Alienation of Labor Essay

The Alienation of Labor is an idea of Karl Marx which is an artificial construct and it is certainly applied but not too clear. Marx describes this idea in a pretty straightforward manner. He is basically saying that the worker has no control over his or her life. The worker is nothing more than a cog being used in the business machine’s discretion. The worker really has no individual rights and certainly no demonstration in the market place. In turn, the laborer is a slave to the system of product construction. There are four stages involved in this idea. There is nature, or human nature and this is because you are alienated from human nature. The second stage is the self, it is animalistic, and you are being reduced to an animal. The third stage is species, no longer having any sort of creativity. The final stage is other, meaning competition or work amongst each other. Hegel vs. Nietzsche -Hegel Hegel believes that slave morality is an opportunity to work on one’s self, and that freedom in the mind truly helps oppression. He believes that in this relationship, the master is actually the slave. He thinks this because he feels that the master is dependent on the slave and without the slave the master is nothing. In turn, this makes the master a slave because he is so dependent on his slave. If you crumble, Hegel believes it is a tragedy because he is a communitarian which means he is more empathetic to situations. He believes that if you weren’t strong enough and mentally tough enough it was because you didn’t get the support and care from the community. -Nietzche Similar to Hegel, Nietzche also thinks that freedom is held in the mind and you can only achieve this by being strong. A main difference of Nietzsche’s view compared to Hegel is the fact that he believes that if you fail at freeing yourself through the mind, you can only put it on yourself, it was your fault and no one else’s. Nietzsche’s view of this relationship works on two different levels or ideas: good or bad in the case of master morality and evil or good in the case of the slave. When talking about slaves, he believes that the slaves are incapable of creating their own original values, instead they are influenced and invert to their masters. The master’s view of the slave according to Nietzsche is basically that he is good therefore the slave is bad. In contrast, the slave’s view of the master is that he is evil, therefore we are good.