Capitalist labor is external to workers, denying rather than affirming them

Evidence

What, then constitutes the alienation of labor? First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does 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 himself outside himself… . It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it… . External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 722

Categorization

• DEFINE: Marx’s definition of alienated labor, quoted as the book’s analytic frame for the chapter.
• XREF: connects to: Capitalism’s socialized labor is experienced by individuals as alien market relations — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 889

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s socialized labor is experienced by individuals as alien market relations #expands (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 889