 Marx can be characterised as diagnosing contemporary capitalist society as corresponding to situation (i); that is, as being a social world which contains both objective and subjective alienation. On what we might call his standard view, Marx allows that objective and subjective alienation are conceptually distinct, but assumes that in capitalist societies they are typically found together sociologically (perhaps with the subjective forms tending to track the objective ones). However, there are passages where he deviates from that standard view, and—without abandoning the thought that objective alienation is, in some sense, more fundamental—appears to allow that, on occasion, subjective and objective alienation can also come apart sociologically. At least, that is one way of reading a well-known passage in The Holy Family which suggests that capitalists might be objectively but not subjectively alienated. In these remarks, Marx recognises that capitalists do not get to engage in self-realising activities of the right kind (hence their objective alienation), but observes that—unlike the proletariat—the capitalists are content in their estrangement; not least, they feel ‘at ease’ in it, and they feel ‘strengthened’ by it (Marx and Engels 1975: 36).