How did Karl Marx explain the effects of capitalism on industrial workers?

Karl Marx argued that capitalism fundamentally exploits industrial workers by siphoning off the value they create. According to his labour theory of value, workers are the true source of economic value, yet they are paid only a fraction of what they produce. The remainder, which Marx termed surplus value, is appropriated by capitalists as profit.12

Beyond economic exploitation, Marx identified the phenomenon of alienation, which estranges workers in four ways:
* From the product: Workers do not own the goods they create.1
* From the process: Factory conditions reduce workers to mere "appendages of the machine," stripping them of creative satisfaction.13
* From their human potential: Labour becomes a forced means of survival rather than a fulfilling expression of human capacity.13
* From others: Workers are forced into competition with one another for jobs and wages.1

Marx further argued that these conditions are obscured by ideology and religion, which he famously called "the opium of the people," as they lead workers to accept their impoverished status.13