[morningseagulls]

>Alienation is a critical and central part of Marxist critique. To miss it is to misunderstand Marxism.

I don't think the author meant that reference to Marxism as anything more than a rhetorical flourish. His target, in that context, was Hayek's argument from incredulity against central planning in The Use of Knowledge in Society.

>Marxists could not call it a day after nationalizing Amazon because the people who make the goods that Amazon sells would still be alienated from the goods they produce, and Amazon's workers would still be alienated from the products of their own labor.

As I understand it, this alienation -- as you've described it here -- seems to have its roots in the division of labour in society, which seems to me to pre-date industrial capitalism. If that's so, then the work of Marxists can never be done, because work itself would have to be totally eliminated for the division of labour to vanish.