Karl Marx believed that workers in a capitalist economy experience alienation because they are not able to control their own labor. They are also paid based on their labor, not on their worth as human beings. In other words, workers are paid for the amount of work they do, but not for how hard they work or how much value they provide. If you run into someone who is working hard and providing a lot of value, but who is not getting paid well, then you may see alienation in action.
Marx saw capitalism as an exploitive system that exploits workers and forces them to work long hours for little pay. He believed that capitalism created this alienation by taking away the worker’s freedom over his or her own labor. Marx believed that under capitalism, workers are alienated from the fruits of their labor because they have no control over what happens to the product after it leaves their hands. Workers do not get paid for all of the effort they put into creating something; they only get paid for the time spent doing it. Marx called this “wage slavery.”
In addition, he said that workers were also alienated from each other in capitalist societies because they did not have much opportunity to socialize with each other or develop close relationships due to long work hours and poor working conditions.
