Technology, Division of Labor, and Alienation

In recent years social scientists have shown increasing interest in alienation as an empirically measurable concept. Seeman's (1959) contribution was to distinguish several uses of the concept alienation from the mass of sociological literature and to state them in a more empirically useful form. Since the variants of alienation isolated and developed by Seeman are, with modifications, adopted here, it seems appropriate to briefly note some criticisms Seeman's approach has attracted. First, both Browning (1961) and Israel (1971: 215) fault Seeman for failing to interrelate his five variants of alienation in a theoretical context. Both suggest that alienation may be best viewed as a process. While Israel is unsure of the proper causal sequence of powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and self-estrangement, Browning is not. This important point has been pursued elsewhere (Shepard, 1972). Second, according to Israel (1971: 214-215), Seeman and those of scientific kin ignore the issue of discrepancy between