In his early writings especially, Marx understands humans as social beings" who both create and express themselves through their labor. Through work, humans create not just products, but also the very social world in which they live. Work is essentially a social activity and, as social beings, humans have the opportunity to express this humanity through work. Because these social struc¬tures also shape and influence human attitudes, beliefs, and values (what work does to people), work also serves to create our own character. According to Marx, in capitalist economic systems—particularly in the division of labor, assembly line production characteristic of industrial capitalism—workers are alienated from the products of their labor, from the activity of work, and from their fel¬low humans. Workers (or human resources in the contemporary phrase) and the products of their labor are treated as mere means to the end of profit. Workers are separated from what they produce, they lack control over both the products and the productive activity itself, and they exist as mere cogs in a machine.