In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx describes a rather peculiar condition called “alienated labor”, and links the removal of this condition with the elimination of market exchange and the progress of the communist society. In general, for an individual to feel alienated from something or someone means that they lack a sincere identification with it. One can instead address it as something strange or alien-like, and possibly even as an obstacle in their way or as intimidating to oneself. Marx dismisses this idea that roots from capitalism, arguing that alienation occurs from the way human beings regard their own labor.

According to Marx’s theory, there are different aspects of alienation within a society. He discusses that our society is divided into two classes; the owners of property, and the property-less workers. Under this capitalist settlement, the worker not only faces the disadvantages of labor, but also must experience the feeling of being disconnected from the world. This occurs because the worker associates his life to the end product of his work, and this can often become something hostile or alien-like to the worker. The worker puts all his time and effort into the object that he is producing, yet because he does not gain anything from his hard labor, the worker is alienated from the very thing that he had made himself. In capitalism, the upper-class society gets to relish in the product of the worker; as the society demands the production of an object, and the more the worker produces, the more alienated he becomes from his work and himself. The product that he worked so hard for is no longer his property. He feels that he is contributing to a world that unfamiliar to him, somewhere he does not belong. He fears his identity is becoming insignificant compared to the objects that he produces, yet cannot fully have.

Marx continues to explain another form of alienation; the estrangement of the worker from the activity of production. The labor that the worker performs does not actually belong to him, but rather it is just a means of survival. The worker is forced to perform hard labor for someone else’s benefit; this results in the worker working not out of creativity, but rather as a means for completing the job. For example, if an artist is hired by a wealthy being who is willing to pay a large amount of money for his work, the artist will indeed create art for the person, but it will immediately be taken away from him and become someone else’s possession. In this, the artist will have a high level of alienation towards the product of his labor; his own product is now alien-like to him. The currency will not make up for the time-consuming effort that the artist put into his art. This results in the worker experiencing self-alienation, estrangement from his work and finally, disengagement from his own society.

In Marx’s “From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” one of his main points and what he portrays most strongly is the relationship between the laborer and the other and the effect that this has on the laborer. The workers or laborers are the ones that create and put out the commodities for the whole of society to enjoy. However, because of this, they become what Marx denotes as “alienated” from these commodities as well as from themselves. This idea of alienation is the most interesting in the text because specific to Marx the definition is taken in context, the alienation of the worker is what creates this major problem in the capitalist society. Marx in a way creates this definition of alienation in terms of the worker and therefore more clearly clarifies the issue. Alienation of the laborer is caused by what comes to define them: labor and here in lies the never-ending problem. Laborers are necessary to a capitalist society and in a way the backbone of it, what comes out of labor is what creates the market and upholds the economy. Political economists in general lean on this idea of the laborer as the strongest force in a society but at the same time they are paid the least and therefore are unable to even purchase the commodities that they are producing.

Capitalist society has created these rigid societal roles and have implemented them in a way which makes them close to impossible to change. Once the laborer is established as just that, it becomes their identity and thus again leads to this feeling of alienation from the self and from the commodities that are produced. This idea that the laborer needs the labor to exist is evidenced by Marx for the sole reason that the capitalist society upholds it “… enables him to exist, first, as a worker; and, second, as a physical subject”. Therefore this societal ideology of the laborer even by the laborer establishes this problem of alienation and does not allow for escape or a chance to advance. Everyone in a capitalist  society is forced to participate, you can not attempt to barter when the main mode of exchange is through currency. Therefore with everybody in a given society being forced or at least strongly coerced to participate in it the strength of the property-owner/property-less dynamic is strengthened and kept in place. With the feeling, and valid reasoning, behind the idea that there is no chances to advance for the laborer the alienation of the laborer is made concrete and becomes the norm.

Fiction is phantasmagoria. That world is filled with seemingly illusory images that take an active and trained mind to wage war against. Such a mind exists in Barbara Johnson, who, trained under Paul De Man and armed with weapons of literary deconstruction as her impetus, tackles Melville’s Fist.

Just because the apple fell far from the tree, doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. While Johnson was analyzing Melville’s Fist, she explains her method of approach while she’s applying it and she says why this approach is important, something that her teacher Paul De Man didn’t do. De Man says critics go into other extrinsic studies of text and go into political and historical context, which he doesn’t like. However, Johnson says you can’t understand the text without doing just that.

Johnson looks into the history of what critics have to say about this story and notices that they all think it’s an allegory. She refutes this nothing when she mentions, “Melville himself both invites an allegorical reading and subverts the very terms of its consistency,” (2260). The more you examine the allegory, the more it seems to fall apart. It’s a problem because Billy Bud is supposed to represent innocence and Claggart is supposed to represent guilt because of their respective behavior and personalities. However, the text actually swaps the two after Billy slaughters Claggart. Billy who is supposed to be viewed as innocent becomes the guilty and Claggart who was supposed to be viewed guilty, is now viewed as innocent. This makes the allegory null and void because what was supposed to be a straightforward connection of one thing to another, is no longer connected, rather it’s now opposite.

Johnson is always looking for a pair of oppositions and analyzes them. When she goes to identify both personas as a reader, she finds such an opposition. Billy is handsome, not sophisticated and there’s no filter for what he thinks and what he says, or between what he sees and what it actually is. Johnson says, “In accordance with this “nature,” Billy reads everything at face value, never questioning,” (2261). He sees things the way they are without second guessing. On the other hand, Claggart always thinks that there is a mediator between how things appear and how they actually are, that there is a mediator between the signifier and the signified. Claggart is paranoid and always thinks that there’s some sort of twist. So, when he sees Billy, he thinks that its all just a facade and that deep down there’s something more to Billy that meets the eye. Johnson says, “He is properly an ironic reader, who, assuming the sign to be arbitrary and unmotivated, reverses the value signs of appearances and takes a daisy for a mantrap,” (2262). Johnson borrows Sausser’s concept and says that Claggart tried to “master the arbitrariness of the sign” and “falsely accusing Billy…of hiding a mutineer beneath the appearance of baby.” (2262). Claggart accused the innocent of being guilty and in doing so the innocent actually became the guilty.

Then comes strolling along good old captain Vere to make sense of this miasma of unstable allegory. Johnson says, “Vere subordinates both self and other, and ultimately sacrifices both self and other, for the preservation of a political order.” (2270). Captain Vere is a detached reader. He is pragmatic and thinks about the affects or interpretations of an act. He takes into account historical context and puts a frame around Billy and Claggart. As such, Johnson says Vere’s “reading takes place within a social structure,” (2270). In analyzing Vere, there is another opposition that can be drawn, the first being Billy versus Claggart. Now, the opposition is Billy plus Claggart versus Vere. Vere has a special function as a judge and a attraction to the reading. We the reader, judge Vere and we judge Vere judging Billy and Claggart. While he’s framed the two personas, he not only takes into factor the intrinsic aspects, their personalities, he also takes into account the extrinsic factors, the future of the crew in terms of loss of Billy’s life vs. loss of more crew members and mutiny of the ship at the hands of Billy.

Building on the foundation of Vere’s persona as a judge, Johnson makes a clear distinction between differences within a persona and difference between two personas. Johnson says, “It would seem, then, that the function of judgement is to convert an ambiguous situation into a decidable one. But it does so by converting a difference within…into a difference between,” (2274). The difference within is that Billy is a little guilty and a little innocent and so is Claggart. The difference between is that Billy killed Claggart, which makes Billy guilty of a crime. It is with this deciding hammer of justice that is the impetus for clearing the air of ambiguity and coming to a final verdict. Vere purges the murky situation and renders Billy guilty. This method of Johnson’s deconstruction as structural analysis has an ethical driving force, to think morally, a blind eye to internal differences. As Sausser says, “In language, there are only clear differences” and it is with this ideology that the judge and the judge judging the judge, carries out the judgement.

Ferdinand De Saussure believes that language is an object in the “heterogeneous mass of speech facts”. In Course in General Linguistics, Saussure is able to decipher the concept of language and how one perceives it.

The essay begins with the “nature of the linguistic sign”. Saussure believes that individuals tend to view language as a “naming process”, as they simply list words that correspond to a thing. It is this mindset that allows one to believe that connecting a name to a thing is a simple process, however, this is not true.

Saussure begins his argument by introducing the sign, signified, and the signifier. Essentially, these terms are used in order to break down the process in which names are given. The issue, he believes, with the pre-conceived notion of ‘name giving’ is that it is not complex enough; there is no evidence that shows if it is “vocal or psychological by nature” (852). The sign, however, is what unites a “concept and a sound-image” rather than a “thing and a name”. Saussure explains that the two elements are then depicted as a two-sided psychological entity. The two elements are “intimately united”. An example of this would be how the sound that a pig makes brings the image of a pig to someone’s mind. The two are connected and there is an exchange of some sort, which honestly, is quite beautiful. It is an exchange that we do not notice, as it is embedded in our minds since childhood, becoming something that ‘just is’. Saussure, however, forces us to acknowledge this seamless bond between sound and image.

Another distinction of the sign that Saussure delves in is the fact that it is “arbitrary”. He uses an example where he points out that “sister” is not connected to any succession of sounds. However, he follows this statement with two objections that may show evidence that the sign is not always arbitrary. The two instances that he brings up are “onomatopoeia” and “interjections”. When it comes to onomatopoeia, Saussure explains different words in the French language may have the same sound, but when the Latin roots of the words are examined, their meaning is entirely different. When it comes to authentic onomatopoeia, the same idea is present. Fot example, the English term bow-wow is spelled differently than the French version, ouaoua. Saussure states that, “not only are they limited in number, but also they are chosen somewhat arbitrarily, for they are only approximate and more or less conventional imitations of certain sounds…” (855). When it comes to interjections, the same rule applies. He says that there is “no fixed bond between their signified and their signifier” (855). An example of this would be the English term ‘darn’ in comparison to the French term ‘diable’ or the English term ‘golly’ in comparison to the French term ‘mordieu’, which stems from mort Dieu, or ‘God’s death’. Evidently, there is no evidence that shows the true connection, which is what deems them arbitrary.

Saussure also mentions this idea of ‘phonetic evolution’, which is essentially broken up into two parts that, much like sound and image, seem to go hand in hand. He takes a look at parole, which is speech, and langue, which is the evolution of language. The langue is depicted as the overall ‘system’ and the speech is the ‘output’, which is essentially the right hand man for langue. In other words, language is the foundation; like the structure of a house when it is first built. It is internal, which means it has all the inner workings that one cannot see, but understands. The parole, however, is face of the house; the nic-nacs and the furniture and the individualized aspects that make a home. It is the external aspect, which is both audible and visible to the speaker. The langue, is the collective aspect. Both, however, must go hand in hand in order to obtain a true understanding of language as a whole. Without the basic language, one cannot necessarily have speech, can they? I mean, if we don’t know what we’re saying, then what’s the point? Parole consists of utterances, which are infinite and free. Langue consists of grammar, which is simple, but constrained. One is taught the basics of language, both black and white, right and wrong, and then they are able to translate these strict rules into a freeing form of sound. Just like the pairing of sound and image, the pairing of parole and langue work just the same. One is needed in order for the other to have meaning or purpose. Saussure does a wonderful job of deconstructing his study of the sign and how it branches out into a greater understanding of phonetic evolution. With the help of the basic blueprints of language, we then are able to evolve with language in order to create speech that is vast and infinite. I suppose we can add these to the list of iconic duos. I mean, with sound and image paired beautifully and parole and langue working harmoniously, pb and j, milk and cookies, and spaghetti and meatballs all have a run for their money.

In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx addresses how, upon the “realization of their objectification,” workers in a capitalist society present feel alienated from their work and feel a loss of self. After performing the same mundane routine every day, workers begin to feel as if they are nothing more than cheap commodities whose entire lives revolve around their work and the pursuit of making a living. According to Marx, “the alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power of its own confronting him”. I think workers on an assembly line, for example, may have no knowledge of the thing they are working on (electronics or some other type of gadgets) and would confront it “as something alien” but the thing will soon take control of their lives as they are pressured to and ordered to manufacture and sell the thing to the demanding public with little to no breaks. They become exhausted and miserable. This makes the workers feel that their roles are being reduced to that of a cog in a machine and that they are not part of a community contributing something meaningful to society— they are just disposable and replaceable.

I can relate to what Marx is saying. One of my first jobs, like a lot of other people, was at a fast food restaurant. I did not last more than six months there because I felt horrible and didn’t care about the job. I hated the job, I hated my boss and I hated the customers because they all treated me and my coworkers like trash while expecting us to provide the absolute best customer service and produce their overpriced lattes and cappuccinos in record time. Fast food chain workers almost always end up feeling estranged from their environment. They feel estranged from customers, their boss, and maybe even their social life and family life because they are treated as “numbers” who aren’t actually appreciated for their work and who eventually just accept that they are selling their souls every day to work for pennies and not to contribute something meaningful to society or be creative or expressive in any way.

Once the exhausting labor and the mundane process of this labor has turned into “an alien object exercising power over the workers”, Marx believes that there are two more aspects that will make them feel completely alienated and separated from their line of work. Workers start to feel isolated towards each other. Maybe coworkers who were once good friends may start to look upon one another as rivals to see who can get their line of work done more quickly and efficiently. Maybe even enemies. The final aspect that Marx talks about is that workers will feel completely isolated towards other people in “the estrangement of man from man,” which is “an immediate consequence of the fact that they are estranged from the product of their labor, their life-activity, and their species being”— this is exactly why I will never work in fast food again.

In From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx, he talks about how workers becomes object of values to monopolies. As Karl Marx wrote, “…we have shown that the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities.”(651). The more a worker produces, the cheaper the objects they produce will be, but it will come at a price. The value of the worker will become less and it dehumanizes them. As they work more, the “activity of alienation”(654). also comes into play. The workers will feel estrangement and will feel like being exploited. He/she will produce more objects that provides benefits to the world, but the worker’s perspective will be opposite. What the workers produce that is seen beautiful by the world will be seen as ugly by the worker.(653).

Workers are related to the product they produce. As the workers keep producing products that are more powerful, he/she will become more alienated.(652) The product he/she produce will change how the world works. The product that are powerful will work against the workers as production of commodity will become simpler and cheaper. The “worker will become poorer”(652) as more powerful products will simplify the working world. Karl Marx compares this to religion by stating, “The more man puts into God, the less he retains in himself.”(652). As the workers continue to produce more powerful and better products, it will at one point replace them. At one point the object will confront the producers as “something hostile and alien.”(652). We will become dependent on these product that the workers’ themselves created. What was a worker’s life will become the object’s life.(652).

As workers keep working, they become more like machines. Go to work, then go home and repeat. It is a cycle or a routine and he/she only follow his/her “animal instinct”.(654). It becomes more of a mean to survive as they only work only for “eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.”(654). The worker no longer “feels himself to be anything but an animal”(654) and is forced to work. In the end, the powerful will stay powerful while the weak will stay powerless. As Karl Marx wrote,” On the basis of of political economy itself … the whole of society must fall apart into two classes – the property-owners and the propertyless workers.”(651). The workers will be exploited by the property-owners as workers become property to these owners.