Alienation at workplace

1. ALIENATION AT
WORKPLACE
Philbert
Sequeira
Shruti
Sharma
Saloni Sanghani
Satyaveer
Singh

2. Work
Who works? In what jobs? There are great differences in the
area of employment.
Defined as carrying out of tasks, which involves the
expenditure of mental and physical effort, and its objective is
the production of goods and services in exchange for a regular
wage.
Age, sex, ethnicity – to mention lets consider just 3 factors.

3. Large groups of youth entering the labour force – best
jobs today are held by middle aged men.
Increase in female participation at job level – its not
that “male” jobs have opened up for women, but
rather “female” jobs have increased in number.
In North America immigrants have typically taken
low paying jobs – black Americans discriminated.
Work

4. Alienation
You will spend major part of your life on
the job. What it will be like? Exciting?
Dull?
Loss of belief and interest in the goals
towards which one’s activities are
directed.
It produces loss of commitment to one’s
group and sense of powerlessness. In other
words, an individual’s isolation from his
society, his work, and his sense of self.

5. Marx on Alienation
Root of all alienation is
economic alienation
steeped in the concept
of private property –
capitalism.
He believed that each
human needed an
aspect of freedom and
creativity in their work,
and that capitalism took
away that need.

6. Marx on alienation
He said that there’s a close relationship between alienation
and system of mass production.
Craftsmen – feel proud of their work
Industry workers – there’s no autonomy. Series of repetitive
acts.
Product belongs to the factory owner who sells it and pays
labourers its wages. Do you feel powerless? Bored by
meaningless tasks?

7. Alienation in capitalism
‘During capitalist mode of production
both capitalists and proletariat feel
alienated but alienation of proletariat is
of highest degree in extreme form’

8. Alienation From the Product of
One’s Labor
 Workers do not have the opportunity to relate to the products they
are working on – goods are produced for exchange
 The main priority of workers is that there is simply a job for them
to perform and earn money.
‘The more the worker produces the less he has to consume; the
more he creates the more worthless he becomes’
 Example: A worker on an assembly line may spend all day
installing windows, yet never see the final car.

9. Alienation From the Process of One’s Labor
 Workers are alienated from their working conditions.
“A worker does not control the conditions of her job
because she does not own the means of production”
 Workers are expected to work in the way they are taught – no
satisfaction.
 Example: An employee at Burger King cannot decide to change the
spices used on the fries. Everything is decided by the bourgeoisie
who dictate the orders to the laborers.

10. Alienation from human
beings
In capitalist mode of Production workers becomes commodity
of exchange. Instead of creating object it becomes object itself.
There is continuous competition between workers in the field
of work.
The capitalist system reduces the act of work to a simple
economic practice, rather than recognizing the social
elements of the act of production.

11. Alienation From One’s Self
The loss of connectivity between a worker and his occupation.
There are no incentives or ties holding one to his job, causing a
loss in the sense of one’s self.
Workers can no longer establish an identity with their
profession, which may decrease their potential – no time for
procreation, eating and sleeping
Example: A watchmaker may lose his sense of self as he only
goes through the motions of his job. There is no longer a
connection between him and the product he is making.

12. C.W.Mills on alienation
 Non-manual American Middle Class – while collar alienation.
 Non-manual workers sell their skills with persons' on the open
market. Mills refers to this sector of the economy as the
'personality market'.
 A Market value is attached to personality characteristics and as a
result people sell pieces of their personality – alienation from true
selves
“In the salesroom, in the boardroom , in the staff room, in the
conference room, men and women are prostituting their
personalities in pursuit of personal gain”

13. Robert Blauner
Considers workers attitudes as a valid
measure of their level of alienation. If
workers express satisfaction with their
work, they are not alienated.
Associated the degree of alienation
with the type of technology rather
than the relations of production.
Examined behavior and attitudes of
manual workers in the printing,
textile, automobile and chemical
industries.

14. • Blauner divides the concept of alienation into four
dimensions
• Powerlessness - The degree of control workers have over
their work;
• Meaninglessness - the degree of meaning and sense of
purpose they find in work;
• isolation - the degree to which they are socially integrated
into their work;
• self-estrangement - the degree to which they are involved in
their work.
Robert Blauner

15. Printing sector (study was conducted at a time when mechanical
type setting was not widespread) as non-alienated along the four
dimensions.
Textile workers experience powerlessness and meaninglessness
but not isolation and self-estrangement.
Alienation is found in its most extreme form in assembly line
production in the auto-mobile industry where they experience
powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation and self-estrangement
all.
Robert Blauner

16. Andre Gorz; Herbert Marcuse- Alienation from
work
In 1844 workers in
the industry
worked between
12-16 hours a day.
The workers had
few opportunities
for fulfillment in
leisure.
It appears that the
opportunity for
self-fulfillment in
leisure has greatly
increased but
many Marxists
argue that this
opportunity has
not been realized.
Gorz argues that
alienation at work
leads the worker to
seek self-
fulfillment in
leisure.

17. Thank You 