Karl Marx, the worker and the object.

Karl Marx's statement, "The worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object," expresses his critique of the capitalist system and the concept of alienation. In a capitalist society, Marx believed that workers are estranged from the products of their labor, the labor process, themselves, and their fellow human beings.

This quote specifically refers to the idea of commodity fetishism and the alienation of the worker from the product of their labor. In a capitalist society, the worker produces goods or services for a wage, but the value they create is owned and controlled by the capitalist or employer. The worker's labor becomes a commodity bought and sold in the market, and the product of their labor is owned by someone else. As a result, workers are disconnected from the output of their work.

1. Marx argued that this alienation had several consequences: Workers lose control over their work, as the capitalist determines the production process and the ultimate use of the product.
2. The labor process becomes a means to an end (earning a wage) rather than a fulfilling and creative activity.
3. Workers become alienated from their human potential, as they are reduced to mere cogs in a machine, rather than expressing their full capacities as individuals.
4. Workers are alienated from each other, as they compete for jobs and wages, rather than cooperating and working together for the common good.

According to Marx, this alienation is a fundamental aspect of capitalism and can only be overcome through a transformation of the economic system, leading to the establishment of socialism and ultimately communism, where workers would own and control the means of production, and labor would be a source of personal fulfillment and social connection.