Сoncept of Alienation in the Works of K. Marx and J. Baudrillard

Abstract

This article explores the idea of alienation in J. Baudrillard’s philosophy, which is both a continuation and a critique of K. Marx’s understanding of alienation. A comparison of both philosophies is drawn based on the specific example of the concept of alienation, which played an exceptionally important role in both Marx’s and Baudrillard’s concepts. Baudrillard, like Marx, uses the concept of alienation mainly as a tool to criticize modern society and the human condition in it. Moreover, like Marx, Baudrillard views alienation in close connection with the notion of private property. Yet along with this, as the article demonstrates, Baudrillard, in contrast to Marx, sees alienation not at all as a separation of man from his own universal essence, but on the contrary, as a dissolution in the social (to which Baudrillard attributed not a universal, but a concrete-historical meaning; this is reflected, for example, in the name consumer society for Western society in the second half of the 20th century).