The distinction between man and animal according to Marx is that man's vital activity is a conscious and free choice, while animals are not distinguished by their vital activity. This relationship does not hold in the case of estranged labor. Propertyless workers, like animals, are forced to make their vital activity their essential being. Since the work of workers is unsatisfactory and objectifies man, workers are free only in their animal functions. Furthermore, workers, like animals, produce only “under the dominion of immediate physical need,” meaning they work simply to survive (Marx, 54). Man becomes alienated from his body, from external nature, from the spiritual essence and, ultimately, from the human being. Part of what Marx sees as a worker's alienation from his job involves the lack of creative control an individual has over his craft. Workers are deprived of any creativity or skill in the production process because they produce exclusively for the capitalist and have no independent judgment on his product. Marx sees this situation as the reduction of the worker's labor to little more than a machine. Since Marx considers this creative impulse to be the essence of being human, he concludes that such work dehumanizes