Editing Marx's theory of alienation (section)

=== From a worker's product ===
Marx begins with an account of man's alienation from the products of his labour. In work, a worker ''objectifies'' his labour in the object that he produces.{{sfn|Petrović|1967|p=83}}  The objectification of a worker's labour is simultaneously its alienation. The worker loses control of the product to the owner of the [[means of production]], the [[capitalist]]. The product's sale by the capitalist further reinforces the capitalist's power of wealth over the worker.{{sfn|Arthur|1986}} The worker thus relates to the product as an alien object, which dominates and enslaves him. The products of his labour constitute a separate world of objects, which is alien to him.{{sfn|Petrović|1967|p=83}} The worker creates an object, which appears to be his property. However, he now becomes its property. Where in earlier historical epochs, one person ruled over another, now the thing rules over the person, the product over the producer.{{sfn|Leopold|2007|p=230}}

The design of the product and how it is produced are determined, not by the producers who make it (the workers), nor by the consumers of the product (the buyers), but by the [[capitalist class]] who besides accommodating the worker's manual labour also accommodate the intellectual labour of the [[engineer]] and the [[industrial designer]] who create the product in order to shape the [[Taste (sociology)|taste]] of the consumer to buy the goods and services at a price that yields a maximal [[profit (economics)|profit]]. Aside from the workers having no control over the design-and-production protocol, alienation (''Entfremdung'') broadly describes the conversion of labour (work as an activity), which is performed to generate a [[use value]] (the product), into a commodity, which—like products—can be assigned an [[exchange value]]. That is, the capitalist gains control of the manual and intellectual workers and the benefits of their labour, with a system of industrial production that converts this labour into concrete products (goods and services) that benefit the consumer. Moreover, the capitalist production system also [[Reification (Marxism)|reifies]] labour into the "concrete" concept of "work" (a job), for which the worker is paid wages— at the lowest-possible rate— that maintain a maximum rate of return on the capitalist's [[investment capital]]; this is an aspect of [[Exploitation of labour|exploitation]]. Furthermore, with such a reified system of industrial production, the profit (exchange value) generated by the sale of the goods and services (products) that could be paid to the workers is instead paid to the capitalist classes: the functional capitalist, who manages the means of production; and the [[Rentier capitalism|rentier capitalist]], who owns the means of production.