Gurevich P.S. From Hegel to Marx, from Marx to Baudrillard

Abstract: The subject of this research is the transformation of perceptions about labor from Hegel to Baudrillard. The article illustrates that Marxist interpretation of labor was based on the Hegel’s analysis of this phenomenon – that a man finds his essence in labor, which expresses release from nature and return to it. According to Marx, the main characteristic of people is their ability to embodiment (objectification) and realization of themselves in the product of their work; only by the virtue of this act of objectification, individuals find themselves capable of grasping their efforts and acquire self-conscience. Thus, the ability to voluntarily experience your own labor as a process of self-realization, forms a decisive prerequisite for good life. But this prerequisite is being destroyed by the establishment of capitalistic way of production, because wage labor deprives persons of the ability to control their work. Capitalism in such way presents a social form of life that opposes a man to its essence, by depriving him of the hope for a good life. Scientific novelty consists in the fact that the classical interpretation of the works of Hegel and Marx is being compared to the modern and post-modern views upon transformation of the entire social reality. Such outlooks allow looking at our reality from a complete different angle. Particularly, according to the opinion of Baudrillard, labor remains a human need, but in a different sense; it becomes equivalent to leisure.

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