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Research on the Subjective Thought of Alienated Labor

Xiaoyang Feng
Vol.10, No.9, pp.22-32, 2026 DOI: 10.62051/ijsspa.v10n9.03 September 28, 2026
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Abstract: Since the concept of human essence in Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 is often identified as an immature product of the young Marx's thought that has not yet broken away from Feuerbach's humanist presuppositions, the positioning of human beings within the subject of social history has been weakened, even impacting the understanding of Marx's view of history. Revisiting the textual study of the Manuscripts aims to clarify the following three points: First, when Marx analyzed the fourfold determinations of alienated labor based on labor activity, he examined the fact of private property in political economy from the perspective of the subjective initiative of workers' labor, thereby initiating a new narrative linking the worker as subject to capitalist history. Second, in the process of questioning the historical causes of alienated labor, Marx discovered that changes in capitalist socio-historical relations constitute the truth of the worker's subjective content, based on which he derived the goal of a genuine communist movement. Third, at the level of philosophical theory, Marx consciously reflected on and criticized Hegel's speculative dialectics centered on spirit as subject, absorbed its rational form, and thereby made possible the transcendence of Feuerbach and the construction of a historical dialectics.
Keywords: Human Essence, Subjectivity, Socio-historical Relations, Historical Dialectics
APA Citation: Xiaoyang Feng (2026). Research on the Subjective Thought of Alienated Labor. International Journal of Social Sciences and Public Administration, 10(9), 22-32. https://doi.org/10.62051/ijsspa.v10n9.03

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