Capital quote...

The capitalist then takes his stand on the law of the exchange of commodities. He, like all other buyers, seeks to get the greatest possible benefit out of the use-value of his commodity. Suddenly the voice of the labourer, which had been stifled in the storm and stress of the process of production, rises:

The commodity that I have sold to you differs from the crowd of other commodities, in that its use creates value, and a value greater than its own. That is why you bought it. That which on your side appears a spontaneous expansion of capital, is on mine extra expenditure of labour-power. You and I know on the market only one law, that of the exchange of commodities. And the consumption of the commodity belongs not to the seller who parts with it, but to the buyer, who acquires it. To you, therefore, belongs the use of my daily labour-power. But by means of the price that you pay for it each day, I must be able to reproduce it daily, and to sell it again. Apart from natural exhaustion through age, 8c., I must be able on the morrow to work with the same normal amount of force, health and freshness as to-day. You preach to me constantly the gospel of "saving" and "abstinence." Good! I will, like a sensible saving owner, husband my sole wealth, labour-power, and abstain from all foolish waste of it. I will each day spend, set in motion, put into action only as much of it as is compatible with its normal duration, and healthy development. By an unlimited extension of the working day, you may in one day use up a quantity of labour-power greater than I can restore in three. What you gain in labour I lose in substance. The use of my labour-power and the spoliation of it are quite different things.

~Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1

Lecture 1: Marx, Alienation, and Capital 101

Marx’s essay, “Estranged Labour,” a chapter from Marx’s early work written in Paris and known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (and only published in the 1930s), is at core about how humans feel as they work within the capitalist system. In a nutshell, Marx claims that capitalism, through its construction and use of private property and the capitalist’s ownership of the means of production, alienates the real producers (i.e., the workers) not only from the very products they produce and the processes of production they work with, but also from themselves and each other.

What does it mean to feel alienated? To be alienated means to be separated from something. Marx uses this to describe how workers feel within the capitalist mode of production. He used the term to “denote the division and separation between the upper class (bourgeosie) and the lower class (proletariat). In recent years, the term has been used to suggest estrangement, powerlessness, and the depersonalization of the individual” within our contemporary society. So why does Marx claim we are alienated within the capitalist system? What is inherent to capitalism that alienates most of those who work within it? Trying to answer these two questions is the focus of this essay. Attempting to answer them also necessarily means we have to understand some of the key structures of the capitalist system, as well. Let’s start by looking briefly at the essay “Estranged Labour.”

Read the rest of the essay/lecture.