Abstract
The term ‘alienation’ is associated especially with the early writings of Karl Marx, for whom the core idea was that of human beings becoming detached from part of their ‘essence’. At one stage Marx hoped to demonstrate that all of the concepts of classical economics could be derived from the concept of alienation. As he matured, exploitation and surplus value replaced alienation at the heart of his analysis. Nevertheless, Marx’s observations regarding alienation remain insightful to this day.
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Bibliography
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Wolff, J. (2018). Alienation. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_116
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_116
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