Focus on section on Alienated Labor (pp. 58-68). You can read the other sections but, given our time constraints, I have narrowed down what we can realistically discuss using as criteria the sociological relevance of the readings.

1. pp. 58-59 Marx presents a critique of political economy which is applicable to modern sociology - can you identify its elements and apply it to current ways of doing sociology?

2. p. 59 The notion of "essential connection" is methodologically important. For Marx, the elements of social reality he is concerned with are related in essential, not contingent, ways. This means they presuppose each other and the goal of the theoretical and empirical investigation is the disentangling of these essential relations.

3. What is the concept of human nature that underlies Marx's discussion of alienation?

4. Important concepts:

   objectification of labor
   alienation
   externalization
   nature
   sensuous external world
   means of life
   appropriation
   physical subject
   process of production
   producing activity
   self-alienation
   species being
   inorganic body
   species life
   life activity
   objectification of man's species life
   private property
   human property

5. Give some thought to the relevance of the analysis of alienated labor to the study of contemporary social patterns and bring possible examples to class.