The word ‘alienation’ mostly used in the media (especially in serious late night TV talk shows and Sunday newspapers) and arises in everyday conversation. Yet it remains one of the consented terms in the academic study of work. Alienation is an objective state and builds on concepts originally defined by Karl Marx, while Robert Blauner introduces elements of subjectivity into the analysis. It illustrates the importance of viewing work as a rich and varied domain of human activity. It is concerned with the ways in which employees get through their working day: how they survive the boredom, tedium, monotony, drudgery and powerlessness that characterise many jobs. There is one central principle around which the discussion is organised: the notion that in order to ‘survive’ work, people are obliged to become resourceful and creative in developing strategies that allow them to assert some control over, and construct meaning for, the work activities they are directed by managers to undertake.
In dynamic world where the subjective experiences of individuals are collectively constructed and reconstructed to create shared understandings and develop norms that guide and pattern behaviour. In real scenario, it is also a regulated world where the structural constraints imposed by power holders (especially managers) limit the actions of individuals and workgroups. The result is a curious mixture of consent and resistance to work.
Marx argues that alienation is an intrinsic part of the capitalist labour process and therefore is an unavoidable objective state in which all workers find themselves. It apparent itself because in selling their labour power, employees are surrendering the right to control their labour, how and when work should be undertaken becomes the prerogative of employers.
According to Karl Marx (1930:713) under capitalism all the means for developing production are transformed into means of domination over and exploitation of the producer; that they mutilate the worker into a fragment of human being, degrade him to become a mere appurtenance, make his work such a torment that its essential meaning is destroyed. (quoted in Fox, 1974: 224)
According to Marx, employees experience four types of estrangement as a result of this relationship:
1) self-estarangement: According to capitalism, work is merely the means for people to acquire money to satisfy their needs out-side of working hours however work ought to be a source of satisfaction in its own right. As a result, employees experience a sense of ‘self-estrangement’ because while they are in work undertaking the activities as instructed by their managers, they cannot be themselves (separate from their true selves) which make them to experience a sense of alienation.
2) estrangement from the product of their labour: Marx labels a process as ‘objectification’ that the output (the product or object) of one’s labour is the physical expression of the effort that has been undertaken and the skills that have used. However, the product of a person’s labour is not owned by the employee; it becomes the property of the capitalist. Therefore the product becomes an alien object. Marx states it:
The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien. (Marx, 1969: 97)
3) estrangement from their species being: The alienation caused by self-estrangement and estrangement from the product has wider repercussions for humankind. Marx argues that through work, people express their creativity, produce the means of their own existence and hence realise their humanity. This free, creativity endeavour is the very purpose of life, but under capitalism work becomes coercion: forced labour. This means that people become estranged from their very nature; they are left alienation from their ‘species being’.
4) estrangement from others: People are left estranged from each other due to estrangement from their essential nature. Marx argues that human beings are distinct from animal due to their self-awareness. So that a person can understand the world through his/her own actions and behaviour, and by appreciating the role and estrangement combine to create conditions in which the unique qualities of humankind are diminished. Under forced labour, people are owned and controlled. They experience this directly and also recognise this estrangement in other people. As a result, they are both alienated from their own humanity and from others. (Click on diagram to enlarge.)
In dynamic world where the subjective experiences of individuals are collectively constructed and reconstructed to create shared understandings and develop norms that guide and pattern behaviour. In real scenario, it is also a regulated world where the structural constraints imposed by power holders (especially managers) limit the actions of individuals and workgroups. The result is a curious mixture of consent and resistance to work.
Marx argues that alienation is an intrinsic part of the capitalist labour process and therefore is an unavoidable objective state in which all workers find themselves. It apparent itself because in selling their labour power, employees are surrendering the right to control their labour, how and when work should be undertaken becomes the prerogative of employers.
According to Karl Marx (1930:713) under capitalism all the means for developing production are transformed into means of domination over and exploitation of the producer; that they mutilate the worker into a fragment of human being, degrade him to become a mere appurtenance, make his work such a torment that its essential meaning is destroyed. (quoted in Fox, 1974: 224)
According to Marx, employees experience four types of estrangement as a result of this relationship:
1) self-estarangement: According to capitalism, work is merely the means for people to acquire money to satisfy their needs out-side of working hours however work ought to be a source of satisfaction in its own right. As a result, employees experience a sense of ‘self-estrangement’ because while they are in work undertaking the activities as instructed by their managers, they cannot be themselves (separate from their true selves) which make them to experience a sense of alienation.
2) estrangement from the product of their labour: Marx labels a process as ‘objectification’ that the output (the product or object) of one’s labour is the physical expression of the effort that has been undertaken and the skills that have used. However, the product of a person’s labour is not owned by the employee; it becomes the property of the capitalist. Therefore the product becomes an alien object. Marx states it:
The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien. (Marx, 1969: 97)
3) estrangement from their species being: The alienation caused by self-estrangement and estrangement from the product has wider repercussions for humankind. Marx argues that through work, people express their creativity, produce the means of their own existence and hence realise their humanity. This free, creativity endeavour is the very purpose of life, but under capitalism work becomes coercion: forced labour. This means that people become estranged from their very nature; they are left alienation from their ‘species being’.
4) estrangement from others: People are left estranged from each other due to estrangement from their essential nature. Marx argues that human beings are distinct from animal due to their self-awareness. So that a person can understand the world through his/her own actions and behaviour, and by appreciating the role and estrangement combine to create conditions in which the unique qualities of humankind are diminished. Under forced labour, people are owned and controlled. They experience this directly and also recognise this estrangement in other people. As a result, they are both alienated from their own humanity and from others. (Click on diagram to enlarge.)
Non-alienation conditions:
The bottom half of the diagram suggests how under non-capitalist conditions the problem of alienation might be avoided. In both diagram, it is clear that there are similarities, the difference is that the person undertaking the work remains in control of both their labour and the product of their labour. The consequence of self-control over one’s labour is that a person is more likely to derive intrinsic meaning from the work being undertaken, rather than only seeing it as a means of getting money. In turn, this might mean that a person’s self-esteem and feelings of worth are enhanced- therefore it contributes to their self-identity. Overall, there is no alienation because the four features of separation do not occur.
References:
Marx, K. (1930) Capital, London: Dent.
Marx, K. (1969) ‘Alienated labour’, in T. Burns (ed) Industrial Man: Selected readings, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 95-109.
Marx, K. (1976) Capital, Vol. 1, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Noon, M. and, Blyton, P. (2002) The realities of work: Palgrave, pp. 228-232.
The bottom half of the diagram suggests how under non-capitalist conditions the problem of alienation might be avoided. In both diagram, it is clear that there are similarities, the difference is that the person undertaking the work remains in control of both their labour and the product of their labour. The consequence of self-control over one’s labour is that a person is more likely to derive intrinsic meaning from the work being undertaken, rather than only seeing it as a means of getting money. In turn, this might mean that a person’s self-esteem and feelings of worth are enhanced- therefore it contributes to their self-identity. Overall, there is no alienation because the four features of separation do not occur.
References:
Marx, K. (1930) Capital, London: Dent.
Marx, K. (1969) ‘Alienated labour’, in T. Burns (ed) Industrial Man: Selected readings, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 95-109.
Marx, K. (1976) Capital, Vol. 1, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Noon, M. and, Blyton, P. (2002) The realities of work: Palgrave, pp. 228-232.
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