Editing Marx's theory of alienation (section)

===''Entfremdung'' and social class ===

In Chapter 4 of ''[[The Holy Family (book)|The Holy Family]]'' (1845), Marx said that capitalists and proletarians are equally alienated, but that each [[social class]] experiences alienation in a different form: <blockquote>The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognises estrangement as its own power, and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated, this means that they cease to exist in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and in the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of Hegel, in its abasement, the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its condition of life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of that nature. Within this antithesis, the private property-owner is therefore the conservative side, and the proletarian the destructive side. From the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter the action of annihilating it.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch04.htm Chapter 4 of ''The Holy Family'']- see under Critical Comment No. 2</ref></blockquote>