Marx argues that capitalist society distorts men’s innate need to work by alienating them from their labor. Under capitalism, man denies rather than fulfills himself through his labor. His work becomes an imposition rather than a voluntary labor.
In contemporary society, many people are alienated from their labor, which they perform only under compulsion.
Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, contends that Karl Marx "...was partly right in arguing that globalization, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct To enable market-oriented economies to operate as they should, we need the right balance between markets and the provision of public goods."
Generally, we divide society into 3 classes, based on socioeconomic status.
How does economic status cut across cultural and minority groups?
According to Marx, classes are defined and structured by the relations concerning 1) work and labor and 2) ownership or possession of property and the means of production..
He divides classes depending on the participation in the money-production cycle:
worker (also middle class, many self-employed people: work - money - work
capitalist:(owner): money - work money.
Since your class position depends on your position in the economic system, classes do not necessarily function as a social group. They are shaped by historical experience in a labor market and do not necessarily have a sense of group identity.
This was one of the central problems for Karl Marx: How to create a collective class consciousness, which would then become the revolutionary subject in the course of history.