page_title: Marx's theory of alienation
section_title: Philosophical significance
hierarchical_section_title: Marx's theory of alienation / Philosophical significance
caption_attribution_description: English: Portait engraving of Ludwig Feuerbach from Die Gartenlaube 1872 (1) p. 17
context_page_description: Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the social alienation of people from aspects of their human nature as a consequence of living in a society of stratified social classes. The alienation from the self is a consequence of being a mechanistic part of a social class, the condition of which estranges a person from their humanity.
  The theoretical basis of alienation within the capitalist mode of production is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labour. Although the worker is an autonomous, self-realized human being, as an economic entity this worker is directed to goals and diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie—who own the means of production—in order to extract from the worker the maximum amount of surplus value in the course of business competition among industrialists.
caption: Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) analysed religion from a psychological perspective in The Essence of Christianity (1841) and according to him divinity is humanity's projection of their human nature
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