[“In estranging from man (1) nature, and (2) himself, his own active functions, his life-activity, estranged labour estranges the species from man. It turns for him the life of the species [Gattungsleben] into a means of individual life. First it estranges the life of the species and individual life, and secondly it makes individual life in its abstract form the purpose of the life of the species, likewise in its abstract and estranged form.

For in the first place labour, life-activity, productive life itself, appears to man merely as a means of satisfying a need — the need to maintain the physical existence. Yet the productive life is the life of the species. It is life-engendering life. The whole character of a species its species character is contained in the character of its life-activity; and free, conscious activity is man’s species character. Life itself appears only as a means to life [Lebensmittel]” (Karl #Marx, Manuscripts, 76).](https://epochemagazine.org/32/marx-and-anti-oedipus-on-desiring-ones-own-suppression/)