An idea · Nineteenth Century · first attested 1844
Alienation
Under capitalism, workers become strangers to their work, their products, and themselves.
Marx in the 1844 Manuscripts. The worker under capitalism is alienated from (1) the product of labor, which belongs to another, (2) the act of labor, which is forced, (3) other workers, with whom they compete, and (4) their own human nature as a creative being. Alienation is not just unhappiness — it is a structural feature of the wage relation.