Why is alienation a common workplace experience? Explain how Karl Marx and Max Weber answered this question somewhat differently. In your mind, which thinker makes a more convincing case? Why?

What is an Ideal response?


• Marx: Defined alienation as powerlessness in the workplace resulting in the experience of isolation and misery. Believed work to be a natural, satisfying activity by which people meet their needs and develop their creative potential; the problem of alienation stems from the ways work is shaped by the capitalist economic system.
• Weber: Defined alienation as depersonalization not just in the workplace but throughout society brought on by a rational focus on efficiency; the cause of alienation is not capitalism but the rationality (the impersonal focus on efficiency) that is a trait of all modern social life.

Sociology

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