[BEST OF] Estranged Labor: Karl Marx on Alienation

Rev Left Radio

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Apr 4, 2020

In this solo episode, Breht breaks down Karl Marx’s powerful concept of alienation from his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. He walks listeners through the four types of alienation Marx identified—alienation from the product, the labor process, our human essence, and from each other—and bring them crashing into the present with real, relatable examples from contemporary working-class life. From soul-crushing jobs to the feeling of life slipping through your fingers, we connect Marx’s 19th-century analysis to the 21st-century reality of exploitation and isolation under capitalism. In the process, Breht demonstrates how alienation is rooted in private property and capitalist social relations and explicates Marx's concept of species-being: our natural human capacity for conscious, creative, purposeful activity—which is reduced to a mere means of survival under capitalism, rather than a free expression of our humanity.

This is Marxism made urgent, raw, relatable, and personal.

Also: Happy International Worker's Day!

Listen to the full Red Menace episode (from which this segment was extracted) here: https://redmenace.libsyn.com/economic-and-philosophic-manuscripts-of-1844-karl-marx

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