The Marxist concept of "alienation"
10.10.2016
Problems of the Marxist concept of understanding the phenomenon of "alienation" in the context of modernity.
From the editor . Your attention is invited to an article by Roman Osin, a member of the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the RKWP-CPSU, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, dedicated to the Marxist understanding of alienation and the problems of overcoming it in modern conditions. The main provisions of the article were previously outlined at a lecture held at the Politprosvet club .
Based on the analysis of the "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts" by K. Marx, the author deduces his own classification of various aspects of the phenomenon of "alienation". At the end of the article, a description of the features and specifics of alienation in modern capitalist society (in the world and in Russia) is given.
The problem of alienation is insufficiently developed and therefore controversial in modern Marxist literature, therefore, certain provisions of the article may be controversial and require further discussion. In general, the material will help to get a systematic view of alienation and, most importantly, to think about this problem. What is alienation? How does it differ from exploitation? What types and sides of alienation can be distinguished? Private property: a source of alienation or a guarantee of overcoming it? What are the features of alienation in Soviet and modern society? How to overcome the alienation of labor? These and other questions are answered in the article by Roman Osin.
Introduction
Alienation is one of the attributes of modern (like any class) society. This category was often used by Marx in his early works, which allowed, on the one hand, some authors to reduce alienation to capitalist exploitation, and on the other hand, to use alienation as a kind of magic formula that in itself should explain everything. At the same time, of course, without highlighting clear criteria for the very phenomenon of alienation.
In the article we will consider the concept of the category of alienation, its types and sides, as well as the features of manifestation in modern capitalist society and methods of overcoming.
The Alienation of Labor: The Formulation of the Question by Marx
Speaking of the category of "alienation", our attention is drawn to the "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts" written by the young Marx in 1844. Despite the rough nature of these manuscripts, in them Marx essentially gave a systematized presentation of his understanding of the phenomenon of "alienation", laying those methodological foundations from which one can start from today when studying this phenomenon. In his analysis, Marx focused not on the moral-ethical, but the socio-economic aspect of alienation. He proceeded from the fact that a person is a social being, and therefore realizes himself in practical (primarily labor) activities. Therefore, the problem of alienation should not be posed “in general,” but as a problem of alienated labor. It is alienated labor that is that side of alienation,
In the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx showed what exactly alienated labor consists of. Expanding this question, Marx wrote:“Labor is for the worker something external, not belonging to his essence; in the fact that in his work he does not assert himself, but denies, he feels not happy, but unhappy, does not freely develop his physical and spiritual energy, but exhausts his physical nature and destroys his spiritual strength. Therefore, the worker feels himself to be himself only outside of labor, but in the process of labor he feels himself to be torn off from himself. At home he is when he is not working; and when he works, he is no longer at home. Because of this, his work is not voluntary, but forced; it is forced labor. This is not the satisfaction of the need for labor, but only a means for the satisfaction of all other needs, but not the need for labor. The alienation of labor is clearly manifested in the fact that, as soon as physical or other compulsion to labor ceases, they flee from labor, like the plague. External labor, labor in the process of which a person alienates himself, is self-sacrifice, self-torture. And, finally, the external character of labor is manifested for the worker in the fact that this labor does not belong to him, but to another, and in the process of labor he does not belong to himself, but to another. "
In this quote, several important points are concentrated at once, which we will explain below.
First, “labor is something external for the worker , not belonging to his essence. " Here we are also talking about the alienation of labor as a process, not only taken from the side of the result, but also taken from the side of the mechanism for realizing the ability to work. Developing his thought, Marx shows that we are talking not only about the fact that labor that creates a product for another person turns into alien due to the force of exploitation, but also about the exhausting nature of labor itself, regardless of who appropriates its results. The exhausting nature of labor does not bring joy, does not develop the worker, but only takes away his strength for life. In this work, the worker does not realize himself as a social being, but spends his time and energy in “nowhere,” thereby alienating not only labor, but also the worker’s life time, which he spends in the labor process.
Secondly, it is completely natural that such work is not actually a manifestation of human essence. Here Marx directly deduces a psychological negative attitude towards labor from the technical, technological and social nature of labor, which makes this labor unbearable: “therefore, the worker feels himself to be himself only outside of labor, and in the process of labor he feels cut off from himself. At home he is when he is not working; and when he works, he is no longer at home. " Aversion to work is caused by two aspects: social alienation associated with the appropriation of the results of the employee's work by another subject, and technical and technological alienationassociated with an insufficient level of development of productive forces in order to make work exciting, bringing joy to the employee, and not exhaustion of the body. In the first case, working for another person, the employee does not feel any involvement in the results of labor, and therefore disgusts work, seeing in it only a way to maintain his existence (hence the principle that wages are the main goal of labor). In the second case, the employee does not have the opportunity to enjoy work due to its very nature, which is inextricably linked with routine, physically and psychologically exhausting the body, functions. Such work, even in the absence of capitalist exploitation, nevertheless evokes psychological disgust in the worker, who continues to perceive it as “wasted time” as before. Here Marx also speaks of the need for labor, which is not satisfied by alienated labor. The very formulation of the question of the need for labor seems to be the most important methodologically. Today, many believe that man is by nature lazy. Incidentally, the same idea was expressed by L.D. Trotsky, who seemed to be positioning himself as a Marxist, nevertheless, wrote the following about industriousness: “as a general rule, a person seeks to evade work. Hard work is not at all a natural trait: it is created by economic pressure and social education. We can say that man is a rather lazy animal. " that man is by nature lazy. Incidentally, the same idea was expressed by L.D. Trotsky, who seemed to be positioning himself as a Marxist, nevertheless, wrote the following about industriousness: “as a general rule, a person seeks to evade work. Hard work is not at all a natural trait: it is created by economic pressure and social education. We can say that man is a rather lazy animal. " that man is by nature lazy. Incidentally, the same idea was expressed by L.D. Trotsky, who seemed to be positioning himself as a Marxist, nevertheless, wrote the following about industriousness: “as a general rule, a person seeks to evade work. Hard work is not at all a natural trait: it is created by economic pressure and social education. We can say that man is a rather lazy animal. "
The explanation of "natural laziness" allows the ruling classes, on the one hand, to justify their domination (they say, without us, the lazy mass of the people will ruin everything), and on the other hand, to inspire the working people with the idea that a society in which labor would be the highest human need, because it is, they say, “utopia” and does not correspond to “human nature”. Nevertheless, practice shows that by nature it is precisely the need for work that is immanent in a person, since the very formation of a person as a person, as a thinking being, is associated with labor activity. Of course, the very nature of labor and its social conditions play an important role here. Monotonous, hard physical labor is unlikely to be able to turn into a vital need by itself. Likewise, creative work, performed in the conditions of human exploitation by a person, significantly narrows its "creative" component. At the same time, even under capitalism, one can often observe people of creative professions (scientists, teachers, engineers and other representatives of "universal labor") who consider labor not only as a way of earning money. Moreover, many are engaged in, as it were, two types of work: one work as a way to survive (official work), and the other work as a way of activity "for the soul", which is the meaning of human life. Examples are socially active workers who spend the lion's share of their free time on educational activities, trade union struggle, party work and other types of "universal labor." even under capitalism, one can often observe people of creative professions (scientists, teachers, engineers and other representatives of "universal labor"), who consider labor not only as a way of earning money. Moreover, many are engaged in, as it were, two types of work: one work as a way to survive (official work), and the other work as a way of activity "for the soul", which is the meaning of human life. Examples are socially active workers who spend the lion's share of their free time on educational activities, trade union struggle, party work and other types of "universal labor." even under capitalism, one can often observe people of creative professions (scientists, teachers, engineers and other representatives of "universal labor"), who consider labor not only as a way of earning money. Moreover, many are engaged in, as it were, two types of work: one work as a way to survive (official work), and the other work as a way of activity "for the soul", which is the meaning of human life. Examples are socially active workers who spend the lion's share of their free time on educational activities, trade union struggle, party work and other types of "universal labor." many are engaged in, as it were, two types of labor: one labor as a way to survive (official work), and the other labor as a way of activity "for the soul", which is the meaning of human life. Examples are socially active workers who spend the lion's share of their free time on educational activities, trade union struggle, party work and other types of "universal labor." many are engaged in, as it were, two types of labor: one labor as a way to survive (official work), and the other labor as a way of activity "for the soul", which is the meaning of human life. Examples are socially active workers who spend the lion's share of their free time on educational activities, trade union struggle, party work and other types of "universal labor."
Thirdly, Marx emphasizes "and, finally, the external character of labor manifests itself for the worker in the fact that this labor does not belong to him, but to another, and in the process of labor he belongs not to himself, but to another." We draw attention to the fact that Marx only at the end brought out the social alienation of the results of labor, showing that the worker, producing the product of labor for another person, thus alienates his activity and his human essence, his life to that person. That is, a person cannot but be alienated if he works for another person. At the same time, the alienation of labor is associated by Marx not only with the social-class side, but also with the material conditions that make class alienation possible. Insufficient consideration of this moment does not allow us to sufficiently understand the essence of alienation, as well as its specificity in Soviet society.
Marx linked the category of alienation with the dependence of man on the external manifestations of the social element, first of all, with the division of labor into mental and physical labor imposed from the outside, private property and exploitation of man by man. In other words, alienation is a process in which the result of a person's activity, like his activity itself, and with it the entire system of social relations, become beyond the control of a person, exist and develop according to their own logic, dominate a person. Overcoming social and technical and technological alienation is the process of social liberation of a person.
Types and sides of alienation
Marx identified several types of alienation: alienated labor (the main type), alienated product of labor, alienation of people from each other, alienation of social life (or alienation of "generic activity"). And in each of these types of alienation, both technical (technical and technological), socio-economic and psychological aspects of alienation are manifested. But in addition to the types of alienation, which show what exactly is alienated from a person, it seems reasonable to single out its sides, which would reflect the reasons for alienation.
Summarizing the above provisions of Marx, we came to the conclusion that three closely related aspects of the phenomenon of alienation can be distinguished: the technical and technological side (hereinafter we will refer to this side as “technical alienation”), social (socio-economic and social -political) and psychological.
Technical and technological sidealienation (technical alienation) is associated, first of all, with the domination of circumstances over a person without a direct connection with exploitation. The basis of this side of alienation is the level of development of productive forces that is insufficient for social liberation, as well as technical-technological and organizational-technical limitations of production relations. Technical alienation, as we will show below, can exist, in a certain sense, even in the absence of direct exploitation of man by man as a consequence of the limited possibilities of the productive forces of society. The preservation of technical alienation is associated, to a large extent, not with relations between people, but with the unwillingness of society to move into a new technical and technological (and hence socio-economic) quality - the quality of freedom from the quality of necessity. That is, we have here the unpreparedness of human society for socio-economic conditions under which all its members will be free not only from exploitation, but will also receive real material conditions for all-round development. In conditions of technical alienation, we are dealing with the domination of a person by social forces still unknown to him, which appear for him as “unknown” and “uncontrollable”. This side of alienation extends to the technical, technological and organizational and technical aspects of production relations, does not always affect the purely social side, which is associated with the property level of production relations. Long-term preservation of technical alienation significantly complicates the development of the need for labor and contributes to a negative attitude towards the labor process in a significant part of society. This same technical alienation contributes to the formation of conditions under which the emergence of the social and psychological side of alienation is possible. The Soviet Union faced this problem, in which socialism was forced to build on an inadequate technical and technological base, which inevitably led to a number of contradictory tendencies that gave rise to the existence of alienation, although there was no longer any exploitation in the capitalist sense of the word.
The social side of alienation is associated with the alienation of labor as a result of social relations between people, when one group of people is assigned the products produced by other people. In the social side of alienation, it is legitimate to distinguish two types: social-class (or socio-economic) and socio-political alienation .
Socio-economic alienation concerns, first of all, production relations between people based on the domination of private ownership of the means of production and the appropriation of the results of social labor by private owners. Here we are dealing with the product of labor, which is appropriated not by the person who produced it, but by the one who has private ownership of the means of production and thus alienates in his favor the product that was not produced by him. Along with the alienation of the product, the process of labor itself is alienated, which acts as an antipode to man. The worker, starting to perform his labor functions, understands that the results of his efforts will not be appropriated by them, that his labor will only allow him not to die of hunger. Together with labor, the entire system of social relations is alienated from a person (in Marx it was called "generic alienation" ), in which he has little effect. Here we are dealing with the alienation of social and political institutions, the alienation of cultural achievements as a result of the alienation of labor. This type of alienation, according to Marx, is a direct consequence of private property and the exploitation of man by man.
The social side of alienation can cause technical and technological alienation. So, for example, the desire to obtain unlimited profits pushes the owners of the means of production to economize on ensuring decent working conditions for workers, using low-skilled cheap labor, instead of developing automation of the production process, etc.
Socio-political side of alienation It directly follows from the socio-economic and is connected with the fact that since the product of labor is appropriated not by the worker himself, but by those for whom he works, then the political functions of management are also alienated from the person and are appropriated by representatives of the ruling class. On the other hand, an ordinary person simply does not have the physical ability to carry out political functions, since the lion's share of his time is absorbed by work (alienated labor). By proclaiming formal political rights and freedoms, enshrining them in constitutions and declarations, a society based on private property relations cannot create material conditions for the genuine involvement of all working people in government. Political practice shows that, despite the formal equality of all before the law, we are dealing with practical inequality.
A separate manifestation of political alienation is the institution of representation. According to some political analysts, any delegation of authority in itself is fraught with danger.alienation. In our opinion, delegation to delegation is different. Under the conditions of democratic control by organized workers over the people's representatives, mechanisms for recalling deputies, political alienation is significantly reduced and, ultimately, removed. If a member of the labor collective, nominated to a representative body of power, feels his responsibility to his voters, knows that in case of improper performance of his duties, he can be recalled at any time, there can be no question of alienation. It is a different matter when "servants of the people" turn into "masters over the people", when, under conditions of a poorly developed level of self-organization of workers and control on their part, state power turns into a political force not controlled by society, for which corporate interests are put above public ones. Here, the institution of representation turns into the strongest element of political alienation, playing only a decorative, formal role in serving the political elite and giving legitimacy to the power of the ruling class.
Here we come close to the psychological side of the phenomenon of alienation, since, strictly speaking, any alienation passes through the “head” of a person and manifests itself in a person's attitude to social life.
The psychological side of alienation is expressed in the attitude of a person to society as not to his own, but alien. Often, researchers have studied this aspect of alienation as the main one. From our point of view, it is legitimate to consider the psychological side of alienation, although significant, but nevertheless, a derivative of the technical-technological and socio-economic.
The psychological side of alienation, however, is the most diverse, as it reflects in itself both the political and socio-economic and cultural-ideological sides. Thus, psychological alienation can manifest itself as a person's alienation from himself, as a religious alienation, as a result of which a person seeks salvation in the other world and, thereby, leaves the problems of the real world. There are other diverse manifestations of the psychological side of alienation, which we will not consider in detail in this study. One way or another, any alienation takes on a psychological aspect.
The 1989-1991 miners' strikes: success for units - defeat for many
We summarize that the individual, being alienated from the results of his labor and from the labor process itself, realizing this, ceases to treat the surrounding society as his own. The market element with the cult of competitive struggle extends this struggle not only to representatives of the ruling classes, but also to the poor strata of society, as a result of which we can observe indifference and unwillingness to help each other, distrust, suspicion, envy, etc. In such a situation, everyone is for himself and a competitor against the other.
Another component of the issue is connected with the fact that, having no time and energy to participate in political life, the working people themselves sometimes “voluntarily” refuse it, entrusting political functions to “professionals”. Erich Fromm described this phenomenon in sufficient detail in his work "Escape from Freedom". We see an example of such a “flight” in modern Russia, where citizens often rely not on their own struggle for their rights, but on a “strong hand” that “will suit everything” and “will do everything”. Fascist Germany, where a significant part of the citizens voluntarily agreed to obey the Fuehrer, gave us more disastrous examples of "flight". This also includes false forms of consciousness. First of all, these are religious and other anti-scientific forms of worldview, reactionary ideologies caused by the alienation of man from political and philosophical knowledge. Under such conditions, people can quite consciously fight and even achieve certain successes in the struggle for the ideas about the best structure of society that have developed in their minds, while in themselves these ideas do not correspond to the interests of those who are fighting for them. An illustrative example is the situation of the miners, who in the late 1980s fought for the secession of the RSFSR from the USSR, for greater economic independence of enterprises, and the weakening of labor discipline. They believed that it was these measures that would lead to an improvement in their lives. However, the result was, as you know, massive lawlessness and deterioration of their financial situation, and in fact the requirements were met! "Lenta ru" cites interesting recollections of the participants in those strikes, which well illustrate alienation as a distorted consciousness. We will also give them:
“Ironically, almost all the requirements of the miners and their leaders were met,” reminds Aman Tuleyev. And today we are reaping the fruits of the 1989-1991 miners' strikes. The strikers demanded that Russia leave the USSR - they got the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. In the economic sphere: did you achieve independence of the coal industry enterprises? They demanded to allow mines and open-pit mines to establish their own production rates? Have achieved! Did you insist on abolishing the disciplinary charter, liquidating the state mining and technical inspection? They say they interfere with work. Made! They demanded not to check, not to feel the miners before descending into the face for the presence of tobacco, lighters, matches? Now they are not checking. "
“We fought for socialism with a human face,” explains Valentin Kopasov, in the 1980s he was the head of the Tsentralnaya mine, who became a member of the leadership of the strike committee in Vorkuta. - And ran into the "murlo", the vile "mug" of capitalism. Then show the guys a picture of 2016 - is that what you want? I'm sure many would like to stay in 1989. The worker was more protected, more respected, work was held in high esteem. If you knew what it would lead to, you would stay away from the strike activity. "
Have seen it ... It's a pity, but the price of such "insight" is the fate of socialism. However, even a negative lesson in history is also a lesson, the main thing is that it should be learned in the upcoming class battles.
The attitude of a certain part of the population to public property in the USSR as to "no one's" is also a manifestation of the psychological side of alienation as a reflection of the socio-economic alienation that has not been completely overcome. In general, the psychological aspect of alienation has been considered in sufficient detail in Western (especially neo-Marxist) and Russian literature.
At the same time, while recognizing the dependence of the psychological side of alienation on socio-economic factors, one cannot completely deny a certain independence of the psychological perception of alienation. Psychological alienation does not always literally copy social and technical and technological alienation. So, for example, there are cases from history when people in difficult conditions for themselves, with primitive tools of labor, were not psychologically alienated from the fruits of their activities, but felt pride and involvement in the process. An example of this can be the well-known subbotnik, to which Lenin dedicated his famous article "The Great Initiative". Similar examples are the heroic labor exploits of rear workers during the Great Patriotic War, which, despite routine labor functions, enormous wear and tear of physical strength,
On the other hand, we can very often observe people who live in comfortable conditions, work in cozy offices, but do not feel any involvement in the common cause, experience a strong psychological feeling of depression and alienation from the process and the result of their work, despite the technical equipment of their jobs and relatively high wages. Spiritual slavery, a feeling of loneliness and lack of prospects for personal growth - this is the source of the alienation of a person who is relatively well-off materially, but spiritually poor.
Separately, I would like to say about the alienation of people from each other. Here, the decisive role is played by precisely those social relations in which the vital activity of the individual proceeds. I still remember the times when houses had only wooden doors, which in Soviet times were not even always locked, people were open to each other. And it is precisely because of the social polarization of the population, the imposition of universal competition between everyone and everyone, and to put it bluntly, because of the transition to capitalism, it became possible for each person to become self-contained, to be protected from the outside world with the help of numerous iron doors, high fences, etc. People, at times, do not know their neighbors on the floor, not to mention the neighbors on the entrance, which in Soviet times was simply unthinkable. Living seemingly in relative comfort, the degree of alienation between people is much higher, than in the conditions of everyday difficulties at the beginning of the Soviet period, war and post-war times. And here a big question arises as to who will be more alienated: a modern, relatively wealthy individualist-man in the street in a cozy Moscow apartment, or a simple worker from a communal apartment, living a single life with the collective and feeling his involvement in the building of socialism. And here the technical and technological level can be higher in the first case, while the degree of alienation is higher, of course, in the second, since the technical and technological level, taken apart from socio-economic and political relations, does not in itself lead to overcoming alienation. a modern, relatively well-off individualist-man in the street in a cozy Moscow apartment or a simple worker from a communal apartment, living a single life with the collective and feeling his involvement in the building of socialism. And here the technical and technological level can be higher in the first case, while the degree of alienation is higher, of course, in the second, since the technical and technological level, taken apart from socio-economic and political relations, does not in itself lead to overcoming alienation. a modern, relatively well-off individualist-man in the street in a cozy Moscow apartment or a simple worker from a communal apartment, living a single life with the collective and feeling his involvement in the building of socialism. And here the technical and technological level can be higher in the first case, while the degree of alienation is higher, of course, in the second, since the technical and technological level, taken apart from socio-economic and political relations, does not in itself lead to overcoming alienation.
Under the conditions of capitalism, it is also interesting that the consideration that alienation from labor applies not only to hired workers who alienate their labor in favor of other people, but also to an idle consumer who lives only at the expense of someone else's labor. Such an individual will never understand the positive emotions that the labor process can bring, since he is alienated from labor as from the process of self-development of the human personality, as the process of a person's growth over himself, his all-round development and transformation. Thus, under capitalism, the alienation of labor is total in nature and applies to all members of society.
It should be noted that in modern literature the Marxist approach, according to which alienation is inextricably linked with the domination of private ownership of the means of production, is shared by only a part of the researchers, while some researchers of the non-Marxist tradition, on the contrary, associate alienation with the absence of such, believing that “socialization means of production, their politicization, "nationalization", depersonalization, alienation from individual, real people, in the same way overcomes and eliminates the figure of a human individual in the economic sphere, as the system and regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat - in the political sphere, the monopoly domination of the communist party ideology - in the sphere spiritual life, etc. ”. From the point of view of this group of researchers, “the whole history of the human race has confirmed that property that serves man, Is private property. Only private property ... gives its owner the broadest rights. " Private property, as Friedman Milton writes, "is the source of freedom." Socialism, in the opinion of representatives of this trend, is"Road to slavery . "
Indeed, it is difficult to disagree with the position that private property "gives its owner the greatest rights", the only problem is that the owners of private property, as a rule, are a smaller part of the population (and far from always gets this property at the expense of their labor) , while the majority of this very property is alienated. And these are not just Marxist conclusions. Thus, a study by CreditSuisse bank revealed that in the world 1% of the rich own half of the world's wealth . At the same time, the poorest half of the world's population owns only 1% of the world's wealth . In 2015, the wealth of the 62 richest people in the world equaled the wealth of the poorest half of humanity - 3.6 billion people . In 2010, only 388 super-rich could equal half of humanity. At the same time, over the past 5 years, the wealth of the poorest half of humanity has decreased by a trillion dollars - by 41% . The wealth of the 62 fattest rich men grew by 44% over the same period - more than half a trillion dollars.
Alienation through the prism of changing socio-economic formations
The history of the development of society appears in the form of a gradual elimination of various forms of human dependence, and, consequently, various forms of his alienation from the product and the labor process ( however, this process is by no means linear and is accompanied by many zigzags, ebb and flow ).
So, in a primitive society, man was completely suppressed by nature and, accordingly, was deprived of understanding many of the processes of being, which gave rise to the endowment of natural phenomena with divine features. At this time, one can state the emergence of the first psychological forms of human alienation from cognitive activity through the deification of certain natural processes unknown to him at that time.
The slave-owning and feudal modes of production led to social alienation associated with the exploitation of man by man. Here alienation was associated with the personal dependence (in the slave system of complete personal subordination ) of the worker from the master, that is, the alienation of the person's personality, as well as the alienation of the results of his labor in favor of the master. These modes of production (especially slavery) gave us an example of complete suppression of the individual, alienation not only of the product of labor, but also of human freedom as such.
Capitalism was able to partially overcome the alienation of the human person, making everyone formally equal and personally free. But the acquisition of personal freedom (the capitalist, unlike the feudal lord, could not sell the proletarian, or kill him, which the slave owner could do in relation to the slave ) did not solve the problem of removing alienation. The preservation of the economic dependence of a person deprived of ownership of the means of production (the proletarian) from the owner of the means of production (the bourgeois) led to the preservation and alienation of labor, which in the new conditions meant the alienation of labor from the proletarian in favor of the capitalist.
Attempts at communist construction in the USSR significantly overcame the socio-economic side of alienation, however, due to the insufficient development of the productive forces for transforming society on such a radical basis, they could not completely end the technical and technological side of alienation (the high proportion of the spread of hard manual labor in the USSR did not play here the last role). Of course, this could not but lead to relapses of not only technical and technological, but also social alienation in the USSR. In general, a distinctive feature of alienation in Soviet society is that it was not associated with exploitation and private ownership of the means of production, but stemmed from the technical and technological unpreparedness for socialism, to overcome which it took the exertion of all forces and the partial collapse of Soviet democracy. Not the least role in the alienation was played by the high proportion of the prevalence of hard manual labor (about 40%). This, by the way, once again shows that alienation is not removed with overcoming the exploitation of man by man and the establishment of social property in the form of formal socialization (mediated by the state apparatus), but requires progress towards real socialization. On the other hand, it is important to see the difference between technical and technological alienation under capitalism and under socialism. So, if under capitalism Marx stressed that machine technology just makes a person dependent on capital. This is what Marx called Not the least role in the alienation was played by the high proportion of the prevalence of hard manual labor (about 40%). This, by the way, once again shows that alienation is not removed with overcoming the exploitation of man by man and the establishment of social property in the form of formal socialization (mediated by the state apparatus), but requires progress towards real socialization. On the other hand, it is important to see the difference between technical and technological alienation under capitalism and under socialism. So, if under capitalism Marx stressed that machine technology just makes a person dependent on capital. This is what Marx called Not the least role in the alienation was played by the high proportion of the prevalence of hard manual labor (about 40%). This, by the way, once again shows that alienation is not removed with overcoming the exploitation of man by man and the establishment of social property in the form of formal socialization (mediated by the state apparatus), but requires progress towards real socialization. On the other hand, it is important to see the difference between technical and technological alienation under capitalism and under socialism. So, if under capitalism Marx stressed that machine technology just makes a person dependent on capital. This is what Marx called that alienation is not removed with overcoming the exploitation of man by man and the establishment of social property in the form of formal socialization (mediated by the state apparatus), but requires progress towards real socialization. On the other hand, it is important to see the difference between technical and technological alienation under capitalism and under socialism. So, if under capitalism Marx stressed that machine technology just makes a person dependent on capital. This is what Marx called that alienation is not removed with overcoming the exploitation of man by man and the establishment of social property in the form of formal socialization (mediated by the state apparatus), but requires progress towards real socialization. On the other hand, it is important to see the difference between technical and technological alienation under capitalism and under socialism. So, if under capitalism Marx stressed that machine technology just makes a person dependent on capital. This is what Marx calledreal subordination of labor to capital, when the worker can no longer find any other occupation for himself but to be an appendagecars. Under socialism, the machine makes it possible to shorten the working day and contributes to the development of the all-round abilities of the individual, his liberation. The same applies to all technical progress, which under capitalism very often acts as an additional factor of alienation, an instrument of enslavement of the individual, and under socialism it becomes a condition for overcoming alienation in all its forms. What are the so-called "information technologies", which allow, on the one hand, to provide universal access to knowledge, but in capitalist conditions are actively used to "brainwash" the population. And here we again find that in order to overcome alienation it is not enough just to develop productive forces, as supporters of the theory of "post-industrial society" believe, radical changes in production relations are also necessary.
If we talk about socialism as a whole as the lowest phase of communism, then alienation persists there too, due to the specifics of the distribution “according to work”. First, the principle “according to work” preserves a certain inequality of people among themselves, and this is due not only to inequality arising from the unequal abilities of people, but also from the inequality of living conditions. After all, if we imagine a person with a large family and someone who lives alone, then with the same abilities, their real earnings will not be the same. A person with a large family will, as it were, alienate part of his labor to support his family and, thus, be in a worse position. Secondly, the principle "according to work" creates another problem, namely, the problem of determining the measure of labor. How to calculate which work is more useful for society, and which is less useful? And, therefore, to whom to pay more: a person engaged in scientific or pedagogical work, without which the training of new specialists is unthinkable, or a worker at a factory that produces the means of production most important for the country of socialism and spends much more physical strength, and, therefore, more drains his body? And here, too, not everything is unambiguous, because in the Soviet Union there was a problem of labor motivation, which consisted in the fact that workers often did not have enough incentive to improve their level of education and qualifications due to the relatively high wages, which almost exceeded the level of wages Engineers and employees. This significantly reduced incentives for professional development. Moreover, as noted by the Soviet sociologist M.N. Rutkevich, “in many cases, workers who received a diploma of a technician (or engineer), they refuse to accept the offer to move to the post of foreman and to other posts of engineering and technical personnel out of material considerations. " And this is also a problem that requires its solution under socialism and generates, within certain boundaries, the preservation of alienation.
Alienation in modern society
In the modern capitalist world, alienation not only persists, but intensifies. With the collapse of the USSR, in our country, and throughout the world, the social side of alienation began to dominate again (in the Western countries, the so-called "social state", created in order to counter the revolutionary threat), that is, the alienation of labor, both from the side of its results and from the side of the process itself with all the ensuing consequences both in the political sphere and in the psychological attitude of a person to his activities. Despite the technical and technological capabilities of significant removal of alienation, under the conditions of the capitalist system, these achievements are used for directly opposite purposes. Thus, the information potential of the so-called “post-industrial society” turns in fact into a total information processing of the population to please one or another political mood of the ruling elite, total surveillance of the working people, and invisible censorship in the media. All this is associated with the revival of extremely reactionary forms of social consciousness, which is most clearly manifested in the growth of clericalization of society., substitution of the scientific picture of the world with all kinds of irrational forms of social consciousness. The same applies to the reincarnation of the most reactionary and misanthropic forms of fascist and neo-Nazi ideologies, which are intensively fueled by big capital, both materially and informationally.
In modern society, the so-called "self-alienation" from the political sphere, or as E. Fromm called this phenomenon, "flight from freedom", makes itself felt with particular force. True, this "flight" is different from the flight that took place in Nazi Germany. There, people voluntarily submitted to the dictatorship, while realizing the very fact of its existence, in modern society, many still need to prove that any power is the dictatorship of the ruling class. A fairly large number of our compatriots, living in relatively prosperous conditions in large cities (first of all, this concerns Moscow and St. Petersburg), have plunged into the routine of their problems and hardly understand (and what is saddest of all, do not want to understand) the political processes of modern society. Therefore, being the actual "slaves", they themselves rejoice in their "chains", taking them for "freedom." It is clear that there is no question of any mass struggle for socio-economic and even more so political rights, but protest takes the shape of local outbreaks, which are easily suppressed by the centralized power of big business. I must say that in the Western countries the situation is somewhat different. There, protest activity is stronger, and the level of self-organization is much higher than in Russia. And, nevertheless, political alienation is manifested there no less than in the Russian Federation. Indeed, despite all the power of the institutions of self-organization of workers in those countries, the struggle there is waged not for fundamental changes and not for the replacement of one social formation for another, but for private concessions from the government. People are ready to fight for little, but so far not everyone understands the need for radical, revolutionary changes in the very foundations of bourgeois society. that there is no question of any mass struggle for socio-economic and even more so political rights, the protest takes on the shape of local outbreaks, which are easily suppressed by the centralized power of big business. I must say that in the Western countries the situation is somewhat different. There, protest activity is stronger, and the level of self-organization is much higher than in Russia. And, nevertheless, political alienation is manifested there no less than in the Russian Federation. Indeed, despite all the power of the institutions of self-organization of workers in those countries, the struggle there is waged not for fundamental changes and not for the replacement of one social formation for another, but for private concessions from the government. People are ready to fight for little, but so far not everyone understands the need for radical, revolutionary changes in the very foundations of bourgeois society. that there is no question of any mass struggle for socio-economic and even more so political rights, the protest takes on the shape of local outbreaks, which are easily suppressed by the centralized power of big business. I must say that in the Western countries the situation is somewhat different. There, protest activity is stronger, and the level of self-organization is much higher than in Russia. And, nevertheless, political alienation is manifested there no less than in the Russian Federation. Indeed, despite all the power of the institutions of self-organization of workers in those countries, the struggle there is waged not for fundamental changes and not for the replacement of one social formation for another, but for private concessions from the government. People are ready to fight for little, but so far not everyone understands the need for radical, revolutionary changes in the very foundations of bourgeois society.
The specificity of modern alienation lies in the social component, in the position of a person, his instability, his dependence on external circumstances, and not in extreme poverty, although the latter has not gone anywhere either . In this regard, the technical and technological side of alienation here acts as a product and consequence of the social, in contrast to the USSR, where social alienation was a consequence of the technical. It is the desire to acquire more profits that leads the capitalist to the desire to save on working conditions, to hire foreign workers who, due to their desperate situation, agree to lower wages, instead of introducing new technologies into production, improving working conditions, etc.
How can alienation be overcome?
Overcoming alienation means a transition from the "kingdom of necessity" to the "kingdom of freedom", but this is impossible without the transition from one socio-economic formation to another - more progressive (without the transition from capitalism to communism). It is precisely as a transition from one (more reactionary) to another (more progressive) socio-economic formation, accompanied by the transfer of power from one class to another (more progressive), that the social revolution is understood in Marxism, which must end with the complete victory of the new social order. Socialism (and, in the long term, also communism) was to become such a social device, representing an alternative. It is communism as a society based on the conscious management of social processes, not knowing the exploitation of man by man, applying technological progress to expand the material and cultural capabilities of a person, will put an end to all forms of alienation. Indeed, even in the event of a contradiction, a society armed with knowledge, a society deliberately organized, will be able to resolve them without much difficulty, eliminating the basis of any kind of alienation - the domination of circumstances over a person. It is communism as a system in which a person is the master of his life, a person dominates circumstances and can completely overcome the phenomenon of alienation.
But it is obvious that the path to such a society lies not through “recommendations to the government and the President,” but through the constant class struggle of the working people and their self-organization in this struggle. Only the working people and, first of all, the proletariat (hired workers of physical and mental labor, deprived of ownership of the means of production), organized as a political entity (alas, today the proletariat as an independent political entity is almost absent) can bring the end of capitalism closer with their struggle. Currently, the way to overcome alienation can be the massive involvement of workers in the social-class struggle in all its forms (economic, ideological and political). Alas, today the proletariat lacks its own class policy, independent of the bourgeoisie of one sort or another. After all, a man who avoids political life of his own free will, is doubly alienated. A person who realizes the need to fight for his rights, even while remaining in a difficult economic situation, remaining alienated from the results of his labor, takes a step towards overcoming his self-alienation ("escape from freedom"), a step towards building a classless society, a step from the realm of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Hence, it seems obvious that in modern capitalist society the path to overcoming alienation lies not through "internal self-liberation" or "revolution of consciousness" (although this is also important), and even more so not through "constructive wishes to the authorities", but through practical remaining alienated from the results of his labor, he takes a step towards overcoming his self-alienation ("escape from freedom"), a step towards building a classless society, a step from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Hence, it seems obvious that in modern capitalist society the path to overcoming alienation lies not through "internal self-liberation" or "revolution of consciousness" (although this is also important), and even more so not through "constructive wishes to the authorities", but through practical remaining alienated from the results of his labor, he takes a step towards overcoming his self-alienation ("escape from freedom"), a step towards building a classless society, a step from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Hence, it seems obvious that in modern capitalist society the path to overcoming alienation lies not through "internal self-liberation" or "revolution of consciousness" (although this is also important), and even more so not through "constructive wishes to the authorities", but through practicalthe class struggle of the proletariat in all its forms. It is from such a struggle that the revolutionary transformative road is formed from the prehistory of mankind to its true history - communist society.
Published in the socio-political journal "Alternatives" # 3 (92). 2016 year. S. 25-42.
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