 You've probably heard of the name Karl Marx. Born in 1818 in Prussia to a middle-class family, he witnessed firsthand the rise of the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of capitalism. He also became one of capitalism's strongest critics. Marx identified two social classes in his time, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie owned the product, the means of production, distribution, and the profit. Then there were the proletariat, also known as laborers. These were the people that typically did not have the resources to invest in mass production. The only thing they could sell was their labor. Marx was a strong supporter of the proletariat. He believed that the proletariat gained little but lost much in a capitalist system, while the bourgeoisie benefited a great deal. He believed that the proletariat would eventually overthrow the bourgeoisie and a new economic system would be created. Marx believed that society needed a better means of distributing wealth but also a better way of tapping into our full human potential, or what Marx called our species essence. According to Marx, what we do is directly connected to who we are. It defines us and lets us express our full humanness. In the time before the Industrial Revolution, it was possible for a number of people to own their work, and they identified it as an extension of who they were as a human being. For example, let's say a person was really good at baking bread in their village. They were in charge of everything from gathering the ingredients, deciding what makes the best dough, baking the bread, and distributing it. They were even in charge of their own hours and they may have studied under a master breadmaker. In this way, the bread was an extension of their being and they were living their full human potential. According to Marx, that was not the case with capitalism. After capitalism, the proletariat experienced what Marx called alienation. Alienation is the condition in which the individual is isolated from society, work, and the sense of self. Let's explore the four different types of alienation Marx discussed. The first is alienation from the product. In Marx's time and in today's modern world, we engage in a lot of mass production. In our capitalist system, people are often placed in positions where they are responsible for making a small part of the product or engage in a very specific job. Going back to the bread example, under a capitalist system, a person may be in charge of only adding flour and the machines do the rest of the work. They are involved in no other aspect of making the bread. Today, many people work to make a product they do not own for other people to consume with the purpose being to sell all of that product and make the maximum amount of profit. But who is the profit for? The profit is for the capitalist owner. The capitalist owner is in control of what is produced and how it is made. Therefore, there is little connection and sometimes little concern for the product. The second type of alienation is alienation from one's own labor. Making products in a capitalist system puts many people in positions that are repetitive and labor's end up going through the motions. They have one highly specialized job in producing the whole product. The labor does not give input into the purpose, design, distribution, and marketing of the product. Basically, the worker is just one small piece of the puzzle. The labor works for wages and they often cannot afford the products that they help produce. Third is alienation from others. Because a labor's vision and purpose is reduced to wages and because they lack connection to the product and process, it is logical that people would be alienated from one another. The world of capitalism puts people in positions of competition and therefore everyone looks out for themselves. A labor competes with others for higher wages, better hours, and the best benefits for their own good and not for the best interest of the group. There is little to no concern about a collective common good or a sense of cooperation. The last type of alienation is alienation from oneself. Alienation from oneself robs a person of all they can be and contribute in the world. As stated, Marx believed that what we contribute to the world in terms of our work is part of our species' essence or what makes us human. What we contribute to the world is a manifestation of our creativity and creativity is an essential part of our human nature. In our product-based society, many people are now alienated from their very human nature. People lose their sense of self and who they are. We live to work rather than work being an extension of our being. In the end, we are not in control of our own lives. The truth is that alienation does not just relate to the time of Marx. With capitalism and factory spread so much throughout the world, alienation can exist anywhere today. So have you had work experiences where you felt alienated from the product or the process? What is one type of work in our modern society that, based on its design, demonstrates alienation? And how does not experiencing our full species' essence impact society?