only labour as the end product of his efforts. Theemerging condition is that he works to create more work. For Marx the monotonousredundancy of this condition is highly detrimental because the worker loses himself in hisefforts. He argues that this situation is analogous to a man and his religion. Marx writes,"The more man puts into God the less he retains in himself....The worker puts his life intothe object, but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object." The result of theworker belonging to the object is that he is enslaved. The worker belongs to somethingelse and his actions are dictated by that thing. For Marx, labour turns man into a means.Workers become nothing more than the capital necessary to produce a product. Labourfor Marx reduces man to a means of production. As a means of production man isdiminished to a subsisting enslaved creature void of his true nature. In this condition he isreduced to the most detrimental state of man: one in which he is estranged from himself.To help expand on this theme it is useful to look at Marx's allegory of man's life-activity.Life-activity and the Nature of ManOf the variety of reasons Marx argues man is estranged from his labour, probably themost significant is his belief that labour estranges man from himself. Marx argues that thelabour the worker produces does not belong to the worker so in essence the worker doesnot belong to the worker. By virtue of this condition Marx argues the worker is enslaved.Enslavement for Marx is a condition alien to man and he becomes estranged from himself.For Marx, man estranged from himself is stripped of his very nature. Not only because heis enslaved but because his life-activity has been displaced. For Marx mans character isfree, conscious activity, and mans pursuit of his character is his life-activity. Manslife-activity is then the object of his life. So by nature, mans own life is the object of hisexistence. This is mans condition before...
