Most of Marx's discussions of the subject of alienation are found in his work The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. It is in this work that Marx discussed alienation in detail for the first time. According to Marx, alienation is a relationship that occurs between two or more people or even parts of an individual from which one is severed. This process of cutting then results in a distancing or “alienation” from the other parts from which the part is cut. Such alienation is, in short, a separation between parties who should in the first place belong to each other. In Marxist theory of alienation, Marx focused on capitalism and linked the two concepts. According to him, in a capitalist society, individuals find themselves cut off from many things: from their friends, from their family, from the products of their labor and even from themselves. Because of this disconnect, the individuals involved cannot be “whole” beings fully developed to their potential within capitalist society. This is Marx's humanist perspective on the question of alienation. According to him, alienation is a bad thing since work has become the central form of self-expression in a capitalist society.