system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are there any writers who posit that nihilism (and its reaction, existentialism) stem from alienation in capitalist society?

I've only just begun reading Nietzsche and Camus, so I'm not entirely well-versed in 'existentialism.' But being a big reader of Marx, it seems to me that one could explain the historical rise in nihilism and existentialism with the advent of capitalist production and its correlating alienation. 

For example, taking Marx's earlier works, such as *Comments on James Mill*, *The Paris Manuscripts*, and *On the Jewish Question*, he attempts to explain the dehumanization of man as a species-being. The result is an isolated 'atom' within a seemingly apathetic world, both material and social. 

Yeah, you get the point. Are there any writers who tackle this possible connection?
gpt
There are plenty of thinkers who say pretty much exactly that. A good starting point might be Rahel Jaeggi's recent book *Alienation*, which surveys the two lines of post-Hegelian thought that develop this idea. These are, roughly, Kierkegaard (up through Heidegger and onward) and Marx and the traditions he started.

Adorno is consonant with these ideas. Marshall Berman's *All That is Solid Melts into Air* is a great book to address these sorts of questions. Sartre's *Search for a Method* is probably worth your time, since it's about tying up his existentialism with his Marxism. It'd probably be worth looking at Fredric Jameson's *Marxism and Form*, too. Anyway, yes, there are lots and lots of thinkers who make this connection. More than you could probably read in a decade if not a lifetime.