Based on the sources, Karl Marx's primary moral concern about capitalism centers on its inherent tendencies toward **exploitation** and **alienation**. These issues, for Marx, were not merely economic problems but fundamental affronts to human dignity and potential, stemming from the very structure of the capitalist system. To explore this further, let's break down these two core critiques: **1. Exploitation:** At the heart of Marx's critique of capitalism is the idea that it is a system built on the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist. From a Marxist perspective, the most important commodity is labor itself, which workers must sell to the owners of the means of production because labor has the ability to create value. - **Surplus Value:** Marx's crucial concept of surplus value explains both the capitalist's profit and the worker's exploitation. He defines surplus value as the difference between the value of the wages the worker receives and the value of what the worker has produced. The capitalist pays the worker only enough to reproduce their labor power (essentially, enough to live and keep working). However, the value the worker creates through their labor is _more_ than the value of their wages. This difference is appropriated by the capitalist as profit. This concept is central to Marx's theory of exploitation. - **Unequal Power and Coercion:** While the exchange of labor for wages might appear to be a free and just exchange of equal value on one level, Marx argues that it is fundamentally unjust due to the unequal power between capitalists and workers and the coercion inherent in the labor market. Workers must sell their labor to survive, placing them in a position of dependence on those who own the raw materials, tools, and factories. The sources highlight that the relation between the owners of the means of production and the workers is "fundamentally iniquitous" and a "master-slave relationship". - **Systemic Necessity:** The sources emphasize that this appropriation of surplus value isn't just an accidental feature; it is systematically linked to capitalism. Capitalism, as a system, could not sustain itself without the appropriation of surplus value. The extent of exploitation is argued to be even greater under capitalism compared to previous systems like feudalism, mainly because technological development under capitalism dramatically reduced the value required to reproduce labor power, thereby increasing the surplus value that could be appropriated. - **Link to Division of Labor:** Marx's analysis of the economic foundation of society, particularly in his mature work, links exploitation directly to the division of labor. The division of labor between producers (workers) and owners of the means of production leads to a situation where the product of labor belongs to the nonproductive owner, not the one who created it. This division, Marx argues, is the source of private property and leads inevitably to class division and class struggle. So, for Marx, it wasn't just that some people were poor; it was that the wealth of the capitalist was built _through_ the poverty and lack of full compensation for the worker's labor. This process of "pumping out" unpaid surplus labor is described as an invariant feature of every mode of production, giving shape to the entire system of social relations. The critique isn't just about economic imbalance, but about a moral wrong embedded within the very mechanism by which value is produced and distributed under capitalism. **2. Alienation:** Beyond material exploitation, Marx was deeply concerned with the way capitalism alienated individuals from fundamental aspects of their humanity. Alienation, or estrangement, occurs when things that belong together are separated by something else. In capitalist society, Marx argues, this separation is systematic. - **Human Nature (Species-Being):** Marx's concern with alienation is rooted in his understanding of human nature, or "species-being". Unlike animals whose activity is instinctual, humans are capable of free, conscious activity. Our essence is expressed through production, creating things that manifest our vision and respond to needs. Under ideal circumstances, human productive activity would be a free and creative endeavor. Humans, as universal beings, produce knowledge, culture, and technology for the whole human race. - **Four Forms of Alienation:** Capitalism alienates workers in several key ways: 1. **From the product of their labor:** The goods workers produce do not belong to them. They are taken by the capitalist and sold. The product becomes an alien object, outside the worker and even hostile to them, enabling the capitalist's profit and dominance. The more the worker produces, the less value they seem to have as a commodity themselves. 2. **From the act of producing:** Labor under capitalism is forced labor, not determined by personal interest or creativity, but compelled purely for survival. The worker feels external to their work; they only feel themselves outside of it. Productive activity is degraded into "animal labor," a mere means to satisfy physical needs, rather than an expression of creative human power. 3. **From their species-essence (species-being):** By alienating workers from their creative, conscious productive activity, capitalism alienates them from the essential qualities that make them human. Their creative powers, which could develop under conditions of genuine freedom, are restricted and underdeveloped under the division of labor. This division of labor, especially the detailed subdivision of tasks in capitalist manufacture, is seen as debilitating to both mind and body. 4. **From fellow human beings:** Capitalism estranges individuals from each other. Fellow workers become strangers and competitors. The fundamental social relations are distorted, appearing as relations between _things_ (commodities) rather than between people. This reification, the transformation of human qualities and relations into objective "thingness," is seen as a central feature of capitalism. The system makes relations among people "give way to relations among things". - **Alienation of the Capitalist:** Interestingly, Marx also suggested that capitalists are alienated, though they feel comfortable in this state as it represents their power. Capitalists are compelled to prioritize profit over their own dreams or passions to remain competitive. - **Subjective Experience:** Alienation is described as the experiential reflection of the problematic capitalist production process. While some later Marxists like Adorno and Althusser were wary of focusing too much on consciousness or a pre-supposed "human essence" when discussing alienation and reification, the concept highlights a "world from which the human is being eliminated altogether" or reduced to mere commodities. - **Beyond the Economic:** While rooted in economic production, alienation, for Marx, infiltrates all aspects of human life – politics, law, family, morality, religion – turning them into forms of human slavery to the "money-God" of capitalism. Money itself is seen as a powerful, alienating force that transforms values and relationships. In essence, Marx saw capitalism as profoundly dehumanizing. It reduces complex human beings with creative potential to mere cogs in a machine, valued only for the labor power they can sell to generate profit for others. Their lives become subordinated to the regime of making and selling things. This degradation of everyday life, making it routinized and potentially 'cretinized,' is another aspect of this critique, where individuals' capacity for autonomous action is channeled into the pursuit of commodities. **Connecting the Concerns:** Exploitation and alienation are deeply intertwined in Marx's thought. The economic structure that enables exploitation (private property, division of labor, surplus value) is precisely what causes alienation. The worker is exploited because they are alienated from the product of their labor and compelled to sell their labor power; they are alienated because the system of exploitation turns their creative potential into a mere means for someone else's gain. For Marx, overcoming these fundamental moral wrongs requires a radical transformation of society, moving beyond capitalism to a system like communism where the division of labor, private property, and the focus on profit are abolished, allowing for the reappropriation of human essence and the free development of all human powers. This vision represents a struggle against the "dehumanisation which culminates in capitalism". These are some of the key aspects of Marx's primary moral concerns as presented in the sources. You can see how they go beyond simple poverty to address deeper issues of human freedom, self-realization, and social relationships within the capitalist mode of production. To delve deeper, you might explore the development of Marx's ideas from his early writings on alienation to his later, more detailed economic analyses in _Capital_, or how later Marxists have grappled with or critiqued these core concepts.