Julio Huato wrote:
> My point is that, to practically and
> definitively overcome the alienation of labor (say, in its form as
> "value" embedded in wealth as a collection of commodities, or in its
> form as "political power" embedded in the state or the overall polity,
> etc.), we do need to understand how the alienation occurs, how these
> social forms emerge, wherein the necessity lies. So we need theories
> of these forms -- a theory of value (or of commodity production and
> exchange), a theory of the state, etc. Because we need to build
> intentional social structures to overcome these alienated forms and
> aptly channel (albeit in a direct and transparent manner) the
> "material" processes that until now those forms have channeled, namely
> the allocation of social labor time among different uses to meet the
> needs of society and allow it to reproduce itself altogether.
The "alienation" of labour also concerns the nature of proletarian "individuality" and its development.
Marx's understanding of it applies to it both Hegel's general idea of the "dialectic" as "the higher dialectic of the conception" ("the dialectic of negativity") and his specific idea of the alienation of labour in terms of this general idea.
"The outstanding achievement of Hegel’s Phänomenologie and of its final outcome, the dialectic of negativity as the moving and generating principle, is thus first that Hegel conceives the self-creation of man as a process, conceives objectification as loss of the object, as alienation and as transcendence of this alienation; that he thus grasps the essence of labour and comprehends objective man – true, because real man – as the outcome of man’s own labour. The real, active orientation of man to himself as a species-being, or his manifestation as a real species-being (i.e., as a human being), is only possible if he really brings out all his species-powers – something which in turn is only possible through the cooperative action of all of mankind, only as the result of history – and treats these powers as objects: and this, to begin with, is again only possible in the form of estrangement." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htm
The alienation of labour refers to a set of conditions radically inconsistent, on the one hand, with the full development of the "capabilities," including "the ability to think," characteristic of the "true individuality" that will be actualized in communist society, but also consistent, on the other hand (this is its "dialectical" nature in Hegel's sense), with the degree of "the integral development of every individual producer" required to enable them to initiate the "revolutionary praxis" that will then further "educate" them (in this sense) to the degree necessary to enable them to imagine and build the penultimate social form from which all barriers to "the free development of individualities" have been removed.
It's this Hegelian framework that governs Marx's appropriation of Ricardo, i.e. Ricardo's treatment of capitalist production as "production for the sake of production" is its treatment as "nothing but the development of human productive forces," a development equivalent to "the development of the richness of human nature as an end in itself."
As in Hegel (for whom history, interpreted in terms of "the higher dialectic of the conception," is "the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed"), in the history of human development generally and in the capitalist phase of this development specifically, "the development of the capacities of the human species takes place at the cost of the majority of human individuals and even classes."
"In the end," however, this development (again as in Hegel's philosophy of history) "breaks through this contradiction and coincides with the development of the individual; the higher development of individuality is thus only achieved by a historical process during which individuals are sacrificed for the interests of the species in the human kingdom, as in the animal and plant kingdoms, always assert themselves at the cost of the interests of individuals, because these interests of the species coincide only with the interests of certain individuals, and it is this coincidence which constitutes the strength of these privileged individuals."
"Ricardo, rightly for his time, regards the capitalist mode of production as the most advantageous for production in general, as the most advantageous for the creation of wealth. He wants production for the sake of production and this with good reason. To assert, as sentimental opponents of Ricardo’s did, that production as such is not the object, is to forget that production for its own sake means nothing but the development of human productive forces, in other words the development of the richness of human nature as an end in itself. To oppose the welfare of the individual to this end, as Sismondi does, is to assert that the development of the species must be arrested in order to safeguard the welfare of the individual, so that, for instance, no war may be waged in which at all events some individuals perish. (Sismondi is only right as against the economists who conceal or deny this contradiction.) Apart from the barrenness of such edifying reflections, they reveal a failure to understand the fact that, although at first the development of the capacities of the human species takes place at the cost of the majority of human individuals and even classes, in the end it breaks through this contradiction and coincides with the development of the individual; the higher development of individuality is thus only achieved by a historical process during which individuals are sacrificed for the interests of the species in the human kingdom, as in the animal and plant kingdoms, always assert themselves at the cost of the interests of individuals, because these interests of the species coincide only with the interests of certain individuals, and it is this coincidence which constitutes the strength of these privileged individuals.
"Thus Ricardo’s ruthlessness was not only scientifically honest but also a scientific necessity from his point of view. But because of this it is also quite immaterial to him whether the advance of the productive forces slays landed property or workers. If this progress devalues the capital of the industrial bourgeoisie it is equally welcome to him. If the development of the productive power of labour halves the value of the existing fixed capital, what does it matter, says Ricardo. The productivity of human labour has doubled, Thus here is scientific honesty. Ricardo’s conception is, on the whole, in the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie, only because, and in so far as their interests coincide with that of production or the productive development of human labour. Where the bourgeoisie comes into conflict with this, he is just as ruthless towards it as he is at other times towards the proletariat and the aristocracy." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch09.htm
Ted