Alienation And Factory Workers

Alienation And Factory Workers

Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Workers and His Industry
by Robert Blauner
University of Chicago Press, 1964, $7.50

“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. 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. One of the many merits of Alienation and Freedom is that the societal aspects of alienation are not altogether ignored.

Blauner specifies alienation as a condition of powerlessness, meaninglessness, social isolation and self-estrangement. He argues that the level of alienation among workers will vary from one ind...