A concept put forth by Marx in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844; this concept was formed on the basis of the accumulation of his earlier intellectual development and in the process of critically assimilating the theories of estrangement of his predecessors and contemporaries. And the relation between estranged labor and private property is the chief clue to understand Marx’s early thought. In Marx’s view, man is what he is by productive labor, and productive labor, or free and conscious activity, is the essence of mankind. Labor connects man with the world of objects. Man is an objective being, while man also possesses essential powers, including physical faculties, purpose, planning, and wisdom, etc. Through his labor, man transfers and imprints his own essential powers on the world of objects and creates an objective world that belongs to him. Labor as the species-being of man, the world of objects, the products of labor, and the objective activity should be a “manifestation” and the “confirmation” of the essential powers of man. In Marx’s view, labor should be an activity in which the subject of labor dynamically creates objects for its own realization, and should embody the essence of the working subject, but under the conditions of private property, labor has become an activity that does not depend on the working subject, and in turn dominates and enslaves the working subject, and labor has assumed an estranged nature.
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