Analysis of the Concept of Alienation - Coursework Example

? Blauner’s Operationalization of Alienation: On What Grounds It Can Be Marxist? Outline Introduction Marx and Blauner on Alienation Conclusion Introduction According to Craib (1997: 88 - 91) and Haralambos (2004: 621 – 623), Karl Marx had formulated a theory of alienation which had uncovered that the capitalist mode of production was shaping the human activity. For Marx, alienation was when an individual had felt the estrangement from his society as well as its other aspects for the reason that the individual could not avoid the losing of such control of their lives because under the capitalist system, he could no longer have the power over his work. This was due to the fact that commodities had happened to rule over his everyday activity. Moreover, for him, alienation was an objective verifiable state of disengagement which could be inevitably observed under capitalism. Even if for Marx it was objective, the concept alienation was treated subjectively and was tried to be operationalized by researchers including Robert Blauner through ‘Alienation and Freedom’ in 1964. For Blauner’s terminology, alienation was regarded as a form of job dissatisfaction because the changing of technology, for him, was a significant factor that had influenced the people’s works (Haralambos, 2004: 626 – 628). Although Blauner was not a Marxist himself, his operationalization of the concept had some similarities to that of Marx. In order to find out on what grounds Blauner’s alienation could be considered Marxist, this paper would compare and contrast the accounts on alienation of Marx and Blauner. Marx and Blauner on Alienation Marx’s conceptualisation of alienation basically had four (4) aspects such as the product, activity, species and social. According to Swingewood (2000: 28 – 65) and Giddens (2009: 74 - 77), the existing conditions of the capitalist mode of production had made individual workers to be estranged from the product they had produced, from the activity of production itself, as well as from his relationship with other people. As a result, individuals happened to lose control over their very own human being. In this case, workers could not even claim the product of his labour to be his own. Capitalism had shaped these individuals to function like a machine for the purpose of making profit for buying the commodities instead of his social needs. Meanwhile, labour also put out of place the social relations among other workers. Labour time was nothing but labour time alone. Instead of individuals being free and being engaged in productive activity, they were alienated from their own human nature. The very own process of labour in capitalism was alienating. However, in Blauner’s study of alienation through the use of questionnaires and data of Elmo Roper’s research, he regarded that technology as an important factor that had influenced the work behaviors and attitudes of human beings (O’Donnell, 1997: 262 – 268). Through Melvin Seeman’s psychological aspects of alienation, Blauner’s operationalization of the concept had provided him 4 dimensions as well. According to Giddens (2009: 891 - 892), Blauner’s alienation was indicated by the following signs: first was powerlessness or the lack of control a worker could have over his work; second was meaninglessness or the deficiency of importance or purpose in work; third was isolation or the absence of social relations among the other workers; and fourth was the self – estrangement which was the degree of involvement and satisfaction of an individual in a work. Basically, for him, worker’s attitudes served as signs of the levels of alienation. In order for Blauner to test the 4 aspects of alienation, according to Haralambos (2004: 626 – 629), he had taken into consideration 4 types of industry. Each industry had a different method of technology and different occupational situations. In these industries, he looked at the different levels of alienation. The first type was a printing industry which served as an example of craft technology. This was classified prior to the technological advancement of industrialism. During this era was typesetting by hand. Blauner regarded the printing industry to have the highest job satisfaction level among the other industries. This was because workers were demanded to be skilled and be creative. Given that they had control over their work, powerlessness was not an issue. Meaninglessness and isolation were also at low levels. In this manner, individuals would not feel estranged from their own being. Thus, the printing industry was not alienating for Blauner. On the one hand, the era of beginning of industrialisation was indicated by textile industry, a machine minding technology. Jobs in this industry were made simple as marked with the high division of labour. This kind of work was labour intensive. It also had poor job security as well as it was among the lowest – paid job. Blauner regarded the work in textile industry to be highly alienating since powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation and self – estrangement were all at high levels. The next kind of work, car industry (assembly line) was considered to be the most alienating of all. Here, workers had totally no control over their works because they were influenced by the machines. This meant that they were not integrated in the kind of job that they had done. Workers could not even move but just stayed in his position to work as they were supervised by another person. They could not even afford to have a community life and be socially integrated with the other workers in the car industry. This kind of work was something that had low job security. Powerlessness, meaningless, isolation and self – estrangement were all highly rated. Thus, job dissatisfaction among the other industries was very high. Lastly, he used the oil and chemical industry as an industry sample of continuous process technology. However, the trend towards alienation was observed to be reversed for the reason that workers had regained their control over their works. Also, individual workers were free to socially interact with the others. Another thing was that they, being highly skilled, they had seen purpose in their work. Through these types of industries, he suggested that the degree of alienation had varied depending on the technology involved (technological determinism) (Grint, 1998: 269 – 272). Meanwhile, both views of Marx and Blauner on alienation were presented. Indeed, there were differences and similarities on how they conceptualised alienation. However, Blauner’s dimensions on alienation could be considered Marxist even though he was not one. On the first dimension of similarity, Marx believed that alienation could result from the workers lack of control over the product of his labour while Blauner had considered that a worker was alienated from his work because he had happened to be powerless over his work. Next was that for Marx, workers had found themselves alienated to the manner of working while in Blauner’s terms, a worker could no longer search for meaning and sense of importance in his work. Apart from that, coming from the Marxist point of view, alienation occurred also at the social level for workers could not even socialize, integrate and talk with the other workers as they were working whereas from the point of view of Blauner, alienation had resulted from the workers being isolated from the other workers in their working activity. Lastly, both regarded that human beings themselves were alienated from his own human being, however, alienation of this dimension was regarded by Blauner as the workers’ estrangement from their work as they were lacking the degree of involvement. These dimensions of alienation were the only grounds for regarding Blauner as a Marxist since there were several differences. Marx’s alienation was an objective state that used to exist in capitalism whereas Blauner’s alienation was a subjective case based on personal experience of an individual on a particular social setting and was believed to exist on levels depending on the level of technology. Likewise, Marx considered the fact that individuals whether not feeling alienated were in fact, alienated under the capitalist mode of production. Even if an individual was feeling satisfied on his labour, he was unconsciously exploited by the capitalist society. He was still alienated but he was not able to fully realise his real condition. Nonetheless, it was otherwise for Blauner since he stated that alienation occurred at different levels depending on the kind of technology. Alienation was job satisfaction and when one was satisfied on his job, level of alienation was low. Nonetheless, Blauner received criticisms in his operationalization of alienation. The methodological approach to his study was weak that he had based his interpretation of data from another study which was done twenty (20) years ago. He simply depended on the questionnaires that were answered in a particular way. Hence, favourable response could be provided in this kind of structured questionnaire. With regards to the printing industry, he was referring to it during a pre – industrial era however, he stated that it had been transformed with the technological advancement through computers. The setting had happened to be so modified to a computer – controlled printing. It was also that other industries like manufacturing industry (textiles and automobiles) and the chemical industry as well were affected by the advent of computers. Given this transformation, Computer Assisted Design, Computer Aided Manufacture (CADCAM) had been common in the industries which he had done his evaluation. Technology had happened to be of the same level with the following industries because of the presence of computers. This had just meant that his technological determinism was criticized due to influence of computers. Moreover, his observation in the industries was limited and that only car and oil and chemical industries were subjected to a much more investigation (Grint: 1998: 272; Giddens, 2009: 911 - 915). According to Grint (1998: 272), too much generalisation on alienation, after claiming it to be the most alienating, was expressed among the workers of car industry given the fact that there were only 18% workers who were operating on the assembly lines. Likewise, he was attacked on his overall manner of generalisation for the concerns in his methodology. Another criticism given to Blauner was that he was considered as a sexist for he was disregarding women. He was literally ignoring women in his accounts when he was certainly referring to males on his “his” in the sub – title of his writings. According to Crowther and Green (2004: 72), his notion of alienation was misleading because of the fact that it was based on how the workers felt about their jobs while ignoring the possibility of exploitation and inequality in the society. Conclusion The concept on alienation was indeed perceived differently by Marx and Blauner. However, through the evaluation made on the differences of conceptualisation of alienation, I could say that Blauner’s aspects of alienation had corresponded to Marx’s. This point of similarity, for me, could be regarded as the degree of how Blauner’s operationalization of alienation was Marxist. This only point of resemblance was huge enough to consider that he had somehow the Marxist’s point of view on alienation. However, while Marx considered capitalism which had shaped alienation among people, it was the level of work technology for Blauner. Nonetheless, given the shortcomings of Blauner’s study on alienation and his degree of being Marxist in terms of the said concept, I could say that alienation was not roughly just about job dissatisfaction but was caused by the class relations in capitalism. References: Craib, I. (1997), Classical Social Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crowther, D. and Green, M. (2004), Organisational Theory, CPID Publishing. Giddens, A. (2009), Sociology, 6th edition, Polity Press. Grint, K (1998), Sociology of Work, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Polity Press. Haralambos, M. (2004), Sociology Themes and Perspectives, 6th edition, London: Harpur Collins. O ‘Donnell, M. (1997), Introduction to Sociology, 4th edition, Nelson Thornes. Swingewood, A. (2000), A History of Sociological Thought, 3rd edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Read More