Marx’s concept of ‘alienation’ is an essential part of the reality in capitalism. Explain.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 alienation ≠ moral complaint about employers → it is the objective condition of capitalist life
Route 2 estrangement is material & social, not intellectual (vs Hegel / Feuerbach) → “springs from the very nature of capitalist production” → essential, not accidental
root in capitalist structure: producer cut off from means of production + labour power becomes a commodity → four estrangements follow → product (alien object owned by capital) → act of labour (forced; “mere means to satisfy needs outside itself”) → species-being (free conscious activity → mechanical survival-work) → other people (competition over solidarity → class antagonism) → alienated labour produces private property → deepens the structure → Allen Wood: objective structure of capitalist society
reformist/welfare reading (alienation as a removable defect) vs Marx’s structural claim → concessions cannot touch what springs from the nature of capitalist production
Route 1 alienation is the lived reality of capitalism, ended only by abolishing its structure
Route 2 de-alienation needs common ownership + conscious control by associated producers, not charity
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
