Karl Marx Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Karl Marx - Essay Example In the capitalist economy, Marx maintained that the worker was isolated from their labor, the product of their labor, and the conditions of their labor; that this isolation made it impossible for the worker to utilize their natural productive capacity. Marx particularly questions features of the capitalist economy such as the class system and currency. He maintains that history is the product of an ongoing struggle between masters and slaves; carried on between the bourgeois and the workers during the lifetime of Marx. Similarly, Marx identifies money as a force destructive to the worker's innate capacity. Both money and class hinder the ability of the worker to realize their full potential. According to Marx, the class struggle was destructive to production because one class always exploited the other and opposed their interests. In many respects, Marx considered that the struggle between classes created the alienation of the worker from his work. By being subjected to the rule of a master class, the worker is alienated from his work because he does not benefit directly from it. The worker is isolated from the product of his labor by the sense that his work is for someone else's benefit. Marx considered money to have a similar effect, if a more dramatic.