Marx held that it is through work that we realize our “species character,” and this consists in our being both rational and social beings. For him it follows that we get alienated from ourselves when the product of our work is appropriated, since that product is a concrete manifestation of one’s own most human possibilities. The worker’s product is “torn away” from him, and Marx suggests that it becomes an alien thing, hateful to him, because it is used by another.
