt and do feel that way. This essay will examine Marx's and Engles idea of private property, Marx's idea of alienated labor by looking at four sources of estranged labor, the social and personal consequences that result from alienated labor, and George Ritzer's article, McJobs: McDonaldization and the Workplace.

Alienation appears when the world and the people around you become strange to you. However, one must understand that this alienation or estrangement would not exist if the idea of private property did not exist. Firstly, it must be understood that production is inheritably social and, therefore, requires a large amount of people. This type of social production is more constructive than individual production. Furthermore, there are people in society that own the means of production; these people get to decide who benefits and who does not. When societies produce more than it needs to sustain itself it is called wealth; this wealth could be distributed equally among individuals in society but, like was stated previously, those who own the means of production, or the bourgeoisie, are usually the ones who accumulate wealth. This type of ownership of private property dates back to the Greek and Roman times; these two empires were founded on the idea of owning slaves. This, in turn, enables the owners to force slaves to participate in the social labor process. This type of alienation and ownership is apparent in many different societies such as feudal society where individuals would exchange death for taxes, and in capitalist society where the owners ensure social production by giving the workers wages. All of these different societies are based on the idea of exploitation and this creates an alienation of labor. Additionally, it must be noted that alienation is a social fact and therefore, is present even if one cannot feel it. For that reason, the best time to witness alienation is when it is at the end of its leash or when it is exhausted.

Within Marx's idea of the alienation of labor there are four sources from which it transcends. Firstly, the individual becomes alienated by the things they produce. This is to say, that the worker has no sense of pride in what he is making. For example, this would be the same as someone who loves to cook working at a fast food restaurant; it would be highly unlikely that the worker would gain a sense of pride by cooking hamburgers on a grill. Moreover, the worker can also feel a sense of alienation in the process. This implies that an owner decides how the product is made. Therefore, instead of the worker being able to share ideas about how to make the process easier, more efficient, or more productive, his ideas would go unheard; the workers ideas would be heard but not acknowledged or put into practice. For that reason, the worker would feel no pride by what is made and no pleasure in the process by which he is producing. Not only can the worker be alienated by the product and the process, he can also be alienated by the people around him. That is to say, that the proletariat, or workers, interact with others through exchange of commodity. As a result, people become alienated because they interact through objects. Marx suggests, "Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity (Tucker, The Marx and Engles Reader, 71)." This is to say that the worker becomes a commodity through the process and the products he produces Ð'- he has no use value only exchange value. Furthermore, the commodities or objects that are used to facilitate the interaction have no use value; they possess more of an exchange value. Namely, these commodities are not meant to last over duration of time; on the contrary, they are used to exchange interaction among society. It is because these objects are needed for people to interact that society as a people are alienated. Furthermore, people are alienated within the work place because they are alienated from one another. For example, in modern day it is not uncommon to see people working in cubicles separated from one another. This type of isolation from other co-workers and people prevents groups from forming a class consciousness. This prevention is intentional, of course, because if a work community were able to communicate they would be able to form a class consciousness. Therefore, they would be able to discuss there opinions concerning the workplace. Moreover, once a group of people recognize their agreements and disagreements they would be able to act upon them as an entity. In other words, the proletariat, or workers, would be able to form a union of some sort and act against the will of the bourgeoisie, or owners; in doing this the owners would have to stop and take notice of the will of the working class. Once a class consciousness is formed the workers would feel less alienated and more productive. The last form of estrangement finds itself within the individual; people, as individuals, become divorced from their own human potential. In fact, people begin to believe that idea of human potential is inconceivable. This belief resonates when individuals loose the sense that they can be a productive human being. When doing alienated labor it becomes strange to the worker and therefore is not a part of him. In conclusion, the worker is not working on his own project -- he is doing