OVERCOMING SOCIAL ALIENATION IN MARXIZM AND POST-INDUSTRIAL THEORY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

George Putin

doi:10.23856/4622

George Putin Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6007-5280

Keywords: alienation, knowledge, knowledge production, marxizm, post-industrial society, consumer society, postmodernism

Abstract

The article is devoted to the reflection of processes in the economy associated with intangible capital on social development. The author focuses on the problem of social alienation, formulated by Marx, and the possibilities of overcoming it, which are opening up in connection with the transition of the economy to the production of intellectual values. Using the method of comparison, the author explores how this problem is solved by representatives of two philosophical trends – post-industrialism (D. Bell, V.L. Inozemtsev, A. Toffler) and neo-Marxism (V.V. Orlov, J. Baudrillard, A.V. Buzgalin, A. Gorz). Both of them believe that the production of knowledge is incompatible with the commodity nature of the industrial economy. However, supporters of the post-industrial concept believe that overcoming the commodity form is possible within the framework of reforming capitalism, while Marxists argue that the «knowledge economy» is achieved only by transforming of social relations. In addition to the actual economic aspects of this issue, the article examines the problems of creative labor, consumer society, relations between people, conflict of values through the prism of alienation.

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