Cross refrencing marx

I agree with this, it's been on my mind for a long time. It's very interesting though.

Marx's Theory of Alienation is based upon his observation that in emerging industrial production under capitalism, workers inevitably lose control of their lives and selves, in not having any control of their work. Workers never become autonomous, self-realized human beings in any significant sense, except the way the bourgeois want the worker to be realized. Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because in work each contributes to the common wealth, but can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not publicly social, but privately owned, for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being:

'Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have in two ways affirmed himself and the other person. 1) In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also when looking at the object I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses and hence a power beyond all doubt. 2) In your enjoyment or use of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified man’s essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man’s essential nature. ... Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.'" (Comment on James Mill)

Marx attributes four types of alienation in labour under capitalism.^[1] These include the alienation of the worker from his or her ‘species essence’ as a human being rather than a machine; between workers, since capitalism reduces labour to a commodity to be traded on the market, rather than a social relationship; of the worker from the product, since this is appropriated by the capitalist class, and so escapes the worker's control; and from the act of production itself, such that work comes to be a meaningless activity, offering little or no intrinsic satisfactions.

Marx also put emphasis on the role of religion in the alienation process, independently from his famous quote on the opium of the masses. ^[2]

Simply put and taken directly from George Ritzer's: "Contemporary Sociological Theory and It's Roots", the four types of alienation of workers from capitalist/owners are: -Activities of the workers are chosen by the owners, capitalist; who in return pay them. -Ownership of production/product in hands of capitalist. -Workers are likely to be separated from their fellow workers. -Workers driven away from their potential and tasks become mindless.