Money, Master of Itself?

Indeed Marx's view of money is very interesting. Calling Money the "externalized exchange of human production", Marx suggests that money alienates man. He postulates that human production, "the externalized species-activity of man", transfers all its qualities to the mediator, money.

"Man as separated from this mediator thus becomes so much the poorer
as the mediator becomes richer."

What Marx is saying in this portion of text and more, is that money becomes more valuable than the private property and activity of means of production because the power of exchange vested in money is equated with greater value than the natural exchange would dictate. The normal and natural social or human relationship of the exchange has been replaced with the dehumanizing and alienating exchange of externalized private property which is money. This is interesting in that it addresses the questions that I have always had when I cashed a paycheck or paid a bill. Especially today, it seems like there is a disconnect between the work I performed, the personal value of that work to me (opportunity costs included), and the value of agreed upon by employer to pay in the form of externalized exchange private property through money. Something seems amiss this relationship.