Many moons ago, during a conversation with Yanthor, I happened to mention the inherently unfulfilling nature of alienated labor. He asked what I had meant by the term "alienated labor". I had to stop and think to try to come up with a definition. Having heard the term used by others many times before in passing, the concept seemed fairly clear in my head, but coming up other words to define it without resorting to circular references was challenging. (That's why I don't write dictionaries.) I roughly described it as work done under the direction of someone else, and not of your own free will. I knew my definition wasn't quite sufficient, but I couldn't think of anything more precise at the time.

Tonight, I googled, and found out the origin of the term, as well as a lot of other interesting material. Unsurprisingly, it has its origins in the writings of Karl Marx. He used it to describe a condition in which the product of a person's labor becomes, psychologically speaking, a separate entity from the one who produced it. Or, "taking away labor's value from workers in order to create profits." The result is a misery-producing cycle which separates people from nature, their fellow humans, and ultimately themselves.

Anyway, the article I'm linking to, in addition to providing a far more expansive definition than I just did (the entire first section is devoted to defining the concept), adds a corollary beyond what Marx conceived: Alienated Consumption. By consuming products which one had no part in producing, a person's relationship with the rest of the world becomes estranged, especially when such consumption is predicated upon false needs, the illusion of which are created through advertising. But it gets even better.

The article posits that a practical solution to eating disorders might lie in removing the alienating factor from the food production/consumption chain. People who have bulimia, anorexia, binges, or other such problems might be aided by cooking their own food, rather than relying on processed, pre-packaged foods. (Even better if people could grow it from their own gardens, but the article admits that might not be practical for many people.) This theory is based on the supposition that a major cause of eating disorders comes from food being reified by those who consume it. By increasing non-alienated labor and non-alienated consumption, people are able to form a healthier relationship with their food, and thus life a more fulfilling life. Makes sense to me.