Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Alienation

Paper Summary:

Karl Marx defined alienation as the process of the working man becoming only a cog in the machinery of production. This paper examines claims that this concept of alienation was actually put forth by Friedrich Engels first and only later expounded upon by Marx. It traces the progression from papers by Engels to the "Communist Manifesto" and shows that while Marx is believed to be the main author, actually Engels supplied much more of the economic theory.

From the Paper:

"In the year 1848, Western society was 'enlightened' through the introduction of a new ideology put forward by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, proponents of the political treatise "Communist Manifesto." In it, the authors proposed and expounded on the issue of socialism as the new revolutionary movement that served as the antithesis of the principles of capitalism and eventually, modernism. The socialism-capitalism dichotomy was discussed based on the antagonistic relationships that emerged out of the unequal opportunities given to people at each point or stage of the socio-economic history of humanity. Thus, Marx and Engels posit that throughout history and until capitalism, human society has been in the "history of class struggles," wherein there existed inequalities among "[f]reeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman...oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted now hidden, now open fight...""

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