On The Meaning of Alienation Author(s): Melvin Seeman Reviewed work(s): Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 24, No.

6 (Dec., 1959), pp. 783-791 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2088565 . Accessed: 14/03/2012 07:52
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ON THE MEANING OF ALIENATION *

MELVIN SEEMAN University of California, Los Angeles The problem of alienation is a pervasive theme in the classics of sociology, and the concept has a prominent place in contemporary work. This paper seeks to accomplish two tasks: to present an organized view of the uses that have been made of this concept; and to provide an approach that ties the historical interest in alienation to the modern empirical effort. Five alternative meanings of alienation are identified: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and self-estrangement. The derivation of these meanings from traditional sociological analysis is sketched, and the necessity for making the indicated distinctions is specified. In each case, an effort is made to provide a viable research formulation of these five alternatives.

At the present time, in all the social sciences, the various synonyms of alienation have a foremost place in studies of human relations. Investigations of the 'unattached,' the 'marginal,' the 'obsessive,' the 'normless,' and the 'isolated' individual all testify to the central place occupied by the hypothesis of alienation in contemporary social science.

So

writesRobertNisbet in The Questfor

Community; 1 and there would seem to be little doubt that his estimate is correct. In one form or another, the concept of alienation dominates both the contemporary literature and the history of sociological thought. It is a central theme in the classics of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim; and in contemporary work, the consequences that have been said to flow from the fact of alienation have been diverse, indeed. Ethnic prejudice, for example, has been described as a response to alienation-as an ideology which makes an incomprehensible world intelligible by imposing upon that world a simplified and categorical "answer system" (for example, the Jews cause international war).2 In his examination of the
* This paper is based in part on work done while the author was in attendance at the Behavioral Sciences Conference at the University of New Mexico, in the summer of 1958. The conference was supported by the Behavioral Sciences Division, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, under contract AF 49(638)-33. The work on alienation was carried out in close conjunction with Julian B. Rotter and Shephard Liverant of The Ohio State University. I gratefully acknowledge their very considerable help, while absolving them of any commitment to the viewpoints herein expressed. 1New York: Oxford, 1953, p. 15.

persuasion process in the Kate Smith bond drive, Merton emphasizes the significance of pervasive distrust: "The very same society that produces this sense of alienation and estrangement generates in many a craving for reassurance, an acute need to believe, a flight into faith" 3-in this case, faith in the sincerity of the persuader. In short, the idea of alienation is a popular vehicle for virtually every kind of analysis, from the prediction of voting behavior to the search for The Sane Society.4 This inclusiveness, in both its historical and its contemporary import, is expressed in Erich Kahler's remark: "The history of man could very well be written as a history of the alienation of
5 man."

A concept that is so central in sociological work, and so clearly laden with value implications, demands special clarity. There are, it seems to me, five basic ways in which the concept of alienation has been used. The purpose of this paper is to examine these logically distinguishable usages, and to propose what seems a workable view of these five meanings of alienation. Thus, the task is a dual one: to make more organized sense of one of the great traditions in sociological thought; and to make the traditional interest in alienation more amenable to sharp empirical statement.*
3R. K. Merton, Mass Persuasion, New York:

Harper,1946,p. 143. 4 Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, New York: Rinehart,1955. 5 The Tower and the Abyss, New York: Braziller, 1957,p. 43. *An effort in this directionis reportedby John P. Clark in "Measuring AlienationWithin a Social Person- System," pp. 849-852 of this issue of the Review. 2 T. W. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian -The Editor. ality, New York: Harper, 1950, pp. 617 ff. 783

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AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW The idea of alienation as powerlessnessis, perhaps, the most frequent usage in current literature. The contributors to Gouldner's volume on leadership, for example, make heavy use of this idea; as does the work of C. Wright Mills-and, I suppose, any analysis of the human condition that takes the Marxist tradition with any seriousness. This variant of alienation can be conceived as the expectancy or probability held by the individual that his own behavior cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes, or reinforcements,he seeks. Let us be clear about what this conception does and does not imply. First, it is a distinctly social-psychologicalview. It does not treat powerlessness from the standpoint of the objective conditions in society; but this does not mean that these conditions need be ignored in research dealing with this variety of alienation. These objective conditions are relevant, for example, in determining the degree of realism involved in the individual's response to his situation. The objective features of the situations are to be handled like any other situational aspect of behavior-to be analyzed, measured, ignored, experimentally controlled or varied, as the research question demands. Second, this construction of "powerlessness"2 clearly departs from the Marxian tradition by removing the critical, polemic element in the idea of alienation. Likewise, this version of powerlessness does not take into account, as a definitional matter, the frustration an individual may feel as a consequence of the discrepancy between the control he may expect and the degree of control that he desires-that is, it takes no direct account of the value of control to the person. In this version of alienation, then, the individual's expectancy for control of events is clearly distinguished from (a) the objective situation of powerlessness as some observer sees it, (b) the observer's judgment of that situation against some ethical standard, and (c) the individual's sense of a discrepancy between his expectations for control and his desire for control. The issues in the philosophy of science, or in the history of science, on which these distinctions and decisions touch can not be debated here. Two remarksmust suffice: (1)

I propose, in what follows, to treat alienation from the personal standpoint of the actor-that is, alienation is here taken from the social-psychologicalpoint of view. Presumably, a task for subsequent experimental or analytical research is to determine (a) the social conditions that produce these five variantsof alienation, or (b) their behavioral consequences. In each of the five instances, I begin with a review of where and how that usage is found in traditional sociological thought; subsequently, in each case, I seek a more researchable statement of meaning. In these latter statements, I focus chiefly upon the ideas of expectation and value."
POWERLESSNESS

The first of these uses refers to alienation in the sense of powerlessness. This is the notion of alienation as it originated in the Marxian view of the worker's condition in capitalist society: the worker is alienated to the extent that the prerogative and means of decision are expropriated by the ruling entrepreneurs.Marx, to be sure, was interested in other alienative aspects of the industrial system; indeed, one might say that his interest in the powerlessness of the worker flowed from his interest in the consequences of such alienation in the work place-for example, the alienation of man from man, and the degradation of men into commodities. In Weber's work, we find an extension beyond the industrial sphere of the Marxian notion of powerlessness. Of this extension, Gerth and Mills remark: Marx'semphasisupon the wage workeras from the means of producbeing 'separated' tion becomes,in Weber'sperspective, merely one special case of a universal trend. The from the soldieris equally'separated' modern means of violence; the scientist from the meansof enquiry,and the civil servantfrom the means of administration.7
6 The concepts of expectancy and reward, or reinforcement value, are the central elements in J. B. Rotter's "social learning theory"; see Social Learning and Clinical Psychology, New York: Prentice Hall, 1954. My discussion seeks to cast the various meanings of alienation in a form that is roughly consistent with this theory, though not formally expressed in terms of it. 7 H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, From Max Weber:, Essaysin Sociology,New York: Oxford, 1946, p. 50.

ALIENATION In any given research, any or all of the elements discussed above-expectancies, objective conditions, deviation from a moral standard, deviation from the actor's standards-may well be involved, and I see little profit in arguing about which is "really" alienation so long as what is going on at each point in the effort is clear. I have chosen to focus on expectanciessince I believe that this is consistent with what follows, while it avoids building ethical or adjustmental features into the concept. (2) I do not think that the expectancy usage is as radical a departurefrom the Marxian legacy as it may appear. No one would deny the editorial character of the Marxian judgment, but it was a judgment about a state of affairsthe elimination of individual freedom and control. My version of alienation refers to the counterpart,in the individual's expectations, of that state of affairs. Finally, the use of powerlessnessas an expectancy means that this version of alienation is very closely related to the notion (developed by Rotter) of "internal versus external control of reinforcements."The latter construct refers to the individual's sense of personal control over the reinforcementsituation, as contrasted with his view that the occurrence of reinforcements is dependent upon external conditions, such as chance, luck, or the manipulationof others. The congruence in these formulationsleaves the way open for the development of a closer bond between two languages of analysis-that of learning theory and that of alienation-that have long histories in psychology and sociology. But the congruencealso poses a problem-the problem of recognizing that these two constructs, though intimately related, are not generally used to understand the same things.8
8 Cf. W. H. James and J. B. Rotter, "Partial and One Hundred Percent Reinforcement under Chance and Skill Conditions," Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55 (May, 1958), pp. 397-403. Rotter and his students have shown that the distinction between internal and external control (a distinction which is also cast in expectancy terms) has an important bearing on learning theory. The propositions in that theory, they argue, are based too exclusively on experimental studies which simulate conditions of "external control," where the subject "is likely to perceive reinforcements as being beyond his control and primarily contingent upon external conditions" (p. 397). Compare this use of what is es-

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In the case of alienation, I would limit the applicability of the concept to expectancies that have to do with the individual's sense of influence over socio-political events (control over the political system, the industrial economy, international affairs, and the like). Accordingly, I would initially limit the applicability of this first meaning of alienation to the arena for which the concept was originally intended, namely, the depiction of man's relation to the larger social order. Whether or not such an operational concept of alienation is related to expectancies for control in more intimate need areas (for example, love and affection; status-recognition) is a matter for empirical determination. The need for the restriction lies in the following convictions: First, the concept of alienation, initially, should not be so global as to make the generality of powerlessness a matter of fiat rather than fact. Second, the concept should not be dangerously close to merely an index of personality adjustment -equivalent, that is, to a statement that the individual is maladjusted in the sense that he has a generally low expectation that he can, through his own behavior, achieve any of the personal rewards he seeks.9
sentially a notion of powerlessness with, for example, Norman Podheretz's discussion of the "Beat Generation": "Being apathetic about the Cold War is to admit that you have a sense of utter helplessness in the face of forces apparently beyond the control of man." "Where is the Beat Generation Going?" Esquire, 50 (December, 1958), p. 148. 9 It seems best, in regard to the adjustment question, to follow Gwynn Nettler's view. He points out that the concepts of alienation and anomie should not "be equated, as they so often are, with personal disorganization defined as intrapersonal goallessness, or lack of 'internal coherence' . . . [their] bearing on emotional sickness must be independently investigated." "A Measure of Alienation," American Sociological Review, 22 (December, 1957), p. 672. For a contrasting view, see Nathan Glazer's "The Alienation of Modern Man," Commentary, 3 (April, 1947), p. 380, in which he comments: "If we approach alienation in this way, it becomes less a description of a single specific symptom than an omnibus of psychological disturbances having a similar root cause-in this case, modern social organization." With regard to the question of the generality of powerlessness, I assume that high or low expectancies for the control of outcomes through one's own behavior will (a) vary with the behavior involvede.g., control over academic achievement or grades, as against control over unemployment; and (b) will be differentially realistic in different areas (it is one

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AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW
MEANINGLESSNESS

A second major usage of the alienation concept may be summarizedunder the idea of meaninglessness.The clearest contemporary examples of this usage are found in Adorno's treatment of prejudice; in Cantril's The Psychology of Social Movements, in which the "search for meaning" is used as part of the interpretive scheme in analyzing such diverse phenomenaas lynchings, the Father Divine movement, and German fascism; and in Hoffer's portrait of the "true believer" as one who finds, and needs to find, in the doctrines of a mass movement "a master key to all the world's problems."10 This variant of alienation is involved in Mannheim's description of the increase of "functional rationality" and the concomitant decline of "substantial rationality." Mannheim argues that as society increasingly organizes its members with reference to the most efficient realization of ends (that is, as functional rationality increases), there is a parallel decline in the "capacity to act intelligently in a given situation on the basis of one's own insight into the interrelations of events." ' This second type of alienation, then, refers to the individual'ssense of understandingthe events in which he is engaged. We may speak of high alienation, in the meaninglessness usage, when the individual is unclear as to what he ought to believe-when the individual's minimal standards for clarity in decision-makingare not met. Thus, the post-war German situation described by Adorno was "meaningless"in the sense that the individual could not choose with confidence among alternative explanations of the inflationary disasters of the time (and, it is argued, subthing to feel powerless with regard to war and quite another, presumably, to feel powerless in making friends). My chief point is that these are matters that can be empirically rather than conceptually solved; we should not, therefore, build either "generality" or "adjustment" into our concept of alienation. This same view is applied in the discussion of the other four types of alienation. 10 See, respectively, Adorno et al., op. cit.; Hadley

stituted the "Jews" as a simplified solution for this unclarity). In Mannheim'sdepiction, the individual cannot choose appropriately among alternative interpretations (cannot "act intelligently" or "with insight") because the increase in functional rationality, with its emphasis on specialization and production, makes such choice impossible. It would seem, for the present at least, a matter of no consequencewhat the beliefs in question are. They may, as in the above instance, be simply descriptive beliefs (interpretations); or they may be beliefs involving moral standards (norms for behavior). In either case, the individual's choice among alternative beliefs has low "confidence limits": he cannot predict with confidence the consequencesof acting on a given belief. One might operationalizethis aspect of alienation by focusing upon the fact that it is characterized by a low expectancy that satisfactory predictions about future outcomes of behavior can be made. Put more simply, where the first meaning of alienation refers to the sensed ability to control outcomes, this second meaning refers essentially to the sensed ability to predict behavioral outcomes. This second version of alienation is logically independent of the first, for, under some circumstances, expectancies for personal control of events may not coincide with the understandingof these events, as in the popular depiction of the alienation of the intellectual. Still, there are obvious connections between these two forms of alienation: in some important degree, the view that one lives in an intelligible world may be a prerequisite to expectancies for control; and the unintelligibility of complex affairs is presumably conducive to the de12 C. Wright Mills' descriptionreflectsthis view: "The intellectual who remains free may continue to learn more and more about modernsociety, but he finds the centers of political initiative less and

less accessible.

. .

. He comes to feel helpless in

Cantril,The Psychologyof Social Movements,New

York: Wiley, 1941; Believer, New York: 11 Karl Mannheim, Reconstruction, New p.59. and Eric Hoffer, The True Harper, 1950, p. 90. Man and Society in an Age of York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940,

the fundamentalsense that he cannot control what he is able to foresee." White Collar, New York: Oxford,1951, p. 157. The same distinctionis found in F. L. Strodtbeck's empiricalcomparison Italian of and Jewish values affecting mobility: "For the Jew, there was always the expectationthat everything could be understood, if perhaps not controlled." "Family Interaction,Values and Achievement," in D. C. McClelland et al., Talent and Society, New York: Van Nostrand, 1958, p. 155.

ALIENATION

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velopment of high expectancies for external Merton's comments on this kind of anomic control (that is, high powerlessness).13 situation serve to renew the discussion of the expectancy constructs developed above-the NORMLESSNESS idea of meaninglessness, and the idea of The third variant of the alienation theme powerlessness or internal-external control. is derived from Durkheim's description of For Merton notes, first, that the anomic situ"anomie," and refers to a condition of ation leads to low predictability in behavior, normlessness. In the traditional usage, and second, that the anomic situation may anomie denotes a situation in which the so- well lead to the belief in luck: cial norms regulating individual conduct Whateverthe sentimentsof the readerconcerningthe moraldesirability coordinating of have broken down or are no longer effective the goals-and-means phasesof the socialstrucas rules for behavior. As noted above, Merture, it is clearthat imperfectcoordination of ton emphasizes this kind of rulelessness in the two leadsto anomie.Insofaras one of the his interpretation of the importance of the most generalfunctionsof the social structure is to provide a basis for predictabilityand "sincerity" theme in Kate Smith's war bond regularityof social behavior,it becomesindrive: creasingly limited in effectivenessas these on The emphasis this themereflectsa social elementsof the social structurebecome disis termdisorder-"anomie" the sociological sociated.... The victimsof this contradiction in which common values have been subbetween the cultural emphasison pecuniary in merged the welterof privateinterestsseekambitionand the social bars to full opportuby ing satisfaction virtuallyany meanswhich nity are not always aware of the structural are effective.Drawn from a highly competisources of their thwartedaspirations. be To urbansociety, our informants tive, segmented sure,they are typicallyawareof a discrepancy distrustwhich, live in a climateof reciprocal betweenindividualworth and social rewards. to say the least, is not conduciveto stable But they do not necessarily see how this . humanrelationships. . . The very same socomes about.Those who do find its sourcein ciety that producesthis sense of alienation the social structure may become alienated generates manya craving in and estrangement from that structureand becomeready candifor reassurance. ...14 dates for Adaptation V [rebellion]. But others, and this appearsto include the great Elsewhere,in his well-knownpaper "Social majority, may attribute their difficultiesto more mystical and less sociologicalsources. Structure and Anomie," Merton describes . . . in such a society [a societysuffering from the "adaptations" (the kinds of conformity anomie] people tend to put stress on mysand deviance) that may occur where the disticism: the workings of Fortune, Chance, ciplining effect of collective standards has Luck.16 been weakened.He takes as his case in point It is clear that the general idea of anomie the situation in which culturally prescribed goals (in America, the emphasis upon suc- is both an integral part of the alienation cess goals) are not congruent with the avail- literature, and that it bears upon our expectable means for their attainment. In such a ancy notions. What is not so clear is the situation, he argues, anomie or normlessness matter of how precisely to conceptualize the will develop to the extent that "the techni- events to which "anomie" is intended to cally most effective procedure, whether cul- point. Unfortunately, the idea of normlessturally legitimate or not, becomes typically ness has been over-extended to include a preferred to institutionally prescribed con- wide variety of both social conditions and psychic states: personal disorganization,culduct." 15 tural breakdown, reciprocal distrust, and so 13 ThorsteinVeblen arguesthe same point, in his own inimitablestyle, in a discussionof "The Belief on. Those who employ the anomie version of in Luck": ".... the extra-causal propensity or agent has a very high utility as a recoursein perplexity" alienation are chiefly concerned with the [providingthe individual] "a means of escapefrom elaboration of the "means" emphasis in sothe difficultyof accountingfor phenomenain terms of causal sequences."The Theory of the Leisure ciety-for example, the loss of commonly Class,New York: Macmillan, 1899; ModernLibrary held standards and consequent individualEdition,1934,p. 386. ism, or the development of instrumental, 14 Merton,op. cit., p. 143. manipulative attitudes. This interest repre15 R. K. Merton,Social Theory and Social Structure, Glencoe,Ill.: Free Press, 1949, p. 128. '6Ibid., pp. 148-149, 138.

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AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW perhaps we can learn something about the way in which he can become alienated from things that take much more of his time." 18 In speaking of "misbehavior" or "mis-involvement," Goffmanis treating the problem of alienation in terms not far removed from the anomic feature I have described, that is, the expectancy for socially unapproved behavior. His analysis of the social microcosm in these terms calls attention once more to the fact that the five variants of alienation discussed here can be applied to as broad or as narrow a range of social behavior as seems useful.
ISOLATION

sents our third variant of alienation, the key idea of which, again, may be cast in terms of expectancies. Following Merton's lead, the anomic situation, from the individual point of view, may be defined as one in which there is a high expectancy that socially unapprovedbehaviorsare requiredto achieve given goals. This third meaning of alienation is logically independent of the two versions discussedabove. Expectanciesconcerningunapprovedmeans, presumably, can vary independently of the individual's expectancy that his own behavior will determine his success in reaching a goal (what I have called 'powerlessness") or his belief that he operates in an intellectually comprehensible world ("meaninglessness"). Such a view of anomie, to be sure, narrows the evocative character of the concept, but it provides a more likely way of developing its research potential. This view, I believe, makes possible the discovery of the extent to which such expectanciesare held, the conditions for their development, and their consequences either for the individual or for a given social system (for example, the generation of widespread distrust). The foregoing discussion implies that the means and goals in question have to do with such relatively broad social demands as the demand for success or for political ends. However, in his interesting essay, "Alienation from Interaction," Erving Goffmanpresents a more or less parallel illustration in which the focus is on the smallest of social systems, the simple conversation: If we take conjoint spontaneousinvolvement in a topic of conversation a point of as reference, shallfind that alienation we from it is commonindeed. Conjointinvolvementappears to be a fragile thing, with standard points of weaknessand decay, a precarious unsteadystate that is likely at any time to lead the individualinto some form of alienaintion. Sincewe are dealingwith obligatory volvement,forms of alienationwill constitute misbehavior a kind that can be calledmisof
involvement.l7

The fourth type of alienation refers to isolation. This usage is most common in descriptions of the intellectual role, where writers refer to the detachment of the intellectual from popular cultural standardsone who, in Nettler's language, has become estranged from his society and the culture it carries."9 Clearly, this usage does not refer to isolation as a lack of "social adjustment" -of the warmth, security, or intensity of an individual's social contacts. In the present context, in which we seek to maintain a consistent focus on the individual's expectations or values, this brand of alienation may be usefully defined in terms of reward values: The alienated in the isolation sense are those who, like the intellectual,
18 Ibid., p. 59. Obviously, the distinction (discussed above under "powerlessness") between objective condition and individual expectancy applies in the case of anomie. For a recent treatment of this point, see R. K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957 (revised edition), pp. 161-194. It is clear that Srole's wellknown anomie scale refers to individual experience (and that it embodies a heavy adjustment component). It is not so clear how the metaphorical language of "normative breakdown" and "structural strain" associated with the conception of anomie as a social condition is to be made empirically useful. It may be further noted that the idea of rulelessness has often been used to refer to situations in which norms are unclear as well as to those in which norms lose their regulative force. I focused on the latter case in this section; but the former aspect of anomie is contained in the idea of "meaninglessness." The idea of meaninglessness, as defined above, surely includes situations involving uncertainty resulting from obscurity of rules, the absence of clear criteria for resolving ambiguities, and the like. 19 Nettler, op. cit., p. 672.

Goffman describes four such "mis-involvements" (for example,being too self-conscious in interaction), and concludes: "By looking at the ways in which individuals can be thrownout of step with the sociable moment,
17 Human Relations, 10 (February, 1957), p. 49 (italics added).

ALIENATION assign low reward value to goals or beliefs that are typically highly valued in the given society. This, in effect, is the definition of alienation in Nettler's scale, for as a measure of "apartness from society" the scale consists (largely though not exclusively) of items that reflect the individual's degree of commitmentto popular culture. Included, for example, is the question "Do you read Reader's Digest?", a magazine that was selected "as a symbol of popular magazine appeal and folkish thoughtways."20 The "isolation" version of alienation clearly carries a meaning different from the three versions discussed above. Still, these alternative meanings can be profitably applied in conjunction with one another in the analysis of a given state of affairs. Thus, Merton's paper on social structure and anomie makes use of both "normlessness" and "isolation" in depicting the adaptations that individualsmay make to the situation in which goals and means are not well coordinated. One of these adaptations-that of the "innovator"-is the prototype of alienation in the sense of normlessness, in which the individual innovates culturally disapproved means to achieve the goals in question. But another adjustment pattern-that of "rebellion"-more closely approximates what I have called "isolation." "This adaptation [rebellion] leads men outside the environing social structure to envisage and seek to bring
20 Ibid., p. 675. A scale to measuresocial isolation has and meaninglessness) (as well as powerlessness been developedby Dean, but the meaningsare not the same as those given here; the "socialisolation" measure, for example, deals with the individual's friendship status. (See Dwight Dean, "Alienation and Political Apathy," Ph.D. thesis, Ohio State University, 1956.) It seems to me now, however, that this is not a very useful meaning, for two reasons.First, it comes very close to being a statement of either social adjustment or of simple in differences associationalstyles (i.e., some people are sociableand some are not), and as such seems irrelevantto the root historicalnotion of alienation. Second, the crucial part of this "social isolation" componentin alienation-what Nisbet, for example, or calls the "unattached" the "isolated"-is better captured for analytical purposes,I believe, in the or normlessness, isolation, ideas of meaninglessness, or as definedin expectancy rewardterms.That is to after sheersociabilityis removed, say, what remains, of is the kind of tenuousness social ties that may be describedas value uniqueness(isolation), deviation or from approvedmeans (normlessness), the like.

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into being a new, that is to say, a greatly modified, social structure. It presupposes alienation from reigning goals and standards."21
SELF-ESTRANGEMENT

The final variant distinguishable in the literature is alienation in the sense of selfestrangement. The most extended treatment of this version of alienation is found in The Sane Society, where Fromm writes: In the followinganalysisI have chosenthe concept of alienation as the central point from which I am going to developthe analysocial character.... sis of the contemporary By alienationis meant a mode of experience himselfas an in whichthe personexperiences alien. He has become, one might say, estrangedfrom himself.22 In much the same way, C. Wright Mills comments: "In the normal course of her work, because her personality becomes the instrument of an alien purpose, the salesgirl becomes self-alienated;" and, later, "Men are estranged from one another as each secretly tries to make an instrument of the other, and in time a full circle is made: One makes an instrument of himself and is estranged from It also." 23 There are two interesting features of this popular doctrine of alienation as self-estrangement. The first of these is the fact that where the usage does not overlap with the other four meanings (and it often does), it is difficult to specify what the alienation is from. To speak of "alienation from the self" is after all simply a metaphor, in a way that "alienation from popular culture," for example, need not be. The latter can be
21Merton,"SocialStructure Anomie,"op. cit., and a pp. 144-145.Mertonis describing radicalestrangement from societal values (often typified in the case of the intellectual)-i.e., the alienationis from reigningcentralfeaturesof the society, and what is sought is a "greatly"modified society. Presumably, the "isolation"mode of alienation, like the other versions, can be applied on the intimate or the grand scale, as noted above in the discussion of Goffman'sanalysis. Clearly,the person who rejects certain commonly held values in a given society, but who values the society's tolerancefor such difto commitment a ferences,is expressing fundamental societalvalues and in this degreehe is not alienated in the isolationsense.
22Fromm, op. cit., pp. 110, 120. 23 Mills, op. cit., pp. 184, 188.

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AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW I refer to that aspect of self-alienation which is generally characterized as the loss of intrinsic meaning or pride in work, a loss which Marx and others have held to be an essential feature of modern alienation. This notion of the loss of intrinsically meaningful satisfactions is embodied in a number of ways in current discussions of alienation. Glazer, for example, contrasts the alienated society with simpler societies characterized by "spontaneousacts of work and play which were their own reward."26 Although this meaning of alienation is difficult to specify, the basic idea contained in the rhetoric of self-estrangement-the idea of intrinsically meaningful activity-can, perhaps, be recast into more manageable social learning terms. One way to state such a meaning is to see alienation as the degree of dependence of the given behavior upon anticipated future rewards, that is, upon rewards that lie outside the activity itself. In these terms, the worker who works merely for his salary, the housewife who cooks simply to get it over with, or the other-directedtype who acts "only for its effect on others"-all these (at differentlevels, again) are instances of self-estrangement. In this view, what has been called self-estrangement refers essentially to the inability of the individual to find self-rewarding-or in Dewey's phrase, self-consummatory-activities that engage
him.27
Glazer, op. cit., p. 379. The difficulty of providing intrinsically satisfying work in industrial society, of course, has been the subject of extensive comment; see, for example, Daniel Bell, Work and Its Discontents, Boston: Beacon Press, 1956. A similar idea has been applied by Tumin to the definition of creativity: "I would follow Dewey's lead and view 'creativity' as the esthetic experience, which is distinguished from other experiences by the fact that it is self-consummatory in nature. This is to say, the esthetic experience is enjoyed for the actions which define and constitute the experience, whatever it may be, rather than for its instrumental results or social accompaniments in the form of social relations with others." Melvin M. Tumin, "Obstacles to Creativity," Etc.: A Review of General Semantics, 11 (Summer, 1954), p. 261. For a more psychological view of the problem of "intrinsically" governed behavior, see S. Koch, "Behavior as 'Intrinsically' Regulated: Work Notes Toward a Pre-Theory of Phenomena Called 'Motivational,"' in M. R. Jones, editor, Nebraska Symnposium on Motivation, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1956, pp. 42-87.
26 27

reasonably specified, as I have tried to do above; but what is intended when Fromm, Mills, Hoffer, and the others speak of selfestrangement? Apparently, what is being postulated here is some ideal human condition from which the individual is estranged. This is, perhaps, clearest in Fromm's treatment, for example, in his description of production and consumption excesses in capitalist society: "The human way of acquiring would be to make an effort qualitatively commensurate with what I acquire. . . . But our craving for consumptionhas lost all connection with the real needs of man."24 To be self-alienated, in the final analysis, means to be something less than one might ideally be if the circumstances in society were otherwise-to be insecure, given to appearances, conformist. Riesman's discussion of other-direction falls within this meaning of alienation; for what is at stake is that the child learns "that nothing in his character, no possession he owns, no inheritance of name or talent, no work he has done, is valued for itself, but 25 only for its effect on others.... Riesman's comment brings us to the second feature of special interest in the idea of self-alienation. I have noted that this idea invokes some explicit or implicit human ideal. And I have implied that such comparisons of modern man with some idealized human condition should be viewed simply as rhetorical appeals to nature-an important rhetoric for some purposes, though not very useful in the non-analytical form it generally takes. But Riesman's assertion contains, it seems to me, one of the key elements of this rhetoric-one, indeed, that not only reflects the original interest of Marx in alienation but also one that may be specifiable in a language consistent with our other uses of alienation.
24 Fromm, op. cit., pp. 131, 134 (italics in original). 25 David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 49. Although the idea of self-estrangement, when used in the alienation literature, usually carries the notion of a generally applicable human standard, it is sometimes the individual's standard that is at issue: to be alienated in this sense is to be aware of a discrepancy between one's ideal self and one's actual self-image.

"BUREAUCRACY" AND "RATIONALITY"

CONCLUSION

791

that tradition when, in a summary essay on alienation, he speaks of our modern ". I am aware that there are unclarities and difficulties of considerable importance in sense of the splitting asunder of what was these five varieties of alienation (especially, once together, the breaking of the seamless I believe, in the attempted solution of "self- mold in which values, behavior,and expectaestrangement"and the idea of "meaningless- tions were once cast into interlocking ness"). But I have attempted, first, to dis- forms."28 These same three concepts-retinguish the meanings that have been given ward value, behavior, and expectancy-are to alienation, and second, to work toward a key elements in the theory that underlies the more useful conception of each of these present characterization of alienation. Perhaps, on closer inspection, the reader will meanings. It may seem, at first reading, that the find only that initial strangeness which is language employed-the language of expec- often experienced when we translate what tations and rewards-is somewhat strange, if was sentimentally understood into a secular not misguided. But I would urge that the question. language is more traditional than it may 28 Glazer, op. cit., p. 378 (italics added). seem. Nathan Glazer certainly is well within

"BUREAUCRACY" AND "RATIONALITY" IN WEBER'S ORGANIZATION THEORY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

STANLEY

H.

UDY, JR.

Yale University Seven of Max Weber's ideal-typical specifications for "rational bureaucracy" are reformulated as a system of three "bureaucratic" and four "rational" variables. It is proposed that (a) bureaucratic variables are positively associated; (b) rational variables are positively associated; but that (c) rational variables are negatively associated with bureaucratic variables. This hypothesis is supported by a comparative analysis of 150 formal organizations in 150 nonindustrial societies, using data largely from the Human Relations Area Files. Implications of the findings are explored for, first, the use of the concept "informal organization;" and, second, the development of a general organizational model. Such a model is proposed in outline and illustrated from the descriptive industrial sociological literature.

"split personality" as sociologist, on the one hand, and transcendental idealist historian, on the other, has from time to time occasioned comment in the literature.' This duality of posture in Weber's work appears in particular to have had some rather interesting consequences for the lines along which contemporary organization theory has developed. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss some of these consequences, together with certain problems to which they lead, and to explore a possible solution to these problems through a small empirical study.
AX WEBER'S
1 See Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, Glencoe: Free Press, 1949, pp. 601-610.

The dual nature of Weber's approach is perhaps nowhere so apparent as in his use of ideal types in the analysis of administrative structure. From a sociological point of view, his specifications for the "rational bureaucracy" superficially resemble the categories of a model. Yet on closer scrutiny they prove to be alleged concrete attributes, rather than variables or categories in a classificatory scheme. And, indeed, from a transcendental idealist point of view, Weber himself treats ideal types as substantive conclusions rather than methodologicaltools. In this sense, his specifications for the "rational bureaucracy"represent not so much a system of analytical categories as they do an attempt to capture the "spirit" of contem-