Human Potential stunted by Alienation

This week I learned all about Karl Marx, the German philosopher and economist who was concerned about the fact that people valued "primacy of matter over idea", meaning that humans valued possessions over other people, as revealed in our historical patterns of inequality of which materialism was the driving force. Marx was highly critical of Capitalism as a form of economy, because he viewed society as people belonging to either one of two classes; the rich ("the haves"), also known as the "bourgeoisie" and the poor ("the have nots") also referred to as "the proletarians. The problem was that the rich landowners just kept getting richer and the poor workers remained poor. He believed that only a complete overhaul of change in the Capitalistic economic system could bring about actual change regarding this inequality. He studied history and society scientifically by being the first great user of the critical method in social sciences. I also learned the concepts of commodity, use value and exchange value regarding the Capitalistic economy. Marx was concerned that people's ideas regarding use value, meaning "how useful is it" and exchange value or "how much can be fetched for it", became too far apart, he noted that people focused more on the exchange value of a commodity or valuable resource while losing sight of it's actual usefulness. This parlayed into the concept known as "the fetishism of commodities"where people are only concerned with obtaining the item while not concerning themselves about its method of acquisition. I immediately recalled a movie that I had watched entitled "Blood Diamond" starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The movie depicted the horrendous ways that the diamond mine workers were treated while unearthing the treasures that people adorn themselves with and how those same people turned a blind eye to that fact because their personal desire of obtaining the flawless stones were all they cared about, I thought that this was a great example of what Marx was worried about. The most interesting part of our week's lecture was the topic of Human Potential and whether or not we as a people are living up to our full potential. I automatically thought about how the role of labor being prevalent in this regard because our job is often regarded as something that we "have " to do, versus something that we "want" to do. Therefore, we are unable to partake in the activities that do harbor our full potential, because we are too preoccupied by our job that earns the income that we need. The discussion was all brought together by the underlying theme of alienation on the job. I could easily see the correlation between the weak relationship that many people have with their jobs, because one rarely gets to witness the fruits of their labor by the time the job is completed by someone else, so it is hard to develop a strong sense of connection to one's job. This is a prime example of what alienation in the labor market does to a person. People become disconnected or "alienated" from their projects because their level of creativity is non-existent, they feel distance from fellow co-workers, although their actual proximity is relatively close together because interaction is prohibited by their employers for fear of interrupting productivity. Collectively this creates a state of being alienated from their personal human potential, being all that they can be! If people were able to do a job that fulfilled their full potential perhaps they would not feel so alienated and therefore lead more satisfying lives.