How does the historical evolution of mankind alienate humans during the different stages of history outlined by Marx?

The first stage in human history as outlined by Marx is primitive communism. These are tribal societies well before the advent of civilization. That is, societies which ignore the separations between labour and leisure, education and pleasure, man and nature, life and death. They are communities where no class, no state, no private property and no families exist. Man is considered as nothing else but man himself. According to Marx Alienation appears with the dissolution of such primitive community. However there existed in primitive societies a form of alienation known as Natural Alienation. Natural Alienation derives from the necessity to explain and to understand natural phenomenon that man find difficult to attach logical reasoning to. The primitive man therefore finds a solution for them by associate such phenomenons of essential human life elements like reproduction, the sun, life, moon fire etc with myths, divinities and cults: Religion. This is because primitive peoples do not have enough productive forces, techniques and knowledge of the world around them. Therefore their helplessness in material production leads them in associating magic and religion in their social life and thought. Marx explained that men prostrate themselves before idols of their own manufacture. Man creates God in their own image and the distance between this God estimates the extent of mans alienation from his fellow men. With the development of agriculture, stock breeding and craftsmanship mans control over nature increases. This control eventually led to men themselves becoming commodities to be bought and sold. And so society splits into the class of exploiters and exploited. Here we find the slave society where the slave owner takes by force what his slaves produce, returning to them only what he wishes. Slaves forfeit the right to their own lives and so are alienated from their basic right to control when and how they live or die. We then move onto the third stage of Human history as outlined by Marx; Feudalism. Feudalism as in the European states in the Middle Ages created a new class configuration, the feudal lords and the serfs. The feudal landlord exploited the peasants (serfs) under his control by seizing a portion of their produce. However, the feudal lord did allow his work-force to retain direct contact with the means of production - the land. In contrast, capitalism alienated the worker from the means of production.

The Capitalist stage of production which negated the feudal stage (as identified by Marx) is based on private ownership of production of goods or services for profit. In this stage, alienation flourishes by and large due to powerlessness in the work environment. Giddens, 2008 defines this type of alienation in capitalist society as feelings of indifference or hostility not only to work, but to the overall framework of industrial production within a capitalist setting. In a capitalist setting, industrial workers or proletarians are constantly dominated by the capitalists and due to division of labor they become dehumanized by their work. Thus, job satisfaction is minimum and the proletarian is individually powerless to improve the situation and this alienates human beings from their job. Also, the development of new technology in order to increase efficiency and productivity, increasingly dominate human beings. When compared to the feudal societies where, although the work was exhausting, peasants had real control over their work and required skills and knowledge, many workers in industry in the capitalist society has little or no control over their job and are ruled over by machinery and work is carried out only in order to earn a living. As a result workers have become just a commodity or a source of labor bought by capitalists and discarded when no longer needed. There are four forms of alienation arising from industrial work; 1. 2. 3. 4. Alienation from act of working Alienation from product of work Alienation from other worker Alienation from human potential

Proletariat is alienated from act of working as a result of performing repetitive, routine, mind numbing tasks which are dull and these dehumanize the worker and create a machine like worker with less control over the production process and the product. Proletariat is also alienated from this product, as he has no influence over how or to whom the product is sold. This product belongs to a capitalist who sell it for profit. Therefore, more the workers invest in work, more they lose and more alienated they become. In the industrial working environment, there is no scope for work groups or for socializing with fellow workers. This gives workers less chance for human companionship and their social needs remain unsatisfied as they are alienated from other workers. In addition, as a result of division of labor worker perform simple tasks that have no requirement for skills or knowledge. Thus the worker becomes de- skilled

and innovative ideas do not surface. In this fashion the worker is alienated from human potential. As Marx said, workers does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery rather than well being, does not develop his physical and mental energies, but is physically exhausted and mentally debased. Alienation due to capitalism keeps society from moving towards next stage, which is the communist society and public ownership. Eventually this alienation would be overcome by becoming aware of the cause of the problems and by uniting into a true social class to revolutionize society. References Giddens 2008 Macionis & Plummer 2008
Daft 2011 wikipedia

From the primitive man's natural alienation to the citizen's extraneousness under capitalism: that is how the cycle of class societies is completed,