Industrial Alienation

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In this essay I intend to analyse the relationship between work and alienation in industrial and post-industrial societies. In particular I will identify the source of this alienation as well as the impact it has on the individual and the society by examining the research of several sociological theorists, including Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and C. Wright Mills. The Transition Subsequent to the Industrial Revolution, which took place in the United Kingdom in the late 1700s, numerous agrarian societies in the West developed into industrialised societies. The industrial Revolution represented a shift to factories and mass production. Though industrialization produced diversity of goods and might have developed the living conditions…show more content…
It was categorised by the prevalence of private ownership of the trade and production as well as abuse of labour. As a matter of fact, the transformation from agricultural pre-Industrial societies to industrial societies, had numerous social, bureaucratic and financial repercussions. The dominance of machinery created unskilled labour, and was also viewed as a source of dehumanisation and alienation. The idea of alienation was mentioned by several sociological thinkers of that time, including Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and C. Wright Mills but their thoughts on the source of alienation varied from one another. For Marx, work alienation was a logical outcome of capitalism and class conflict. Durkheim, in contrary associated alienation with the state of normlessness (described as anomie). Weber identified bureaucracy as the root cause of alienation, whilst C. Wright Mills associated this estrangement with the contemporary separation of work. Alienation as a result of…show more content…
Wright Mills, who had perceived the concept of alienation similarly to the way it was described by Marx. Mills believed that alienation is a distinctive feature of the contemporary society and that it is intensely embedded in the aspect of work. In contrary to the beliefs of Marx, however, C. Wright Mills did not only emphasize on the capitalism by itself but also pinpointed that a large percentage of alienation at the workplace is also a result of the separation of work. In his book “White Collar” (1951), Mills argued that white-collar labourers sell “pieces of their personality”. This determined that it was inevitable for the white-collar labourers to acquire an occupation unless they accept certain features that do not mirror their true behaviours. The fulfilment of one’s life was connected not to the potential, but rather to the material possessions that derive from work, the profits, position and individual authority that is provided by the job. Therefore the society was occupied with treachery, deception and artificiality.
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