Wages of Labour and Alienated Labour

Study Questions
The following questions are offered to you as an optional guide to enhance your textual understanding of
the text. If at any point you feel totally drawn into the world of Rousseau and prefer not to stop at each
step to read yet another study question, do feel free to do so.
Para. 1-2
What situation is the capitalist in?
What situation is the worker in?
Whose situation does Marx empathize with?
Para. 3-5
What determines the wage of the worker?
What happens when the supply exceeds the demand of workers?
What determines the demand of workers?
Who is in greater control of the wage of workers the workers themselves or the
capitalist?
Note the bestial existence of the worker that Marx accuses Smith of proposing,
and the more general existence of the worker that Marx himself proposes. Keep
this in mind and try to find clues as to what he may mean as you read on.
Para. 6-8
How does wage compare with profit and ground rent in terms of their price
fluctuation?
What other factors contribute to the variations in wage?
What is the result of the wage variation for the worker?
Para. 9-11
How is work described?
Besides physical subsistence, what else must the worker struggle for?
Here, Marx refers to the existence of the worker again. How does he describe this
existence in relation to work?
Para. 12
What happens to the worker when the wealth of a society decreases?
What about when it increases?
What is Marxs chief concern for the worker?

Para. 13-14
What happens to the worker when the wealth of a society increases?
Does Marx think increase of wealth is a good or bad thing for the individual worker
and the working class as a whole?
Is it the individual worker or the working class as a whole that Marx is more
concerned about?
What is the relation between the worker and the capitalist in a society of increasing
wealth?
What does Marx mean by the mechanical kind of labour in division of labour?
What is he suggesting to be a better kinds of labour, or the workers own labour?
Para. 15-17
What happens to the capitalists when the wealth of a society increases?
What does work become for the worker?
Can the workers share the increasing wealth of the society?
Para. 18-21
How does Marx answer the question he puts himself: the condition of the worker in
the state of growth?
What is the difference between Marx and Smith in their conclusion about
increasingly wealth of a society?
Para. 22-24
What function does the first paragraph play?
What are Marxs point-by-point objections against political economy?
Para. 25-28
In these paragraphs, Marx talks about how the workers relation to the physical
world changes as he produces:
When he produces more goods, does he become richer?
What does the worker become?
While the activity of labour increases the value of things, what about the value of
the human world?
How is the worker related to the product of his labour?
How does his physical and inner condition change? What situation does he find
himself in?
What becomes of the workers life?
What does Marx call this process resulting from the activity of labour organized for
division of labour and exchange?

To conclude his main point in these paragraphs, can you think of an example of a
product of labour that you sometimes find to be external to the producer?
Para. 29-31
What are the two ways that nature is significant for the activity of labour?
How is the worker deprived as he produces?
What are the two senses that labour is living and active?
When labour becomes an object of work, what happens to the worker?
Para. 32-35
What stylistic techniques has Marx used to summarize his argument?
What is Marxs objection to political economy?
Para. 36-40
In addition to the first kind of alienation relation of the worker to his product, what
is the second kind of alienation Marx proposes?
How does Marx explain the meaning of external character of work or external
labour?
How does the worker feel in this situation?
What is lost in this kind of work in the workers activity and himself as a human?
Para. 41
This is a summary of Marxs ideas laid out in previous paragraphs. What does Marx
call the two main forms of alienation?
Para. 42-47
Note how Marx introduces a third characteristic of alienated labour by announcing it
explicitly in the beginning of the paragraph.
What does Marx mean by man as a species-being? How does man treat nature in
his species-being?
Marx suggests that species-life is larger than individual life of physical existence.
How so?
What is the species-character of human beings? How does this make human beings
different from animals?
Para. 48-50
When man is conscious of himself as a species-being, how does he become different
from animals?
Notice how Marx uses specific examples of animal behaviour to offer a general
evaluation of man. Marx has not given any example of what man produces but
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focuses on how he does. What are mans principles of production, as different from
animals?
What does Marx value in man?
What does alienated labour do to this relation between man and his species-life?
Para. 51-54
Notice how Marx, again, summarizes what he has been talking about in pervious
paragraphs on forms of alienation, to another component of species-life mans
relation to other man. Why is this alienation important?
Notice how Marx has moved from alienation of labour as an economic fact to
human alienation. Again, what does this tell us about what Marx values in man?
Para. 55-56
Notice how Marx transits from one way analysis to another, and announcing it
explicitly as a topic sentence. What is his subject in the upcoming section?
In making the point that it is important for the product of labour to belong to me
who labours, Marx proposes a reason for the product of labour to become an alien
power. What is this reason?
Para. 57-58
Marx intensified his analysis on the relation between man and other men in
alienated labour:
How does he describe this relation?
What example does he give to illustrate the practical relation of man to his fellow
men?
Para. 59-63
What form of economic institution does the alienation between man and his fellow
men result in?
What is Marxs evaluation of private property?