Marx argued that, in industrial society where the division of labour is essential for efficiency and for adding value, ‘the labourer is alienated from himself’. What he meant was that the very logic of factory organisation and production makes a man an automaton. The main human characteristic of factory life is that the identity of ‘factory hands’ is thereby diminished, since for the most part the workers hate what they do and, moreover, have no control over their work. No less important, and equally diminishing, they are forced to operate ‘well within their capabilities’. This is
...more
Marx view on alienation of working class
