The naive concept of alienation runs as follows. A person works. The labor is reflected in the value represented by something other than the worker. The worker forgoes this valuable something. In doing so, the worker also lets his or her own time and ability go. Here, alienation has a twofold meaning. On the one hand, there is the structural meaning, where the worker is at a loss as to how his or her labor is connected to the whole. In other words, the worker cannot associate his or her own labor with the whole. On the other hand, the concept is psychological, for the labor appears to the worker as something which is constantly sucked into a vacuum-like Beyond. It is this feeling of hollowness that is particularly problematic about alienation.
If alienation is to be taken in this purely negative sense, then it is something to be criticized and overcome. There cannot be two types of alienation. However, reading The Philosophy of Right, especially the first chapter where the term "alienation" or "conveyance" (depending on the translation) is introduced, gives the reader the idea that perhaps there is a way of "alienating" one's own labor in such a way that is neither structurally nor psychologically taxing. If the experience of having one's labor be sucked into the void of the unknown whole can be called "external alienation," then the experience of letting one's labor go in such a way that allows one to keep a relation to this labor may be called "reflective alienation" - reflective, since the forgoing or externalizing of one's labor is at the same time taken as the extension of one's self. This latter kind of alienation might appear contradictory and thus impossible or unreal, but I do think that there are grounds for supposing that it is indeed something that really occurs. In fact, there even are cases where a worker desires to let go of his or her labor, to disperse it in the world, and to enjoy the unknown and unforeseeable consequences of such an act of alienation. If such a concept is possible, then perhaps it might serve as a key to an ethical form of work which is not dependent upon larger systemic changes.
