Abstract

The dissertation is a comparative analysis of the labor theories of Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse which reveals fundamental differences between the two theories. Marcuse's theory, as developed in Eros and Civilization, is essentially Freudian in its identification of repression as an inherent characteristic of labor activity and of natural conditions of scarcity as the source of repression in labor. This view is contrasted with Marx's theory of alienation, which condition arises from the social relations within which production and labor are organized. Marcuse's attempt to modify Freud's theory along Marxian lines by claiming that human instinctual structure and responses are primarily determined by social conditions fails because it does not articulate adequately the conditions required for distinguishing nonrepressive from repressive productive activity. Marx's theory of alienation is examined with particular emphasis on production and labor in precapitalist societies in order to show that while labor is limited in these societies, it becomes alienated only within the context of the capitalist mode of production. This analysis of underlying differences in the sources and conditions of repression and alienation are then applied to distinguishing the apparently similarly conditions under which repression and alienation can be overcome