Cargo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo

Very small freight transporter—a cargo tricycle

In transportation, freight refers to goods conveyed by land, water or air, while cargo refers specifically to freight when conveyed via water or air. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facilities, including warehouses.

Multi-modal container units, designed as reusable carriers to facilitate unit load handling of the goods contained, are also referred to as cargo, especially by shipping lines and logistics operators. When empty containers are shipped each unit is documented as a cargo and when goods are stored within, the contents are termed containerized cargo. Similarly, aircraft ULD boxes are also documented as cargo, with an associated packing list of the items contained within.

Description

Animals used to transport goods—Mules carrying slate roof tiles in India in 1993.

Marine

Container ship at the Port of Helsinki in Finland

Seaport terminals handle a wide range of maritime cargoes.

Break bulk / general cargo are goods that are handled and stowed piecemeal to some degree, as opposed to cargo in bulk or modern shipping containers. Typically bundled in batches for hoisting, either with cargo nets, slings, crates, or stacked on trays, pallets or skids; at best (and today mostly) lifted directly into and out of a vessel's holds, but otherwise onto and off its deck, by cranes or derricks present on the dock or on the ship itself. If hoisted on deck instead of straight into the hold, liftable or rolling unit loads, like bags, barrels/vats, boxes, cartons and crates, then have to be man-handled and stowed competently by stevedores. Securing break bulk and general freight inside a vessel, includes the use of dunnage. When no hoisting equipment is available, break bulk would previously be man-carried on and off the ship, over a plank, or by passing via human chain. Since the 1960s, the volume of break bulk cargo has enormously declined worldwide in favour of mass adoption of containers. Bulk cargo, such as salt, oil, tallow, but also scrap metal, is usually defined as commodities that are neither on pallets nor in containers. Bulk cargoes are not handled as individual pieces, the way heavy-lift and project cargo are. Alumina, grain, gypsum, logs, and wood chips, for instance, are bulk cargoes. Bulk cargo is classified as liquid or dry.

Air

Cargolux Boeing 747-400F with the nose loading door open

Boeing 777 freighter of Emirates arrives at London Heathrow Airport (2015).

Main article: Air cargo

Air cargo refers to any goods shipped by air, whereas air freight refers specifically to goods transported in the cargo hold of a dedicated cargo plane. Aircraft were first used to carry mail as cargo in 1911. Eventually manufacturers started designing aircraft for other types of freight as well.

There are many commercial aircraft suitable for carrying cargo such as the Boeing 747 and the more prominent An‑124, which was purposely built for easy conversion into a cargo aircraft. Such large aircraft employ standardized quick-loading containers known as unit load devices (ULDs), comparable to ISO containers on cargo ships. ULDs can be stowed in the lower decks (front and rear) of several wide-body aircraft, and on the main deck of some narrow-bodies. Some dedicated cargo planes have a large opening front for loading.

Air freight shipments are very similar to LTL shipments in terms of size and packaging requirements. However, air freight or air cargo shipments typically need to move at much faster speeds than 800 km or 497 mi per hour. While shipments move faster than standard LTL, air shipments do not always actually move by air. Air shipments may be booked directly with the carriers, through brokers or with online marketplace services. In the US, there are certain restrictions on cargo moving via air freight on passenger aircraft, most notably the transport of rechargeable lithium-ion battery shipments.

Shippers in the US must be approved and be "known" in the Known Shipper Management System before their shipments can be tendered on passenger aircraft.

Rail

Main article: Rail freight transport

P&O Nedlloyd intermodal container in a tiphook intermodal freight well wagon at Banbury station. England, 2001

 

An articulated double-stack well car owned by the TTX Company. The 53 ft (16.15 m) capacity car is a Gunderson Maxi-IV.

Trains are capable of transporting a large number of containers that come from shipping ports. Trains are also used to transport water, cement, grain, steel, wood and coal. They are used because they can carry a large amount and generally have a direct route to the destination. Under the right circumstances, freight transport by rail is more economical and energy efficient than by road, mainly when carried in bulk or over long distances.

The main disadvantage of rail freight is its lack of flexibility. For this reason, rail has lost much of the freight business to road transport. Rail freight is often subject to transshipment costs, since it must be transferred from one mode of transportation to another. Practices such as containerization aim at minimizing these costs. When transporting point-to-point bulk loads such as cement or grain, with specialised bulk handling facilities at the rail sidings, the rail mode of transport remains the most convenient and preferred option.

Many governments are encouraging shippers to increase their use of rail rather than transport because of trains' lower environmental disbenefits.

Road

Main article: Truck

Many firms, like Parcelforce, FedEx and R+L Carriers transport all types of cargo by road. Delivering everything from letters to houses to cargo containers, these firms offer fast, sometimes same-day, delivery.

A good example of road cargo is food, as supermarkets require deliveries daily to replenish their shelves with goods. Retailers and manufacturers of all kinds rely upon delivery trucks, be they full size semi trucks or smaller delivery vans. These smaller road haulage companies constantly strive for the best routes and prices to ship out their products. Indeed, the level of commercial freight transported by smaller businesses is often a good barometer of healthy economic development as these types of vehicles move and transport anything literally, including couriers transporting parcels and mail. You can see the different types and weights of vehicles that are used to move cargo around .

Less-than-truckload freight

Main article: Less than truckload shipping

Less than truckload (LTL) cargo is the first category of freight shipment, representing the majority of freight shipments and the majority of business-to-business (B2B) shipments. LTL shipments are also often referred to as motor freight and the carriers involved are referred to as motor carriers.

LTL shipments range from 50 to 7,000 kg (110 to 15,430 lb), being less than 2.5 to 8.5 m (8 ft 2.4 in to 27 ft 10.6 in) the majority of times. The average single piece of LTL freight is 600 kg (1,323 lb) and the size of a standard pallet. Long freight and/or large freight are subject to extreme length and cubic capacity surcharges.

Trailers used in LTL can range from 28 to 53 ft (8.53 to 16.15 m). The standard for city deliveries is usually 48 ft (14.63 m). In tight and residential environments the 28 ft (8.53 m) trailer is used the most.

The shipments are usually palletized, stretch [shrink]-wrapped and packaged for a mixed-freight environment. Unlike express or parcel, LTL shippers must provide their own packaging, as carriers do not provide any packaging supplies or assistance. However, circumstances may require crating or another substantial packaging.

Truckload freight

Main article: Truckload shipping

In the United States, shipments larger than about 7,000 kg (15,432 lb) are typically classified as truckload (TL) freight. This is because it is more efficient and economical for a large shipment to have exclusive use of one larger trailer rather than share space on a smaller LTL trailer.

By the Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula the total weight of a loaded truck (tractor and trailer, 5-axle rig) cannot exceed 80,000 lb (36,287 kg) in the United States. In ordinary circumstances, long-haul equipment will weigh about 15,000 kg (33,069 lb), leaving about 20,000 kg (44,092 lb) of freight capacity. Similarly a load is limited to the space available in the trailer, normally 48 ft (14.63 m) or 53 ft (16.15 m) long, 2.6 m (102+3⁄8 in) wide, 9 ft 0 in (2.74 m) high and 13 ft 6 in or 4.11 m high overall.

While express, parcel and LTL shipments are always intermingled with other shipments on a single piece of equipment and are typically reloaded across multiple pieces of equipment during their transport, TL shipments usually travel as the only shipment on a trailer. In fact, TL shipments usually deliver on exactly the same trailer as they are picked up on.

Shipment categories

Freight is usually organized into various shipment categories before it is transported. An item's category is determined by:

• the type of item being carried. For example, a kettle could fit into the category 'household goods'.
• how large the shipment is, in terms of both item size and quantity.
• how long the item for delivery will be in transit.

Shipments are typically categorized as household goods, express, parcel, and freight shipments:

• Household goods (HHG) include furniture, art and similar items.
• Express: Very small business or personal items like envelopes are considered overnight express or express letter shipments. These shipments are rarely over a few kilograms or pounds and almost always travel in the carrier's own packaging. Express shipments almost always travel some distance by air. An envelope may go coast to coast in the United States overnight or it may take several days, depending on the service options and prices chosen by the shipper.
• Parcel: Larger items like small boxes are considered parcels or ground shipments. These shipments are rarely over 50 kg (110 lb), with no single piece of the shipment weighing more than about 70 kg (154 lb). Parcel shipments are always boxed, sometimes in the shipper's packaging and sometimes in carrier-provided packaging. Service levels are again variable but most ground shipments will move about 800 to 1,100 km (497 to 684 mi) per day. Depending on the package's origin, it can travel from coast to coast in the United States in about four days. Parcel shipments rarely travel by air and typically move via road and rail. Parcels represent the majority of business-to-consumer (B2C) shipments.
• Freight: Beyond HHG, express, and parcel shipments, movements are termed freight shipments.

Shipping costs

An LTL shipper often realizes savings by utilizing a freight broker, online marketplace or another intermediary, instead of contracting directly with a trucking company. Brokers can shop the marketplace and obtain lower rates than most smaller shippers can obtain directly. In the LTL marketplace, intermediaries typically receive 50% to 80% discounts from published rates, whereas a small shipper may only be offered a 5% to 30% discount by the carrier. Intermediaries are licensed by the DOT and have the requirements to provide proof of insurance.

Truckload (TL) carriers usually charge a rate per kilometre or mile. The rate varies depending on the distance, geographic location of the delivery, items being shipped, equipment type required, and service times required. TL shipments usually receive a variety of surcharges very similar to those described for LTL shipments above. There are thousands more small carriers in the TL market than in the LTL market. Therefore, the use of transportation intermediaries or brokers is widespread.

Another cost-saving method is facilitating pickups or deliveries at the carrier's terminals. Carriers or intermediaries can provide shippers with the address and phone number for the closest shipping terminal to the origin and/or destination. By doing this, shippers avoid any accessorial fees that might normally be charged for liftgate, residential pickup/delivery, inside pickup/delivery, or notifications/appointments.

Shipping experts optimize their service and costs by sampling rates from several carriers, brokers and online marketplaces. When obtaining rates from different providers, shippers may find a wide range in the pricing offered. If a shipper in the United States uses a broker, freight forwarder or another transportation intermediary, it is common for the shipper to receive a copy of the carrier's Federal Operating Authority. Freight brokers and intermediaries are also required by Federal Law to be licensed by the Federal Highway Administration. Experienced shippers avoid unlicensed brokers and forwarders because if brokers are working outside the law by not having a Federal Operating License, the shipper has no protection in case of a problem. Also, shippers typically ask for a copy of the broker's insurance certificate and any specific insurance that applies to the shipment.

Overall, shipping costs have fallen over the past decades. A further drop in shipping costs in the future might be realized through the application of improved 3D printing technologies. 

Security concerns

Main article: Supply chain security

Governments are very concerned with cargo shipment, as it may bring security risks to a country. Therefore, many governments have enacted rules and regulations, administered by a customs agency, for the handling of cargo to minimize risks of terrorism and other crime. Governments are mainly concerned with cargo entering through a country's borders.

The United States has been one of the leaders in securing cargo. They see cargo as a concern to national security. After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the security of this magnitude of cargo has become highlighted on the over 6 million cargo containers that enter the United States ports each year. The latest US Government response to this threat is the CSI: Container Security Initiative. CSI is a program intended to help increase security for containerized cargo shipped to the United States from around the world. Europe is also focusing on this issue, with several EU-funded projects underway.

Stabilization

See also: Transit bolt and Load securing § Fasteners

Many ways and materials are available to stabilize and secure cargo in various modes of transport. Conventional load securing methods and materials such as steel strapping and plastic/wood blocking and bracing have been used for decades and are still widely used. Present load-securing methods offer several other options, including polyester strapping and lashing, synthetic webbings and dunnage bags, also known as airbags or inflatable bags.

Practical advice on stabilization is given in the International Guidelines on Safe Load Securing for Road Transport.

Global precedence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_precedence

Images and other stimuli contain both local features (details, parts) and global features (the whole). Precedence refers to the level of processing (global or local) to which attention is first directed. Global precedence occurs when an individual more readily identifies the global feature when presented with a stimulus containing both global and local features. The global aspect of an object embodies the larger, overall image as a whole, whereas the local aspect consists of the individual features that make up this larger whole. Global processing is the act of processing a visual stimulus holistically. Although global precedence is generally more prevalent than local precedence, local precedence also occurs under certain circumstances and for certain individuals. Global precedence is closely related to the Gestalt principles of grouping in that the global whole is a grouping of proximal and similar objects. Within global precedence, there is also the global interference effect, which occurs when an individual is directed to identify the local characteristic, and the global characteristic subsequently interferes by slowing the reaction time.

Basic methods

Global precedence was first studied using the Navon figure, where many small letters are arranged to form a larger letter that either does or does not match. Variations of the original Navon figure include both shapes and objects. Individuals presented with a Navon figure will be given one of two tasks. In one type of task, participants are told before the presentation of the stimulus whether to focus on a global or local level, and their accuracy and reaction times are recorded.

Navon figures

Consistent	Neutral	Conflicting
TTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTT TTTT TTTT TTTT TTTT TTTT TTTT	++++++++++++ ++++++++++++ ++++ ++++ ++++ ++++ ++++ ++++	SSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS

In another type of task, participants are first presented with a target stimulus, and later presented with two different visuals. One of the visuals matches the target stimulus on the global level, while the other visual matches the target stimulus on the local level. In this condition, experimenters note which of the two visuals, the global or local, is chosen to match the target stimulus.

Specific results and theories

Navon's original study

In general, reaction time for identifying the larger letter is faster than for the smaller letters that make up the shape. Navon directed participants to focus either globally or locally to stimuli that were consistent, neutral, or conflicting on the global and local levels (see figures above). Reaction time for global identification was much faster than for local identification, showing global precedence. Additionally, global interference effect, which occurs when the global aspect is automatically processed even when attention is directed locally, causes slow reaction time. Navon's study global precedence and his stimuli, or variations of it, are still used in nearly all global precedence experiments.

Racial differences

When presented with a Navon figure, there is a slight local preference for Caucasians, but East Asians show an obvious global preference and are faster and more accurate at global processing. The inclination towards global precedence is also evident in second generation Asian-Australians, but the correlation is weaker than that of recent immigrants. This could stem from the physical environment of East Asian versus Western cities, as the level of visual complexity varies across these environments. The tendency of Caucasians to process information "analytically" and Asians "holistically" has also been attributed to differences in brain structure.

For some cognitive scientists, the stark contrast in cognitive processing trends across cultures and races suggests that all studies on cognitive perception should report participants’ races to ensure valid theoretical conclusions. Especially in experiments involving spatially distributed stimuli, neglected racial or cultural differences in visual perception could skew results.

Cultural differences

Global precedence is not a universal phenomenon.

When Navon figure stimuli are presented to participants from a remote African culture, the Himba, local precedence is observed although the Himba show the capabilities for both global and local processing.

This difference in precedence for Navon figure stimuli can be attributed to cultural differences in occupations, or in the practice of reading and writing. This finding dispels the idea that local precedence is a consequence or symptom of disorders, since the Himba is a normally functioning society capable of both global and local processing.

Varying stimuli

Stimuli are either meaningful or meaningless. For example, letters and familiar objects, like a cup, are meaningful, while unidentifiable and non-geometric forms are not. In both types of stimuli, the global advantage is observed, but the global interference effect only occurs with meaningful stimuli. In other words, when the global object is meaningful, the reaction time for identification of the local feature increases.

This supports the theory that within global precedence, global advantage and global interference rely on two separate mechanisms. Global-local interference occurs as a result of automatic processing of global objects. The theory is that the global precedence effect has a sensory mechanism active in global advantage, whereas automatic and semantic processes are active in the interference effect.

Age

Cognitive processing varies across different age groups, and several studies have been done using Navon-like figures to examine the correlation between precedence and age.

Children and Adolescents

When presented with a global-local task, children and adolescents exemplify a local bias. Younger children respond slower to different types of stimuli compared to older children, and thus local precedence seems more prevalent than global precedence in perceptual organization, at least until adolescence, when the transition to globally oriented visual perception begins. The ability to encode a global shape, which is necessary for efficiently recognizing and identifying objects, increases with age. However, it has also been found that there is a bias towards global information during infancy, which may be based upon high spatial frequency information, as well as limited vision. Therefore, global precedence during the early years of life may not be upwards but rather a U-shaped development.

Aging

There is a decline of global precedence in older subjects. When presented with a Navon-like figure, young adults demonstrate global precedence enhancement in that when the number of local letters forming the global letter increases, their global precedence increases. On the other hand, there is no precedence effect or enhancement for older subjects when presented with the same task. This links global precedence to the Gestalt principles of Proximity and Continuity, and suggests that Gestalt-related deficiencies, such as decline in perceptual grouping, may underlie the decline of global precedence in older subjects.

Global precedence decline may also relate to hemispheric specialization. The spatial frequency theory proposes that global versus local information is processed through two “channels” of low (global) versus high (local) spatial frequencies. spatial frequency measures how often a stimulus moves through space. Based upon this theory, the double frequency theory links the left hemisphere with high spatial frequencies, leading to a global precedence effect, and the right hemisphere with low spatial frequencies, leading to a local precedence effect. This suggests neuropsychological factors behind global precedence decline in there may be faster aging in the right than the left hemisphere.

Affect

Studies regarding mood have shown that positive and negative cues can influence global versus local attention during image-based tasks.

Self-generated emotional primes

Some studies have shown that positive priming decreases local response time, demonstrating a lessening effect of global precedence, while negative priming increases local response time. Mood dictates one's preferences for processing type.

The result that negative priming reduces flexibility correlates to the Psi theory states that negative emotion inhibits one’s access to extension memory, reducing cognitive flexibility. This also supports the theory that positive affect increases cognitive flexibility.

Standardized emotional primes

Positive mood priming also increases cognitive flexibility when prime words do not have individualistic specificity and when primes are visual. Positive affect does not simply promote local processing, but rather improves one’s abilities in his non-preferred dimension. For example, one preferring the local aspect of stimuli would show increased performance in identifying the global aspect and vice versa. This further supports the cognitive flexibility theory.

However, many studies regarding global processing and affect conflict with each other. One particular study showed that individuals in happy moods are more likely than those in sad moods to identify images based on global attributes rather than local ones, contrary to other studies that have been conducted. Paying attention to global features is the standard strategy for visual processing. Therefore, if positive feelings are more frequent than negative feelings, and thus positive feelings are more accessible, then positive feelings should instigate global processing more than negative feelings because the global strategy is similarly more accessible. From a more worldly application, positive affect might aid in understanding the larger meaning of stimuli like literature or art, whereas negative affect might aid understanding more minute details within those stimuli, like particularly rhythmic words or the nuance of colors.

Faces

Navon bias

Priming with Navon figures aides the recognition of faces, a holistic task, when the response elicited from the figure matches the precedence of the figure. For example, if the stimulus has local precedence and the participant is cued to respond with the local feature identification, his accuracy in facial recognition improves. The same occurs when global responses are asked of global stimuli.

When a facial task requires local processing for identification, participants’ facial recognition improves when they must respond to global precedence stimuli with local responses and vice versa. They are forced to show cognitive flexibility in their responses to the Navon figure primes.

One theory explains that normal facial recognition requires automatic processes, whereas special facial recognition requires controlled processes. Automatic processes are aided by correlative stimuli and responses, while controlled processes are aided by stimuli and responses that do not correlate. This indicates that facial recognition depends on type of attention, automatic or controlled, rather than focus on global or local features.

Face inversion

When identifying inverted faces, those showing stronger global precedence show a more prominent Those showing a stronger global precedence also have a greater deficit in identification abilities when the faces are inverted; their identification abilities decrease more from upright identification to inverted identification than weak global precedence individuals.

This correlates to the theory that upright faces are processed holistically, or with a special mechanism. Those with stronger global precedence should perform better at holistically processing a face upright. Stronger global precedence should show a greater decrease in accuracy of identification of inverted faces because the task relies on local processing.

Individual characteristics

The degree of global precedence one demonstrates has been found to differ in relation to the variable of an individual's field dependence. Field dependency is the amount that one relies on Gestalt laws of perceptual organization. High field dependency corresponds to a greater bias toward the global level, while field independence corresponds to a lesser dependency on the global level.

This indicates that individual characteristics have an effect on the prevalence of global precedence and that global and local processing exist on a continuum.

Physiological explanation

Neuropsychological evidence based on PET scans suggests that the global aspect of visual situations activates and is processed preferentially by the right hemisphere, whereas the local aspect of visual situations activates and is processed preferentially by the left hemisphere. The classical view of Gestalt psychology also suggests the right hemisphere is involved in the perception of wholes and thus plays a stronger role in global processing, whereas the left hemisphere involves separate local elements and therefore plays a stronger role in local processing.

However, hemispheric specialization is relative because it depends on the experimental setting as well as the individual’s “attentional set.” In addition, stimulus type may influence the neural structures underlying hemispheric specialization. Global processing is the default strategy for most individuals, but local stimuli are often more perceptually demanding to recognize and identify, showing the effect of stimuli on visual processing.

Disorders

The Navon figure has been used in relating theories regarding processing to assessing cognitive learning disabilities, such as developmental dyslexia, dyscalculia, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and autism.

Dyslexia

When given a Navon figure test, people with dyslexia have difficulty automatically identifying graphemes with phonemes, but not with identifying numbers with magnitudes. On the other hand, people with dyscalculia have difficulty automatically identifying numbers with magnitudes, but not letters and with phonemes. This suggests a dissociation between subjects with dyslexia and dyscalculia. These developmental learning disabilities do not cause general problems with identifying symbols to their mental representations, but rather create specific challenges.

Obsessive compulsive personality disorder

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) subjects are prone to be distracted by the local aspects of stimuli when asked to identify global aspects of figures such as the Navon figure. This is likely because individuals with OCPD characteristically have sharp, detail-oriented attentions, and tend to focus more on specifics rather than the larger context.

Autism

There are correlations between global or local performance on a task and the abilities to identify emotion and canine age for autistic children. In both cases, global responses correlate to better identification. In general, autistic children demonstrate much weaker global precedence than those without the disorder. Within the group of autistic children, those who respond more globally to a discrimination task perform better on emotion and canine age tasks.

One explanation is a possible biological dysfunction in the brain region where facial processing occurs. Research indicates that global processing, facial recognition, and emotional expression recognition are all linked to the right hemisphere. A defect in that area would explain the characteristics of autism. For further information on facial recognition and processing in individuals with autism see the autism and facial recognition section of face perception.

Antihumanism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihumanism

 

Part of a series on
Humanism
Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (c. 1490)

In social theory and philosophy, antihumanism or anti-humanism is a theory that is critical of traditional humanism, traditional ideas about humanity and the human condition. Central to antihumanism is the view that philosophical anthropology and its concepts of "human nature", "man" or "humanity" should be rejected as historically relative, ideological or metaphysical.

Origins

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, the philosophy of humanism was a cornerstone of the Enlightenment. Human history was seen as a product of human thought and action, to be understood through the categories of "consciousness", "agency", "choice", "responsibility", "moral values". Human beings were viewed as possessing common essential features. From the belief in a universal moral core of humanity, it followed that all persons were inherently free and equal. For liberal humanists such as Immanuel Kant, the universal law of reason was a guide towards total emancipation from any kind of tyranny.

Criticism of humanism as over-idealistic began in the 19th century. For Friedrich Nietzsche, humanism was nothing more than an empty figure of speech – a secular version of theism. Max Stirner expressed a similar position in his book The Ego and Its Own, published several decades before Nietzsche's work. Nietzsche argues in Genealogy of Morals that human rights exist as a means for the weak to constrain the strong; as such, they do not facilitate the emancipation of life, but instead deny it.

The young Marx is sometimes considered a humanist, as he rejected the idea of human rights as a symptom of the very dehumanization they were intended to oppose. Given that capitalism forces individuals to behave in an egoistic manner, they are in constant conflict with one another, and are thus in need of rights to protect themselves. True emancipation, he asserted, could only come through the establishment of communism, which abolishes private property. According to many anti-humanists, such as Louis Althusser, mature Marx sees the idea of "humanity" as an unreal abstraction that masks conflicts between antagonistic classes; since human rights are abstract, the justice and equality they protect is also abstract, permitting extreme inequalities in reality.

In the 20th century, the view of humans as rationally autonomous was challenged by Sigmund Freud, who believed humans to be largely driven by unconscious irrational desires.

Martin Heidegger viewed humanism as a metaphysical philosophy that ascribes to humanity a universal essence and privileges it above all other forms of existence. For Heidegger, humanism takes consciousness as the paradigm of philosophy, leading it to a subjectivism and idealism that must be avoided. Like Hegel before him, Heidegger rejected the Kantian notion of autonomy, pointing out that humans were social and historical beings, as well as rejecting Kant's notion of a constituting consciousness. In Heidegger's philosophy, Being (Sein) and human Being (Dasein) are a primary unity. Dualisms of subject and object, consciousness and being, humanity and nature are inauthentic derivations from this. In the Letter on Humanism (1947), Heidegger distances himself from both humanism and existentialism. He argues that existentialism does not overcome metaphysics, as it merely reverses the basic metaphysical tenet that essence precedes existence. These metaphysical categories must instead be dismantled.

Positivism and scientism

Positivism is a philosophy of science based on the view that in the social as well as natural sciences, information derived from sensory experience, and logical and mathematical treatments of such data, are together the exclusive source of all authoritative knowledge. Positivism assumes that there is valid knowledge (truth) only in scientific knowledge. Obtaining and verifying data that can be received from the senses is known as empirical evidence. This view holds that society operates according to general laws that dictate the existence and interaction of ontologically real objects in the physical world. Introspective and intuitional attempts to gain knowledge are rejected. Though the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of Western thought, the concept was developed in the modern sense in the early 19th century by the philosopher and founding sociologist, Auguste Comte. Comte argued that society operates according to its own quasi-absolute laws, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws of nature.

Humanist thinker Tzvetan Todorov has identified within modernity a trend of thought which emphasizes science and within it tends towards a deterministic view of the world. He clearly identifies positivist theorist Auguste Comte as an important proponent of this view. For Todorov,

"Scientism does not eliminate the will but decides that since the results of science are valid for everyone, this will must be something shared, not individual. In practice, the individual must submit to the collectivity, which 'knows' better than he does. The autonomy of the will is maintained, but it is the will of the group, not the person […] scientism has flourished in two very different political contexts […] The first variant of scientism was put into practice by totalitarian regimes."

A similar criticism can be found in the work associated with the Frankfurt School of social research. Antipositivism would be further facilitated by rejections of scientism; or science as ideology. Jürgen Habermas argues, in his On the Logic of the Social Sciences (1967), that

"the positivist thesis of unified science, which assimilates all the sciences to a natural-scientific model, fails because of the intimate relationship between the social sciences and history, and the fact that they are based on a situation-specific understanding of meaning that can be explicated only hermeneutically ... access to a symbolically prestructured reality cannot be gained by observation alone."

Structuralism

Structuralism was developed in post-war Paris as a response to the perceived contradiction between the free subject of philosophy and the determined subject of the human sciences. It drew on the systematic linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure for a view of language and culture as a conventional system of signs preceding the individual subject's entry into them. In the study of linguistics the structuralists saw an objectivity and scientificity that contrasted with the humanist emphasis on creativity, freedom and purpose.

Saussure held that individual units of linguistic signification - signs - only enjoy their individuality and their power to signify by virtue of their contrasts or oppositions with other units in the same symbolic system. For Saussure, the sign is a mysterious unification of a sound and a thought. Nothing links the two: each sound and thought is in principle exchangeable for other sounds or concepts. A sign is only significant as a result of the total system in which it functions. To communicate by particular forms of speech and action (parole) is itself to presuppose a general body of rules (langue). The concrete piece of behaviour and the system that enables it to mean something mutually entail each other. The very act of identifying what they say already implies structures. Signs are thus not at the service of a subject; they do not pre-exist the relations of difference between them. We cannot seek an exit from this purely relational system. The individual is always subordinate to the code. Linguistic study must abstract from the subjective physical, physiological and psychological aspects of language to concentrate on langue as a self-contained whole.

The structuralist anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss proclaimed that the goal of the human sciences was "not to constitute, but to dissolve man". He systematised a structuralist analysis of culture that incorporated ideas and methods from Saussure's model of language as a system of signifiers and signifieds. His work employed Saussurean technical terms such as langue and parole, as well as the distinction between synchronic analysis (abstracting a system as if it were timeless) and diachronic analysis (where temporal duration is factored in). He paid little attention to the individual and instead concentrated on systems of signs as they operated in primitive societies. For Levi-Strauss, cultural choice was always pre-constrained by a signifying convention. Everything in experience was matter for communication codes. The structure of this system was not devised by anyone and was not present in the minds of its users, but nonetheless could be discerned by a scientific observer.

The semiological work of Roland Barthes (1977) decried the cult of the author and indeed proclaimed his death.

Jacques Lacan's reformulation of psychoanalysis based on linguistics inevitably led to a similar diminishment of the concept of the autonomous individual: "man with a discourse on freedom which must certainly be called delusional...produced as it is by an animal at the mercy of language". According to Lacan, an individual is not born human but only becomes so through incorporation into a cultural order that Lacan terms The Symbolic. Access to this order proceeds by way of a "mirror stage", where a child models itself upon its own reflection in a mirror. Language allows us to impose order on our desires at this "Imaginary" stage of development. The unconscious, which exists prior to this Symbolic Order, must submit to the Symbolic Law. Since the unconscious is only accessible to the psychoanalyst in language, the most he or she can do is decode the conscious statements of the patient. This decoding can only take place within a signifying chain; the signified of unconscious discourse remains unattainable. It resides in a pre-signified dimension inaccessible to language that Lacan calls "The Real". From this, it follows that it is impossible to express subjectivity. Conscious discourse is the effect of a meaning beyond the reach of a speaking subject. The ego is a fiction that covers over a series of effects arrived at independently of the mind itself.

Taking a lead from Brecht's twin attack on bourgeois and socialist humanism, structural Marxist Louis Althusser used the term "antihumanism" in an attack against Marxist humanists, whose position he considered a revisionist movement. He believed humanism to be a bourgeois individualist philosophy that posits a "human essence" through which there is potential for authenticity and common human purpose. This essence does not exist: it is a formal structure of thought whose content is determined by the dominant interests of each historical epoch. Socialist humanism is similarly an ethical and thus ideological phenomenon. Since its argument rests on a moral and ethical basis, it reflects the reality of exploitation and discrimination that gives rise to it but never truly grasps this reality in thought. Marxist theory must go beyond this to a scientific analysis that directs to underlying forces such as economic relations and social institutions.

Althusser considered "structure" and "social relations" to have primacy over individual consciousness, opposing the philosophy of the subject. For Althusser, individuals are not constitutive of the social process, but are instead its supports or effects. Society constructs the individual in its own image through its ideologies: the beliefs, desires, preferences and judgements of the human individual are the effects of social practices. Where Marxist humanists such as Georg Lukács believed revolution was contingent on the development of the class consciousness of an historical subject - the proletariat - Althusser's antihumanism removed the role of human agency; history was a process without a subject.

Post-structuralism

Post-structuralist Jacques Derrida continued structuralism's focus on language as key to understanding all aspects of individual and social being, as well as its problematization of the human subject, but rejected its commitment to scientific objectivity. Derrida argued that if signs of language are only significant by virtue of their relations of difference with all other signs in the same system, then meaning is based purely on the play of differences, and is never truly present. He claimed that the fundamentally ambiguous nature of language makes human intention unknowable, attacked Enlightenment perfectionism, and condemned as futile the existentialist quest for authenticity in the face of the all-embracing network of signs. The world itself is text; a reference to a pure meaning prior to language cannot be expressed in it. As he stressed, "the subject is not some meta-linguistic substance or identity, some pure cogito of self-presence; it is always inscribed in language".

Michel Foucault challenged the foundational aspects of Enlightenment humanism. He rejected absolute categories of epistemology (truth or certainty) and philosophical anthropology (the subject, influence, tradition, class consciousness), in a manner not unlike Nietzsche's earlier dismissal of the categories of reason, morality, spirit, ego, motivation as philosophical substitutes for God. Foucault argued that modern values either produced counter-emancipatory results directly, or matched increased "freedom" with increased and disciplinary normatization. His anti-humanist skepticism extended to attempts to ground theory in human feeling, as much as in human reason, maintaining that both were historically contingent constructs, rather than the universals humanism maintained. In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault dismissed history as "humanist anthropology". The methodology of his work focused not on the reality that lies behind the categories of "insanity", "criminality", "delinquency" and "sexuality", but on how these ideas were constructed by discourses.

Cultural examples

The heroine of the novel Nice Work begins by defining herself as a semiotic materialist, "a subject position in an infinite web of discourses – the discourses of power, sex, family, science, religion, poetry, etc." Charged with taking a bleak deterministic view, she retorts, "antihumanist, yes; inhuman, no...the truly determined subject is he who is not aware of the discursive formations that determine him". However, with greater life-experience, she comes closer to accepting that post-structuralism is an intriguing philosophical game, but probably meaningless to those who have not yet even gained awareness of humanism itself.

In his critique of humanist approaches to popular film, Timothy Laurie suggests that in new animated films from DreamWorks and Pixar "the 'human' is now able to become a site of amoral disturbance, rather than – or at least, in addition to – being a model of exemplary behaviour for junior audiences".

Marx's theory of alienation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation 

19th-century German intellectual Karl Marx (1818–1883) identified and described Entfremdung (alienation of labor) as Laborers not owning the products they labor to create.

Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement (German: Entfremdung) of people from aspects of their human nature (Gattungswesen, 'species-essence') as a consequence of the division of labor and 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 is that a worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) 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.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1932), Karl Marx expressed the Entfremdung theory—of estrangement from the self. Philosophically, the theory of Entfremdung relies upon The Essence of Christianity (1841) by Ludwig Feuerbach, which states that the idea of a supernatural god has alienated the natural characteristics of the human being. Moreover, Max Stirner extended Feuerbach's analysis in The Ego and its Own (1845) that even the idea of 'humanity' is an alienating concept for individuals to intellectually consider in its full philosophic implication. Marx and Friedrich Engels responded to these philosophical propositions in The German Ideology (1845).

Forms of alienation

The terms Entfremdung ("alienation" or "estrangement") and Entäusserung ("externalization" or "alienation"), derived from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, indicate that people are "alienated" because they are not at home in the modern social world. There are three forms of alienation: objective, subjective, and complete.

People are objectively alienated if the social world they inhabit is not a home. Individuals may live in a world that is not a home without experiencing feelings of alienation. Conversely, they may experience feelings that the world is not a home while also accepting this experience as a metaphysical fact, as the existentialists do. Hegel views both of these conditions as evils, because people have a deep and abiding need to inhabit a social world that is a home.

People are subjectively alienated in two cases: 1) when the world they inhabit is a home but they fail to understand this; 2) when the world they inhabit is not a home, yet they believe it to be. Hegel believes the first of these two cases to be the most common cause of alienation. People are subjectively but not objectively alienated. They reject the modern social world because it appears to them as not a home, even though it objectively is. Hegel sees acceptance that subjective alienation is a persistent feature of modern social life as part of the task of becoming reconciled to the modern social world. He wishes not to reform or change the institutions of the modern social world, but to change the way in which society is understood by its members.

People are completely alienated if they are both subjectively and objectively alienated. Where Hegel believes this to be a condition unique to people in ancient Rome and medieval Europe, Marx sees this as the condition of contemporary society.

Dimensions of alienated labor

In a capitalist society, a worker's alienation from their humanity occurs because the worker can express labor—a fundamental social aspect of personal individuality—only through a private system of industrial production in which each worker is an instrument: i.e., a thing, not a person. In the "Notes on James Mill" (1844), Marx explained alienation thus:

Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have, in two ways, affirmed himself, and the other person. (i) In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and, therefore, enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also, when looking at the object, I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses, and, hence, a power beyond all doubt. (ii) In your enjoyment, or use, of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified man's essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature ... Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 Marx distinguishes four results of alienated labor: alienated labor alienates the worker, first, from the product of his labor; second, from his own activity; third, from what Marx, following Feuerbach, calls species-being; and fourth, from other human beings.

From a worker's product

The design of the product and how it is produced are determined, not by the producers who make it (the workers), nor by the consumers of the product (the buyers), but by the capitalist class who besides accommodating the worker's manual labour also accommodate the intellectual labour of the engineer and the industrial designer who create the product in order to shape the taste of the consumer to buy the goods and services at a price that yields a maximal profit. Aside from the workers having no control over the design-and-production protocol, alienation (Entfremdung) broadly describes the conversion of labour (work as an activity), which is performed to generate a use value (the product), into a commodity, which—like products—can be assigned an exchange value. That is, the capitalist gains control of the manual and intellectual workers and the benefits of their labour, with a system of industrial production that converts said labour into concrete products (goods and services) that benefit the consumer. Moreover, the capitalist production system also reifies labour into the "concrete" concept of "work" (a job), for which the worker is paid wages—at the lowest-possible rate—that maintain a maximum rate of return on the capitalist's investment capital; this is an aspect of exploitation. Furthermore, with such a reified system of industrial production, the profit (exchange value) generated by the sale of the goods and services (products) that could be paid to the workers is instead paid to the capitalist classes: the functional capitalist, who manages the means of production; and the rentier capitalist, who owns the means of production.

From the act of production

Strikers confronted by soldiers during the 1912 textile factory strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, United States, called when owners reduced wages after a state law reduced the work week from 56 to 54 hours

In the capitalist mode of production, the generation of products (goods and services) is accomplished with an endless sequence of discrete, repetitive motions that offer the worker little psychological satisfaction for "a job well done." By means of commodification, the labor power of the worker is reduced to wages (an exchange value); the psychological estrangement (Entfremdung) of the worker results from the unmediated relation between his productive labor and the wages paid to him for the labor. The worker is alienated from the means of production via two forms: wage compulsion and the imposed production content. The worker is bound to unwanted labour as a means of survival, labour is not "voluntary but coerced" (forced labor). The worker is only able to reject wage compulsion at the expense of their life and that of their family. The distribution of private property in the hands of wealth owners, combined with government enforced taxes compel workers to labor. In a capitalist world, our means of survival is based on monetary exchange, therefore we have no other choice than to sell our labour power and consequently be bound to the demands of the capitalist.

The worker "[d]oes not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself;" "[l]abor is external to the worker," it is not a part of their essential being. During work, the worker is miserable, unhappy and drained of their energy, work "mortifies his body and ruins his mind." The production content, direction and form are imposed by the capitalist. The worker is being controlled and told what to do since they do not own the means of production they have no say in production, "labor is external to the worker, i.e. it does not belong to his essential being. A person's mind should be free and conscious, instead it is controlled and directed by the capitalist, "the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own but someone else's, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another." This means he cannot freely and spontaneously create according to his own directive as labor's form and direction belong to someone else.

From a worker's Gattungswesen (species-essence)

The Gattungswesen ('species-essence' or 'human nature'), of individuals is not discrete (separate and apart) from their activity as a worker and as such species-essence also comprises all of innate human potential as a person.

Conceptually, in the term species-essence, the word species describes the intrinsic human mental essence that is characterized by a "plurality of interests" and "psychological dynamism," whereby every individual has the desire and the tendency to engage in the many activities that promote mutual human survival and psychological well-being, by means of emotional connections with other people, with society. The psychic value of a human consists in being able to conceive (think) of the ends of their actions as purposeful ideas, which are distinct from the actions required to realize a given idea. That is, humans are able to objectify their intentions by means of an idea of themselves as "the subject" and an idea of the thing that they produce, "the object." Conversely, unlike a human being an animal does not objectify itself as "the subject" nor its products as ideas, "the object," because an animal engages in directly self-sustaining actions that have neither a future intention, nor a conscious intention. Whereas a person's Gattungswesen does not exist independently of specific, historically conditioned activities, the essential nature of a human being is actualized when an individual—within their given historical circumstance—is free to subordinate their will to the internal demands they have imposed upon themselves by their imagination and not the external demands imposed upon individuals by other people.

Relations of production

Whatever the character of a person's consciousness (will and imagination), societal existence is conditioned by their relationships with the people and things that facilitate survival, which is fundamentally dependent upon cooperation with others, thus, a person's consciousness is determined inter-subjectively (collectively), not subjectively (individually), because humans are a social animal. In the course of history, to ensure individual survival societies have organized themselves into groups who have different, basic relationships to the means of production. One societal group (class) owned and controlled the means of production while another societal class worked the means of production and in the relations of production of that status quo the goal of the owner-class was to economically benefit as much as possible from the labour of the working class. In the course of economic development when a new type of economy displaced an old type of economy—agrarian feudalism superseded by mercantilism, in turn superseded by the Industrial Revolution—the rearranged economic order of the social classes favored the social class who controlled the technologies (the means of production) that made possible the change in the relations of production. Likewise, there occurred a corresponding rearrangement of the human nature (Gattungswesen) and the system of values of the owner-class and of the working-class, which allowed each group of people to accept and to function in the rearranged status quo of production-relations.

Despite the ideological promise of industrialization—that the mechanization of industrial production would raise the mass of the workers from a brutish life of subsistence existence to honorable work—the division of labour inherent to the capitalist mode of production thwarted the human nature (Gattungswesen) of the worker and so rendered each individual into a mechanistic part of an industrialized system of production, from being a person capable of defining their value through direct, purposeful activity. Moreover, the near-total mechanization and automation of the industrial production system would allow the (newly) dominant bourgeois capitalist social class to exploit the working class to the degree that the value obtained from their labour would diminish the ability of the worker to materially survive. As a result of this exploitation, when the proletarian working-class become a sufficiently developed political force, they will effect a revolution and re-orient the relations of production to the means of production—from a capitalist mode of production to a communist mode of production. In the resultant communist society, the fundamental relation of the workers to the means of production would be equal and non-conflictual because there would be no artificial distinctions about the value of a worker's labour; the worker's humanity (Gattungswesen) thus respected, men and women would not become alienated.

In the communist socio-economic organization, the relations of production would operate the mode of production and employ each worker according to their abilities and benefit each worker according to their needs. Hence, each worker could direct their labour to productive work suitable to their own innate abilities, rather than be forced into a narrowly defined, minimum-wage "job" meant to extract maximal profit from individual labour as determined by and dictated under the capitalist mode of production. In the classless, collectively-managed communist society, the exchange of value between the objectified productive labour of one worker and the consumption benefit derived from that production will not be determined by or directed to the narrow interests of a bourgeois capitalist class, but instead will be directed to meet the needs of each producer and consumer. Although production will be differentiated by the degree of each worker's abilities, the purpose of the communist system of industrial production will be determined by the collective requirements of society, not by the profit-oriented demands of a capitalist social class who live at the expense of the greater society. Under the collective ownership of the means of production, the relation of each worker to the mode of production will be identical and will assume the character that corresponds to the universal interests of the communist society. The direct distribution of the fruits of the labour of each worker to fulfill the interests of the working class—and thus to an individual's own interest and benefit—will constitute an un-alienated state of labour conditions, which restores to the worker the fullest exercise and determination of their human nature.

From other workers

Capitalism reduces the labour of the worker to a commercial commodity that can be traded in the competitive labour-market, rather than as a constructive socio-economic activity that is part of the collective common effort performed for personal survival and the betterment of society. In a capitalist economy, the businesses who own the means of production establish a competitive labour-market meant to extract from the worker as much labour (value) as possible in the form of capital. The capitalist economy's arrangement of the relations of production provokes social conflict by pitting worker against worker in a competition for "higher wages", thereby alienating them from their mutual economic interests; the effect is a false consciousness, which is a form of ideological control exercised by the capitalist bourgeoisie through its cultural hegemony. Furthermore, in the capitalist mode of production the philosophic collusion of religion in justifying the relations of production facilitates the realization and then worsens the alienation (Entfremdung) of the worker from their humanity; it is a socio-economic role independent of religion being "the opiate of the masses".

Philosophical significance and influences

The concept of alienation does not originate with Marx. Marx's two main influences in his use of the term are Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) postulated the idealism that Marx countered with dialectical materialism.

For Hegel, alienation consists in an "unhappy consciousness". By this term, Hegel means a misunderstood form of Christianity, or a Christianity that hasn't been interpreted according to Hegel's own pantheism.

In The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel described the stages in the development of the human Geist ('spirit'), by which men and women progress from ignorance to knowledge, of the self and of the world. Developing Hegel's human-spirit proposition, Marx said that those poles of idealism—"spiritual ignorance" and "self-understanding"—are replaced with material categories, whereby "spiritual ignorance" becomes "alienation" and "self-understanding" becomes man's realisation of his Gattungswesen (species-essence).

Ludwig Feuerbach

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.

The middle-period writings of Ludwig Feuerbach, where he critiques Christianity and philosophy, are pre-occupied with the problem of alienation. In these works, Feuerbach argues that an inappropriate separation of individuals from their essential human nature is at the heart of Christianity.

Feuerbach believes the alienation of modern individuals consists in their holding false beliefs about God. God is not an objective being, but is instead a projection of man's own essential predicates. Christian belief entails the sacrifice, the practical denial or repression, of essential human characteristics. Feuerbach characterizes his own work as having a therapeutic goal – healing the painful separation at the heart of alienation.

Entfremdung and the theory of history

See also: Marx's theory of history and Dialectical materialism

In Part I: "Feuerbach – Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook" of The German Ideology (1846), Karl Marx said the following:

Things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but also, merely, to safeguard their very existence.

That humans psychologically require the life activities that lead to their self-actualisation as persons remains a consideration of secondary historical relevance because the capitalist mode of production eventually will exploit and impoverish the proletariat until compelling them to social revolution for survival. Yet, social alienation remains a practical concern, especially among the contemporary philosophers of Marxist humanism. In The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism (1992), Raya Dunayevskaya discusses and describes the existence of the desire for self-activity and self-actualisation among wage-labour workers struggling to achieve the elementary goals of material life in a capitalist economy.

Entfremdung and social class

In Chapter 4 of The Holy Family (1845), Marx said that capitalists and proletarians are equally alienated, but that each social class experiences alienation in a different form:

The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power, and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated, this means that they cease to exist in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and in the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of Hegel, in its abasement, the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its condition of life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of that nature. Within this antithesis, the private property-owner is therefore the conservative side, and the proletarian the destructive side. From the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter the action of annihilating it.

Criticism

In discussion of "aleatory materialism" (matérialisme aléatoire) or "materialism of the encounter," French philosopher Louis Althusser criticized a teleological (goal-oriented) interpretation of Marx's theory of alienation because it rendered the proletariat as the subject of history; an interpretation tainted with the absolute idealism of the "philosophy of the subject," which he criticized as the "bourgeois ideology of philosophy".