Human development and alienation in the context of economic crisis in Vietnam

Abstract

This article focuses on the link between alienation, commodity fetishism and human development. Alienation and commodity fetishism appear in different ways, very abstract and invisibly. People engage innocently with these phenomena without awareness of how their well-beings are related to. Empirically, this research reveals the alienation and commodity fetishism expressed in the adaptation of workers, managers and owners in factories during economically troubled times. What must be considered, however, is the consequences of all this for human development. After some criticism of human development based on the capability approach, Marxist implications are drawn for understanding of this process.