Alienation And Factory Workers
Hausknecht, Murray
ALIENATION AND FREEDOM: THE FACTORY WORKER AND HIs INDUSTRY, by Robert Blauner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. $7.50. "Alienation," an increasingly fashionable word, is in...
...For anyone interested in structural change leading to reduction of alienation this kind of analysis is ex• tremely useful...
...These modes are ignored in Blauner's definition of alienation on the grounds that the only salient interest of man ual workers is control over the immediate work situation...
...The results of Blauner's examination are not very startling...
...Blauner's recourse to such tricky data —though he handles it well—testifies to the general apathy with which social scientists regard problems of work...
...Also lost is the concept of alienation as a measure of how far the social and economic realities of a society fall short of permitting the realization of human possibilities...
...To say that workers in an automated factory are less alienated than assemblyline workers can be misleading if taken at face value...
...To the degree that he relies on such an assumption, his book partakes of the very alienation it seeks to diminish...
...For example, from the available data Blauner concludes that there is relatively little self-estrangement among machinetending textile workers whose traditionalistic communities produce no expectations or aspirations regarding control over work or self-expression in work...
...One of the many merits of Alienation and Freedom is that the societal aspects of alienation are not altogether ignored...
...He argues that the level of alienation among workers will vary from one industry to another...
...But the approach has some limitations...
...The craft tradition of printers, in contrast, does produce such expectations and aspirations, which means that technological change in the printing industry will have different consequences from change in the textile industry...
...Therefore he examines the effects of craft work, machine-tending, assembly lines, and automated technologies—and relates them to the division of labor, bureaucratization, and economic structure of a given industry...
...As one might expect, the highest levels of alienation are found among assembly-line auto workers, while printers are the least alienated...
...If so, a great deal of alienation exists that studies like this one simply take for granted...
...There is the separation from the means of production and its products, "inability to influence general managerial policies," and "lack of control over the conditions of employment...
...Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964...
...Alienation," an increasingly fashionable word, is in danger of coming to mean nothing more than the vague sense of malaise many people feel, thereby dissolving the connection which the term has traditionally implied between the state of mind and the structure of society...
...For his data on attitudes of workers, Blauner reanalyzes the 1947 Roper Survey of jobattitudes, and supplements it with case studies of work in particular industries...
...Such conclusions ignore the considerable alienation which takes place before the worker even enters the factory...
...for not all production processes can use this kind of technology...
...Although suitably cautious about overgeneralizing on the basis of one case, Blauner permits himself some mostly unwarranted enthusiasm about the prospects for reduced alienation as a consequence of automation...
...Although there is little information concerning workers' feelings about these broader areas of control, Blauner is undoubtedly right in suggesting that workers do not have any "conscious desires" for control over policy, etc...
...What is distinctive about Blauncr's study and what makes it important is his attempt to examine systematically the possibilities for alienation intrinsic to different technologies and organizations of work within an industrial society...
...Blauner himself notes that there are three other "modes of industrial powerlessness" besides lack of control over the immediate work situation...
...Thus it is only sensible that Blauner should try to discover exactly what combinations of technological and social factors produce alienative effects...
...On the other hand, workers in an automated oil refinery show considerably less alienation than "common sense" would lead one to expect...
...As Blauner points out, only about five per cent of all production is on the auto assembly line model...
...Similarly, while automation will increase in many industries, there are large and important sectors it will not touch...
...Some violence has been done here to the very concept of alienation...
...Blauner specifies alienation as a condition of powerlessness, meaninglessness, social isolation and self-estrangement...
...In Alienation and Freedom, Blauner comes dangerously close to equating alienation with "job satisfaction...
Vol. 12 • September 1965 • No. 4
