Marx's Theory of Alienation In Sociology

His Alienation Theory explained how the specialised and repetitive nature of the production process causes workers to ‘become depressed spiritually and physically to the condition of a machine’. The cause of specialisation, he contended, was a policy of the division of labour, which extended beyond the factory and became a social norm The division

Alienation is a process by which mind – as the consciousness of a subject (thesis) – becomes an object of thought for itself (antithesis). And thereby the human mind constantly progresses to the next higher stage of synthesis and self-consciousness.

When a society suffers from anomie, flow is made difficult because it is not clear what is worth investing psychic energy in; when it suffers from alienation the problem is that one cannot invest psychic energy in what is clearly desirable.

quand une société souffre d’aliénation, il n’est pas possible de consacrer son énergie psychique à ce qui est pourtant très clair. Il est intéressant de noter que ces deux pathologies sociales (anomie et aliénation) sont fonctionnellement équivalentes aux deux pathologies individuelles mentionnées ci-dessus (troubles de l’attention et centration su

This type of industrialized labor, according to Marx, estranged workers not only from what they produced but also from their humanity—from the communities and identities that made them who they were.

Karl Marx theorized,9 labor under industrialized capitalism alienated workers from the products of their

Alienation means you don’t feel at ease in any situation, any place, or with any person, not even with yourself.

Rosa says, “Alienation . . . is a particular mode of relating to the world of things, of people and of one’s self in which there is no responsivity, i.e., no meaningful inner connection. It is . . . a relationship without (true) relation.”