Karl Marx and his major contributions to political philosophy

Karl Marx

Define alienation and exploitation (Karl Marx). Explain how the worker -control movement removes the "root cause" of each.

To Marx, alienation occurs when people manufacture goods which embody their creative talents yet come to stand apart from their creators. Marx attributes four characteristics to labor alienation: alienation of the worker from his or her 'species essence' as a human being rather than an animal; alienation between workers, since capitalism reduces labor to a commodity to be traded on the market, rather than a social relationship; alienation of the worker from the product, since this is appropriated by the capitalist class, and so escapes the worker's control; and, alienation from the act of production itself, such that work comes to be a meaningless activity, offering little or no intrinsic satisfactions (Alienation, 1998). Under capitalism, according to Marx, employees are exploited by employers who own and expropriate surplus value, value workers create beyond the wages they are paid (Karl Marx, 2003). The socialization of the means of production is Marx's solution to ending alienation and exploitation. By socialization, Marx meant that the control of the means of production is turned over to the democratic control of workers so that people have control over their own lives. (Control of work).

2. The president and business owners all seemed to be "on the same side" Explain how this illustrates Marx's theory of government.

For Marx, exploitation leads to capitalist control of the government. The state's independence from capital on economic matters is weakened because capitalists create the wealth from which the state is financed (Wyatt, 2006). Wyatt summarizes Marx's view that capitalists control resources, which they may withdraw or redirect as they see fit. Therefore, the state is compelled to sanction and support capitalist predominance in economic matters.

To maintain stability, state policies need to be compatible with the objectives of the owners of the means of production. Thus, state policies in a capitalist society are determined by the government's need to protect the development of the economic base while coercively preserving social stability.

Therefore, state policies must be favorable to capitalist relations of production to ensures that a dominant economic class may actually rule even though it does not directly govern; it can determine the political agenda.

3. The worker-control movement was not forced on people by the government. Instead, it was a form of communism that resulted from frustration. How this consistent with Marx's predictions for communism?