Professional Documents
Culture Documents
INTRODUCTION
by George N ovack
THE CAUSES OF ALIENA TIO N
by Ernest Mandel
PROGRESSIVE DISALIENATION
THROUGH THE BUILDING OF
SOCIALIST SOCIETY, OR THE
INEVITABLE ALIEN A TIO N IN
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY?
by Ernest Mandel
THE PROBLEM OF ALIENA TIO N
by George N ovack
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In tro d u c tio n
Introduction
Introduction
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Introduction
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ing ab o u t even if they have the utm ost good will and
liberal opinions, because their m aterial-social interests pre
vent them from understanding w hat the other side is most
concerned with.
There w as a very striking exam ple of this inhibition
on another level (because w orkers and not em ployers
were involved) in the tragic strike of the United Federa
tion of Teachers in New Y ork in 1968 against the de
centralization of control over the school system. People
of b ad will, fools or stupid people were not so much
involved. Indeed, m ost of them w ould have been called
liberal o r even left some time ago. But through very strong
pressures of social interest and social milieu, they were
sim ply incapable of understanding w hat the other side,
the Black and Puerto Rican m asses who w anted com
m unity control over the education of their children, was
talk in g about.
Thus the M arxist notion of alienation extends far be
yon d the oppressed classes of society, properly speaking.
The o ppressors are also alienated from p a rt of their hu
m an capacity through their inability to com m unicate on
a h u m a n basis with the m ajority of society. And this
divorcem ent is inevitable as long as class society and
its deep differentiations exist.
A nother terrible expression of this alienation on the
individual scale is the trem endous loneliness which a so
ciety based on com m odity production and division of
la b o r inevitably induces in m an y hum an beings. Ours
is a society based on the principle, every m an for himself.
Individualism pushed to the extreme also m eans loneli
ness pushed to the extreme.
It is sim ply not true, as certain existentialist philos
ophers contend, that m an has alw ays been an essentially
lonely h u m an being. There have been form s of integrated
collective life in prim itive society where the very notion
of loneliness could not arise. It arises out of com modity
production an d division of la b o r only at a certain stage
of h u m an development in bourgeois society. And then
unfortunately it acquires a trem endous extension which
can go beyond the limits of m ental health.
Psychologists have gone aro u n d with tape recorders
and listened to certain types of dialogues between people
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by Ernest M a n d e l
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ically lim ited phenom enon docs not in the least im ply th at its
validity is lim ited to the capitalist epoch alone.
T . I. O iscrm an expounds his arg u m e n t on a higher plane: U n
d er socialism [th e w rite r here refers explicitly to the first phase of
socialism , defined b y M arx in T h e C ritique o f the G otha T rog rannne\ w h a t Alarx called the essence, the co n te n t, o f alienation
docs n o t exist and, in the s tric t sense, it ca n n o t exist u n d er social
ism: this c o n te n t being the dom ination o f the p ro d u c ers b y the
p ro d u c ts o f th eir labor, alienation o f p ro d u c tiv e ac tiv ity , alienated
social relations, su b jectio n o f the p ersonality to the spontaneous
forces o f social ev o lu tio n . 4
U n fo rtu n a te ly , all th e phenom ena O iserm an lists n o t only can
survive in th e epoch o f transition fro m capitalism to socialism ,
b u t th e y even survive in e v ita b ly , in so far as co m m o d ity p ro d u c
tion, the exchange o f lab o r p o w e r fo r a stric tly lim ited and ca lcu
lated w age, the e c o n o m ic obligation to effect this exchange, the
division o f labor (a n d in p a rtic u la r th e division o f labor b etw een
m anual w o rk and m ental w o rk , and so o n ), c o n tin u e to survive.
In a transitional so ciety w h ich is b u re au cratically d isto rted o r
deg e n era ted , these p h enom ena m ay even acquire g re a te r and
g re a te r scope.
T h is is clear fro m an analysis in d e p th o f the ec o n o m ic reality
o f the c o u n trie s w ith a socialized ec o n o m ic basis. It is plain th at
the w o rk e rs needs as consum ers are n o t at all co m p lete ly m et:
does th a t n o t im p ly alienation o f th e w o rk e r in rela tio n to the
p ro d u c ts o f his labor, especially w hen these p ro d u c ts are g oods he
w ants to o b tain , and th e in adequate d e v e lo p m e n t o f the p ro d u c
tive fo rces (n o t to m en tio n th e b u re a u c ra tic d isto rtio n o f the dis
trib u tiv e s y s te m !) p re v en ts him fro m d o in g so? It is also plain th at
the division o f lab o r (th e negative effects o f w h ich are re in fo rce d
throw of capitalist society. But he concludes that it is not p os
sible to deduce from these prem ises that p henom ena of alien
ation are still to be found in socialist society (m ore precisely,
in the epoch of transition from cap italism to so cia lism ). E very
thing in socialism that is referred to "com m only and carelessly"
as alien ation is at m ost on ly "externally similar" to capitalist
alienation. The ap ologetic aspect of this casu istry stares one
in the face.
4.
T. I. O iserm an, Die E n tfr e m d u n g als h isto risch e K a te g o rie,
(B erlin, 1 9 6 5 ). p. 135.
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21.
Coercion o b v io u sly continues to be inevitable where other
social classes are concerned, but the degree of this coercion de
pends on the violen ce of so cia l contradictions.
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38. F ran cois B loch-L ain e b rin gs this out strik ingly in P o u r
u n e re fo rm e d e I en te rp rise (P aris, 1 9 6 3 ), pp. 4 1 , 4 3 -4 4 , 100:
He argu es for greater particip ation b y the trade union s and
the workers in the m an agem en t of certain aspects of the activity
of the enterprises. But he im m ediately em ph asizes that this "par
ticipation" leaves untouched the single suprem e authority, the
m aster hierarch y which alon e retains the right to m ake the
key econom ic decisions.
39. N orbert Wiener, T he H u m a n Use o f H u m a n B ein g s { New
York, 1 9 5 4 ), pp. 158-160.
4 0 . The case of the Am erican war m achine, which is h igh ly
m echanized (esp ecially as regard s the w arnin g system , guided
b y com pu ters), but which culm inates in the President of the
United States, w h o a lo n e h as the right to press certain buttons,
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