This chapter focuses on the core content of Marx’s theory of alienated labor, specifically analyzing the phenomenon of alienation in wage-labor. In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx reveals that the proletarian poverty under capitalism results from wage-labor. In the capitalist mode of production, labor is separated from capital and land, and workers are forced to sell their labor power and become commodities. The wealth created by workers is appropriated by capitalists, leading to their poverty even amid overall social wealth accumulation, thereby reducing them to “slaves of capital.” Marx further analyzes the opposition between alienated labor and real labor. He argues that free and conscious activity is man’s species-being, but under capitalist private ownership, alienated labor becomes an oppressive force against workers. Labor itself is reduced to a coerced, painful means of survival, causing the alienation of man’s species-being from individuals and ultimately manifesting as the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Additionally, Marx examines the relationship between alienated labor and private property, asserting that alienated labor under capitalism is the root of private property, and the two interact dialectically. Only by abolishing private ownership can alienation be overcome and true human emancipation be achieved.