“Alienation of labor, and a potential revolution.” A hegelian-marxist overview

“The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being. Everything which the economist takes from you in the way of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth."

Said Marx in his 1844 manuscripts. Alienation. This phenomenon, in simpler terms means being "part" of something, yet being exceptionally foreign to it, consciously. Is what i would compare the modern world and its bewildered herd to, alienated, from everything. Be it labor, nature, other people, one's own self "Gattungswessen". Dehumanizing human beings, is an inherent trait of capitalism as we all well know. And labor exploitation, which in its essence, results due to commodification and over abundance of commodities. More labor power invested means more consumers. More generated capital. Yet minimal wages for the labor force.

The reason I stress much upon the alienation of labor, and how it could possibly be a medium for a potential revolution is because when the work force becomes conscious of their detachment, their Lacanian "lack" and this cognition of having no real agency, being profit machines, and being prone to work under someone else's logo/brand/institution etc. they might as well realize how much is on the line. Maximum surplus to the 1 of 100 souls, a disproportionate division of produced capital, Marx would argue, this realization would fill the working force with rage, unity among the exploited, and eventual overthrow of the capitalist/ shareholder.

The question for me however is, can this realization even take place? To understand this, we need to understand Hegel's philosophy of freedom as its all interlinked. Marx, although was a Hegelian himself, had a very different notion of freedom, Individual freedom in this case. For Hegel, “actualization of "freedom" requires self realization of it, as a totality, a moment that takes place at the level of the state.” He wrote in his philosophy of right extensively about this matter, “consciousness gradually perceives itself as the immediate unity of particularity and universality and reaches an understanding of itself as "totality." For Hegel, that moment of recognition, is the actualization of freedom. In his own words "being oneself in otherness". Marx conceives labor(pure labor, not yet alienated) as a driving source of freedom. For Hegel, only a mutual realization of subjects, a combined struggle to exert pressure on the establishment would guarantee freedom. An individual would feel "free".

When a laborer is alienated, he doesn't know what his labor is benefitting. This happens because he sells labor for wages. So labor in its essence can never really be pure. Because "as soon as his labor really begins, it ceases to belong to him". There is no actual possibility of freedom in this case. Because there is no question by the alienated workforce. Moreover, there is no mentioning of labor when it comes to any typical commodity, that is precisely the purpose of brands, and consumerist capitalism. We see things as "brands" and logos, not as products of a work force behind it. The human labor, is obfuscated in a sense. And it goes on.

Under capitalism, this entire labor process, alienates because it denies humans' cooperative nature. Leading to interpersonal alienation, thus we move further and further away from Marx’s"creative labor". Amidst this dialectically altering society, the question is, is a revolution, a realization from the alienated work force possible. Is there even a practical application of Marx’sideas of creative labor. under 21st century circumstances that is, when we're moving further away from Hegelian definitions of essential "freedom". Commodity fetishism and consumerism has us all, the labor force, and me and you, mere atomistic individuals, alienated. And there is no escape, despite Marx’s optimism.