Bureaucracy and Alienation: A Dimensional Approach

The generalization that there exists a direct relationship between bureaucratization and alienation is modified by examining the relationships between five bureaucratic characteristics and six forms of alienation among samples of hourly paid workers, salaried managers, and independent businessmen. The data do not support the broad generalization that such a direct relationship exists, but some patterns of relationships are suggestive for future research: (1) bureaucracy may be directly related to alienation among blue-collar workers, but not among salaried managers or independent businessmen; (2) the authority dimension of bureaucracy is more closely related to measures of alienation than other bureaucratic characteristics among hourly paid worikers; and (3) that form of alienation most closely related to bureaucratization among hourly paid workers is self-estrangement. Since the early writings of Marx (cf. Bottomore, 1963:124-131), one of the major themes of sociology and social philosophy has been the attempt to locate the antecedents of alienation.1 Whether the focus is on the qualitative, inferential works of the social commentators (cf. Josephson and Josephson, 1962) or on the empirical contribution of the social scientists,2 there seems to be widespread agreement (Josephson and Josephson, 1962:30-53) that industrialization and its concomitant, bureaucratization, are among the major alienating conditions and that their influence extends far beyond the workplace. The purpose of this discussion is to add to that literature by exploring the relationships between specified dimensions of bureaucracy and different types of alienation among three occupational samples-hourly paid workers, salaried managers, and independent businessmen. With few exceptions (Aiken and Hage, 1966; Blauner, 1964), there has been a tendency in the literature to suggest a direct relationship between bureaucratization and alienation without specifying the bureaucratic characteristics related to different forns or dimensions of alienation. Thus, just as Seeman (1967) has noted and questioned a "generalization theme" in regard to the consequences of alienation, our purpose is to explore the validity of a similar generalization theme in re* Revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association, Dallas, Texas, April 1968. The authors acknowledge with gratitude the encouragement and critical aid provided by Ivan Belknap and S. Dale McLemore of the University of Texas and Richard L. Simpson of the University of North Carolina. The research reported here is from a larger project funded by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Austin, Texas. 1 That alienation is among the concepts of major interest to contemporary sociologists is at once apparent when scanning the contents of our maj or journals. The generalization has also been documented by a content analysis of four major sociological journals over a recent twelve-year period (Bonjean, Hill, and McLemore, 1967 :6-8). 2 Much of this literature is well summarized in Aiken and Hage (1966). This content downloaded from 157.55.39.219 on Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:04:21 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms