István Mészáros notes that the language and terminology of the Manuscripts is one of the work's main difficulties. [10] He mentions that a key term " Aufhebung" can be translated from German to English simultaneously as "transcendence", "suppression", "preserving" and "overcoming". [17] Christopher J. Arthur comments that the term, which appears in Hegel's Science of Logic, has in ordinary language the double meaning of "to abolish" and "to preserve". Arthur translates the word as "supersede" when the stress is more on abolition, and as "sublate" when the emphasis is more on preservation. [18] Gregory Benton translates the word as "transcendence" and "supersession", and notes that Marx's concept of "critique" is an instance of this double movement. [19]

Althusser, Louis (2005) [1965]. "Introduction: Today". For Marx. Translated by Brewster, Ben. London: Verso. pp.21–40. ISBN 978-1-84467-052-9.

Marcuse, Herbert (1972) [1932]. "The Foundation of Historical Materialism". Studies in Critical Philosophy. Beacon Press Boston. pp.1–48. ISBN 0-8070-1528-8 . Retrieved 21 September 2020. This refers to Georg Ludwig Wilhelm Funke, Die aus der unbeschrdnklen Theilbarkeit des Grundeigenthums hervorgehenden Nachtheile, Hamburg und Gotha, 1839, p. 56, in which there is a reference to Heinrich Leo, Studien und Skizzen zu einer Vaturlehre des Slaates, Halle, 1833, p. 102. Hegel believes that reality is Spirit realizing itself, and that alienation consists in men's failure to understand that their environment and their culture are emanations of Spirit. Spirit's existence is constituted only in and through its own productive activity. In the process of realizing itself, Spirit produces a world that it initially believes is external, but gradually comes to understand is its own production. The aim of history is freedom, and freedom consists in men's becoming fully self-conscious. [68] The third dimension of alienation that Marx discusses is man's alienation from his species. [36] Marx here uses Feuerbachian terminology to describe man as a " species-being". [37] Man is a self-conscious creature who can appropriate for his own use the whole realm of inorganic nature. While other animals produce, they produce only what is immediately necessary. Man, on the other hand, produces universally and freely. He is able to produce according to the standard of any species and at all times knows how to apply an intrinsic standard to the object. [36] Man thus creates according to the laws of beauty. [38] This transformation of inorganic nature is what Marx calls man's "life-activity", and it is man's essence. Man has lost his species-being because his life-activity has been turned into a mere means of existence. [39]

In the 1844 manuscripts, written when still a young man, Marx struggled to articulate what was so problematic about the current system of capitalism. These early passages of Marx demonstrate the fundamental problems of social relations under class rule. Rather than focus on the concept of exploitation, or what was economically unfair about the social relationship between capitalist and worker, Marx critiqued the historical development of hired labor and the ways in which this kind of work dehumanizes those who take part in it. We are fully ourselves when we work, but we have socially arranged our work so that it is alien to us, a hostile power at another’s command. Marx uses the word alienation (or estrangement) to describe this dehumanization. Take note of the various aspects of alienation discussed by Marx. Levine, Norman (2006). Divergent Paths: The Hegelian foundations of Marx's method. Lexington Books. Loudon’s work was a translation into French of an English manuscript apparently never published in the original. The author did publish in English a short pamphlet - The Equilibrium of Population and Sustenance Demonstrated, Leamington, 1836. We have now covered the first two aspects of alienation: first, alienation from the product, and second, alienation from the process. We now have to consider two more.Moses Hess published three articles in the collection Ein-und-zwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz (Twenty-One Sheets from Switzerland), Erster Teil ( Zürich und Winterthur, 1843), issued by Georg Herwegh. These articles, entitled “ Sozialismus und Kommunismus,”“ Philosophie der Tat” and “Die Eine und die ganze Freiheit,” were published anonymously. The first two of them had a note - “Written by the author of ’Europäische Triarchie’.” Certainly eating, drinking, procreating, etc., are also genuinely human functions. But taken abstractly, separated from the sphere of all other human activity and turned into sole and ultimate ends, they are animal functions. First Published: 1932 (the manuscripts had been thereto lost) in German, by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}}}\) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\) In English this work was first published in 1959 by the Foreign Languages Publishing House (now Progress Publishers), Moscow, translated by Martin Milligan.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 deprived poor people considered able to work (including children) of any public relief except a place in the workhouse, where they were compelled to work. This refers to Revolutions de France et de Brabant, par Camille Desmoulins. Second Trimestre, contenant mars, avril et mai, Paris, l’an 1ier, 1790, N. 16, p. 139 sq.; N. 23, p. 425 sqq.; N. 26, p. 580 sqq. Marx here refers to Feurbach’s critical observations on Hegel in §§ 29-30 of his Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft. McLellan, David (1980) [1970]. Marx Before Marxism (Seconded.). London: The Macmillan Press Ltd. ISBN 978-0-333-27883-3. In 1838 the Manchester factory owners Cobden and Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, which widely exploited the popular discontent at rising corn prices. While agitating for the abolition of the corn duties and demanding complete freedom of trade, the League strove to weaken the economic and political positions of the landed aristocracy and to lower workers’ wages.

by Karl Marx

The position of those who consider that compared to the Marx of Capital, the Marx of the Manuscripts sets out in a more "total" and "integral" way the problem of alienated labor, especially by giving an ethical, anthropological, and even philosophical dimension to the idea; these people either contrast the two Marxs or else "re-evaluate" Capital in the light of the Manuscripts.