Marx, alienation and emancipation: the subordinate character of the category of exploitation in the Marxian analysis of the capitalist society

Abstract

terpiece Capital is certainly to retrieve its original meaning of scientificcritique of the social conditions that, on the one hand, create the materialconditions to human emancipation while, on the other, block it: namely, thesociety ruled by capital. This is because in the 20th century the linkage betweenscientific critique and human emancipation has been lost in the midst of anatmosphere combining a new wave of conservative thought with the completedishonor of the vulgarized versions of Marxism that supported the so-called realsocialism. In order to overcome the weighty legacy of this period and to restorethat fundamental meaning of Capital it is unavoidable to resume its argumentsright from the beginning: that is to say, the analysis of the circulation ofcommodities and the forms of consciousness implied by it.