 However, this disvalue is not the whole of the historical story, ethically speaking. In comparison with the first stage, the second stage also involves a liberation of sorts from the object in which subjects were previously ‘engulfed’ (Cohen 1974: 239). The ‘of sorts’ is a way of acknowledging that this is a rather distinctive kind of liberation. The individual here is not necessarily rid of the constraints of the other (of their social position and community), but they do now at least identify and experience them as such—that is, as constraints on the individual—whereas previously the individual was engulfed by that other and failed to think of themselves as having any identity and interests outside of their social position. In short, the loss or lack of something of value is not the only feature of the second stage of alienation. There is also an important gain here, namely, the achievement of what we can call ‘individuality’. This significant good was missing in the first pre-capitalist stage, and—freed from its present distorting capitalist form—it will be preserved and developed in the communist future of the third historical stage.