Alienation

Typology

Nick Dyer-Whiteford:

"In the Manuscripts Marx says that private ownership of the means of production imposes on humans a four-fold alienation: from the process of production, from its products, from other producers, and from their species-being (see Ollman, 1971: 138). While the first three stages of this process have been subject to extensive exegesis, the last, the fourth alienation, is neglected. In the Manuscripts, its discussion is cryptic, fugitive, tantalizing. It is, however, clear that Marx did not mean simply human existence as a biologically reproductive group. Species-Being is rather the capacity to collectively transform this natural basis, making ‘life activity itself an object of will and consciousness’ (Marx, 1964: 67). Witnessing the titanic processes of nascent factory capitalism Marx describes species-being as manifested in the cooperative organization of labour, the increasing power of humans to affect their natural environment, the emancipation of women, the formation of metropolii, and the application of science and technology not only to industry but to the very ‘forming of the five senses’ (1964: 112, 129, 134, 141)."

(http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/digital-labour-species-becoming-and-global-worker)