Value-form
The Western Left academics are nowadays very happy to talk about "varieties of capitalism", but talking about "varieties of socialism" remains almost an absolute "no-no". Most Marxists continue to believe in "only one" (Marxian) socialism: either that, or nothing at all. "Either" a society or movement conforms to the true concept of socialism, "or" it does not; and if it does not, it "cannot be" socialism. However, precisely "because" there are many different Marxist beliefs about socialism, Marxists cannot agree among themselves whether Soviet-type societies were socialist, capitalist, or something else. Some countries meet with the moral expectations which Marxists have, and others do not.Originally Marx and Engels themselves had heckled the advocates of "true socialism", but later Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky promoted Marxist socialism as the one and true "scientific socialism" within the Socialist International. When he was 43 years old, Lenin stated: "The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true". Lenin's Communist International (a deliberate split with the social democrats) adopted Marxist socialism as its official political doctrine.
Assembly line
One of capitalism's most famous critics, Karl Marx, expressed in his "Entfremdung" theory the belief that in order to achieve job satisfaction workers need to see themselves in the objects they have created, that products should be "mirrors in which workers see their reflected essential nature." Marx viewed labour as a chance for us to externalize facets of our personality. Marxists argue that specialization makes it very difficult for any worker to feel they may be contributing to the real needs of humanity. The repetitive nature of specialized tasks causes, they say, a feeling of disconnection between what a worker does all day, who they really are, and what they would ideally be able to contribute to society. Marx also argued that specialised jobs are insecure, since the worker is expendable as soon as costs rise and technology can replace more expensive human labour.