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The Theory of Alienation in the 1844 Manuscripts of Karl Marx. Elizabeth Susan Hoecker Drysdale Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College

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The Theory of Alienation in the 1844 Manuscripts of Karl Marx. Elizabeth Susan Hoecker Drysdale Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1969 The Theory of Alienation in the 1844 Manuscripts of Karl Marx. Elizabeth Susan hoecker Drysdale Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Drysdale, Elizabeth Susan hoecker, "The Theory of Alienation in the 1844 Manuscripts of Karl Marx." (1969). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1585. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1585 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. r This dissertation has been __ microfilmed exactly as received 70-232 DRYSDALE, Elizabeth Susan Hoecker, 1936- THE THEORY OF ALIENATION IN THE 1844 MANUSCRIPTS OF KARL MARX. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1969 Sociology, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan f © ELIZABETH SUSAN HOECKER DRYSDALE 1970 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE THEORY OP ALIENATION IN THE 1844 MANUSCRIPTS OF KARL MARX A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State university and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Sociology by Elizabeth Susan Hoecker Drysdale B.A., Northland College, 1958 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1961 May, 1969 "... The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public-house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save— the err eater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour— your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life— the greater is the store of your estranged being ..." Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer wishes to express her gratitude for the assistance of several persons during the course of this research. She acknowledges first Dr. Walfrid J. Jokinen, Chairman of the Department of Sociology, who served as director of the dissertation. His intellectual inspiration and generous guidance during the writer's entire sociological training are profoundly appreciated. To Dr. Vernon J. Parenton and Dr. Rudolf Heberle special acknowledgment is given for the author1s preparation in sociology and for their constructive criticism of this dissertation. Dr. Robert N. Vidulich, formerly of the Department of Psychology, stimulated the writer's interest in her minor field, psychology. In addition, the earnest interest of Dr. Virgil Williams in this project is grate­ fully acknowledged. To John Drysdale, the author's husband, she is deeply indebted. His expert assistance, constant encouragement and enthusiastic dialogue have been important contributions to this study. None of these are responsible, however, for the omissions and errors which may be therein. ■ » * 3.11 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS........................... iii ABSTRACT.............................................. vi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. ............................ 1 Statement of the Problem.................. 3 The Procedure of the Study................ 4 Review of Selected Literature ............ 5 The Scheme of Analysis .............. 23 II. THE MARXIAN APPROACH........................ 34 Society and the Individual................ 34 Categories of Analysis. .......... 39 Economic Category . ................ 40 Political Category. .............. 42 Social Category................... 45 The Dialectical Method............... 48 Historical Materialism.................... 50 The Problem of Alienation................ 52 III. THE NATURE OF ALIENATION. .............. 59 IV. THE SOURCES OF.ALIENATION.................. 65 Private Property.......................... 65 Political Economy ........................ 68 Money ........... 72 Competition............................ 73 Capital ..................... ..... 74 Trade ......... 77 Division of Labour and Exchange .......... 78 V. THE MANIFESTATIONS OF ALIENATION. ...... 92 Alienation from the Act of Production . 94 Alienation from the Product of Labour . 96 Alienation from Man's Species Being .... _ 99 Alienation of Man from M a n . ........... 102 CHAPTER PAGE VI. THE CONSEQUENCES OF ALIENATION.............. 109 Immediate Consequences . 109 Private Property....................... 109 W a g e s ................................. 112 The Relation of the Non-Worker to the Worker and to Labour.......... 117 Long-Range Consequences.................. 121 State of the Worker........... 121 Increased value on Things .............. 123 Asceticism and Conservatism............ 130 Dominance of Economic over Human Problems........................ 131 VII. THE RESOLUTION OF ALIENATION................ 139 VIII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.................... 152 Summary............. 153 Sources of Alienation.................. 153 Manifestations of Alienation............ 160 Immediate Consequences of Alienation. 161 Long-Range Consequences of Alienation............................ 165 The Resolution of Alienation............ 170 Marx and the Sociological Study of Alienation ................. 171 The Question of Abstractness......... 172 The Question of the Sociological Basis of the Theory ................ 173 The Question of Circularity........ 175 The Question of Revolution......... 177 The Question of utopianism....... 178 The Question of ContemporaryRelevance. 181 The Question of Researchability.... 183 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY......... 188 APPENDIX........................................... 192 VITA ............................................... 193 v ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to analyze The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx to determine whether a theory of alienation can be found in these writings. The major ideas are arranged in systematic order to identify the nature# causes and consequences of alienation". The final aim is to determine what relevance the Manuscripts. particu­ larly the ideas on alienation# have for modern sociology. Although there have been several commentaries and dis­ cussions on the Manuscripts. to the writer’s knowledge no one has analyzed or reconstructed systematically the treatment of alienation by Marx in his 1844 papers. The basic data for the study are from the English translation by Martin Milligan of The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 which was published by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in 1961. Additional use is made of Milligan's translation published by International Publishers in 1964# edited and introduced by Dirk J. Struik. The specific approach of the study generally resembles the procedure of content analysis. Each statement in the Manuscripts which was judged as important was put on an index card? this procedure was repeated to include important passages missed the first time. The cards were grouped into categories based on. the content of the material. The general framework was the identification of causes, forms and conse­ quences of alienation. The cards were rearranged into a meaningful order disregarding the original place of the statements in the Manuscripts. The present study resulted from the analysis and interpretation of the theory formulated in this new ordering. An examination of the general intellectual orientation of the Manuscripts reveals a sociological conception of society and the individual, an emphasis on economic and social categories of analysis, the Hegelian influence especially in the dialecticalirmethod, and the important effect of Feuerbachian materialism. Alienation is defined in terms of alienated labour. In the Manuscripts alienated labour refers to forced and external labour in which the worker finds no meaning, no happiness or contentment, no satisfaction of needs, no free­ dom or control, no mental growth or physical development. It is activity which belongs to another, is not spontaneous and becomes simply a means to satisfy the needs of physical existence. In political economy it becomes solely wage- earning activity. The three primary sources of alienation are identified to be private property, political economy, and the division of labour and exchange. The manifestations of alienation, the forms in which vii it occurs in real life, are (1) alienation from the act of production; (2) alienation from the product of labour; (3) alienation from man's species being; and (4) alienation of man from man. These are sequentially related, each form being an empirical indicator of the presence of all prior forms. There are three immediate or direct consequences of alienation: (1) private property; (2) wages; and (3) the relation of the non-worker to the worker and to labour. Other indirect or long-range consequences include the worker as a commodity, increased value of things, priority of economic over human matters, and an increase of economic asceticism and conservatism. The resolution of alienation is dependent upon the abolition of private property and the development of mature communism. The final stage, which is higher than communism, is socialism, meaning positive humanism. The findings of this analysis are stated in propo-
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