Poverty of the Self in the Opulent Modern Society

The rise of capitalism as the new mode of production in the 17th century brought significant changes to society. One includes assisting in creating and widening two distinctive social classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie or capitalist class possesses the means or resources to enable production. The proletariat, or working class, on the other hand, lacks such resources and is forced to sell their labor to capitalists. Their labor produces the object of the labor, the worker, and they metamorphose themselves into a precious commodity. According to Marx, this results in alienation from the core of what it means to be human. One of the areas in which alienation has a considerable impact is the working sphere. As Marx explained in his early writings, alienation can be divided into several categories, i.e., the object of labor, production processes, species, and each other. This arises from not having control over our labor power; it is treated merely as a commodity, not a way of expressing oneself anymore. As a result, humans' ability to express creativity and maintain meaningful social connections is limited. <a href="https://medium.com/@writingsue14/poverty-of-the-self-in-the-opulent-modern-society-3daa4ecb3bf7">Read More</a>