Reference no: EM133386197

Questions

1. Alienation is a phenomenon that has become increasingly widespread since the beginning of the modern age (in which capitalist market economy and industrialization have been playing prominent roles). How is the feeling of being generally alienated in/from society (politically, culturally, psychologically, or with regard to race or gender), and which you may be experiencing yourself, different from the specific kind of alienation that Marx was pointing out, theorizing, and criticizing?

2. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels argued that the ruling ideas in society are the ideas of the ruling class, i.e., that those who have the greatest wealth and power in a sense "imprint" their ideas onto other members of society who are not wealthy or powerful. How would you formulate this idea, and how does this argument apply today, if it does? You may use examples to illustrate or support your answer.

3. In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx asserted that classical economists treated private property as a given and had no interest in analyzing it or in explaining its origin, the critique of political economy he was trying to develop had as its starting point precisely the question of how there are links between real individuals' experience of alienation, private property, and the social relations that support it. Can you explain what he meant, and think of one or two current examples of what he was referring to, assuming he was getting at something important.