Background Paper
Second Corning Conference

TWO MODELS OF HUMANIZATION OF LABOR

By Julian Hochfeld

What is the nature of labor relations in the era of
developed industrial societies? What are the main patterns
in the approach to, and solution of, the problems stemming
from alienation of labor and its postulated humanization? How
far is the approach to these problems, and their solution, affected
by ideological positions? What are, nowadays, the conditions
and limitations of liberating labor from alienation? What are
the prospects of humanization of labor, and the possibilities
of affirmation through work?

This is a range of problems involving a great many
detailed questions which ought to be taken up by a philosopher
along with a sociologist, an economist along with a psychologist,
a historian along with a lawyer, an experienced manager along with
a scholar, a politician along with a businessman, and a labor
leader along with a man representing modern technology. It is
not my intention in this paper to cope with those detailed questions;
I shall try to tackle the issue in its most general form, I
proceed from the assumption that the existing ways of approaching
and solving the problems stemming from alienation of labor and

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its postulated humanization can now be reduced to two essential
models. One of these models belongs to the legacy passed down to
us by Karl Marx; it is the version of labor totally freed from
total alienation*. The other model can be abstracted from various
versions of the reformist concept of ameliorating the situation of
the working people; in this case, the postulate of social changes
in the interest of labor borders directly on the ideology and
technique of manipulation in the interest of management.

I think, that, though different, the two models are no
longer in collision with each other. In a certain sense, they are
even complementary. Against the background of the realities of a
developed industrial society, the strength of the Marxian vision
lies mostly in its critical contents; the program it contains is
rational only insofar as it is considered to be a value giving
general direction to reformatory efforts, a tool to measure all
partial achievements, and an instrument to expose mystification.
As to the program of gradual improvement of the situation of labor,
its strength lies in its concreteness and adaptability to the
existing possibilities and conditions, and in its links with the
empirically-established shape of aspirations of certain human
groups and with various social structures, empirically given.

* As used by Hegel and Marx, "alienation" means the radical
dissociaion of the self into a subject that strives to control
its own fate, and an object that is manipulated by others. - Editor.

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But Marx's concept in its entirety is the only one to supply the instruments of critique which can reveal whether the postulates or achievements within a reformist program actually constitute a degree of humanization of labor, or are merely a mystification of manipulators or an illusion of ideologists.

### Marx: Alienated Labor and the Vision of Emanciating Labor from Alienation

For Marx, man as a creature of his species is, above all, *homo faber*. Although he draws his means of subsistence from nature, the character of his livelihood is completely different from that of animals. According to Marx, animals are directly identical with their livelihood. The essence of the human species consists in work--in the productive activities within which man carries out, regulates and controls the exchange of substance with nature. His is a conscious and purposeful activity. Man is not identical with it; he does not merge into one with his action--on the contrary, he makes it subject to his own will and consciousness. This form of life, specific for humans, gives birth to what can be called the artificial environment of man-produced objects. In the objective world he has created, man sees his own reflection--as if reproducing himself in it, not only intellectually but really and actively. Thereupon, the objective world of man's own products becomes the sphere of man's activities; in fact it is only through this artificial environment,

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created by himself, that man enters into a relationship with nature. Hence, work which enables man to create the objective world, external but his own, and to mold his own shape, is the true affirmation of man as a creature of his species.

In terms of material progress rather than philosophical accomplishment, the millenia during which mankind was gradually emerging from the animal kingdom to form a separate species, potentially capable of such an understanding of affirmation through work, must have been rather unprepossessing. On his entrance on the historical stage man was, to quote Engels, helpless in face of the forces of nature and not quite aware of his own--poor as an animal and hardly more productive. Labor productivity was so small and production so little developed that there was practically no surplus above the necessities of simple and crude life. Since primitive societies were relatively static and their productive forces developed at a very slow rate, it took a long time to produce enough surplus to allow the evolution of the division of labor to take the form in which, amidst the mass of people employed in simple manual labor, there emerged a privileged handful occupied in management, trade, state, administration, and later in fine arts and sciences. This marked the opening of the era of class societies--and of alienation of labor. The source of the alienation was in private ownership of means of production, or, to be more precise, in monopolization

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of qualified economic disposal in the hands of the possessing
and ruling minority of the society.

Marx distinguishes three aspects of alienation of labor.

**Primo**, alienation of the product of labor, lost by the laborer
to the owner of the means of production, who (the owner) uses
a portion of the product for the purpose of reproducing this very
same relationship of superiority and subjection. The product of
labor has thus not only been taken away from the laborer but has
been turned into the force which subjugates him. **Secundo,**
alienation of the performance of labor. When performing labor,
the laborer does not belong to himself but to a representative of
the class which has monopolized economic disposal; no wonder that
he regards the performance of labor as something forcibly imposed
from outside--an action in which he, the laborer, negates rather
than affirms himself, and becomes his own self only after his
work is over. Instead of satisfying man's need to work, labor is
a means to satisfy other needs. And the result is, says Marx,
that the workman feels free only in his "animal functions," such
as eating, drinking, procreating, dwelling, dressing, etc., while
in the performance of his specifically human functions he feels
like an animal. This leads us to the **third** aspect of alienation
of labor, the alienation of what is the essence of the human
species. Work is the way of life of the human species; this
specifically human way of life becomes alien to man--is estranged

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from, and opposed to, the personality of man. In other words,
to quote Marx, men have become alien to one another, and each of
them to the essence of human society. Here Marx's characteristic
of alienation of labor turns into a characteristic of alienation
of the entire society, embracing de-humanization, de-personalization
and atomization, and men's inability to shape his own lot consciously
and freely.

As Marx pointed out in his earlier works and emphasized
in his later works on political economy, alienation, although
unhuman, was an indispensable stage in the development of human
societies. Similarly, Engels disclosed the important historical
role played even by slavery, the most primitive and most barbarious
form of class relations. But capitalism brought in its wake a
tremendous upsurge of productive forces, owing to which total
alienation of labor could be counterpoised by a program of its
total liberation. Any class which monopolizes economic disposal,
labor management, state administration, jurisdiction, fine arts
and sciences, and which, consequently, possesses the privileges
inherent in domination--any such class has become redundant. It
ought to be eliminated and it shall be eliminated. Marx realized
from the very beginning that this implied a long and difficult
process rather than a single act of revolutionary upheaval. But
in effect, work will recover its ability to affirm man, to develop
his talents, to give him satisfaction in life, to shape his

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personality in all aspects. The human essence of man will be restored to him; the conflicts between freedom and necessity, between individual and species, will be solved. Work will be freed from the fetters of alienation and from the bondage of economic necessities which in the past ages changed the essence of human existence from an autonomous end into a means to satisfy other needs; indeed, work, as the specific activity of man, will ensure total identification of species and individual.

Presented mostly in the earlier works of Marx, this revolutionary vision of labor's emancipation from alienation appears to have been somewhat altered in later years. The emphasis seems to have been shifted, slightly but perceptibly, to the minutiae dictated by a more concrete historical and economic analysis, or perhaps by the necessity to outline more immediate and realistic prospects. According to the initial concept, productive activity, emancipated and released from the "kingdom of necessity," would cease being labor and would be completely identified with an activity fully affirming the personality of man--with free creative work of individuals associated, as a species, in the "kingdom of freedom." Hence this vision can be called the revolutionary program of total identification of species and individual. Marx and Engels made an obvious distinction between *labor* and *work* (as confirmed, *inter alia*, in Engel's footnote on Page 14 of the first English edition of the first

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volume of *Capital*)--between the labor of human body, physiological expenditure of manpower, and creative, differentiated work performed by human hands and brains to attain the objective set by the performer. When commodity production is abolished--when the society, released from all forms of alienation, reaches "the kingdom of freedom"--uniform, non-differentiated labor producing *exchange* values will have disappeared, and the production of *use* values will have become an entirely free action affirming the personality of man and reproducing him in the product of his work.

However, judging from some statements made by Marx and Engels later on, this concept was somewhat modified. For instance, in *Anti-During* Engels gives a general description of the way man-kind had passed since the birth of the class society to the capitalist system, which opened the prospects of eliminating the division of society into the laboring majority of performers and the privileged minority of disposers. Only when this final step had been taken, under the system which would replace capitalism, would it be possible--due to the gigantic growth of productive forces--to distribute labor amongst all and to cut down labor performed by everyone, so as to give everybody sufficient time to take part in public matters, management, fine arts and sciences.

Engels' was not a vision of creative work totally identifying species and individual, but a program of dividing social life into (1) a sphere of economic necessities; (2) a sphere of labor

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which, though susceptible to gradual reduction, must be shared by
everybody; and (3) a sphere of freedom, a sphere of affirming and
creative work, to which everybody would be able to devote more and
more of his time. Also, referring in the third volume of *Capital*
to reduction of labor hours, Marx says that the "kingdom of freedom"
begins beyond the sphere of strictly material production. Marx also
makes a distinction between freedom within the bounds of the "kingdom
of necessity" and "the true kingdom of freedom." Within the "kingdom
of necessity," freedom can mean no more than that the associated
producers exert social control over production, rationally regulate
it, expend their labor as economically as possible, and produce in
conditions most befitting their human dignity. But it all remains
within the bounds of the "kingdom of necessity." It is beyond these
boundaries that full development of human forces begins in "the true
kingdom of freedom." But Marx adds that even "the true kingdom of
freedom" can only flourish on the ground of "the kingdom of necessity,"
on the ground of regular economic activities, with huge expansion of
productive forces and reduced time of labor as its essential pre-
requisites.

It would call for a detailed analysis--which seems super-
fluous here and which, besides, would take up too much space--
to find out what is the relationship between the initial Marxian
vision of total identification of species and individual and the
subsequent program of freedom within "the kingdom of necessity"

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and the blossoming of "the true kingdom of freedom" beyond, but
on the ground of, "the kingdom of necessity." In Marx's works
there are many reflections based on keen observation of actual
tendencies of economic development, and pertaining to such
matters as the future society, future education, future univer-
sality of labor, future changes in the kinds of labor precondi-
tioning all-round development of the individual, and gradual
disappearance of the differences between manual and intellectual
labor as a result of technical progress. These reflections are
invariably associated with a critical estimate of the forms of
alienation carried to an absurdity by capitalism. To judge from
them, it seems that the program which Marx deemed immediately
feasible and, indeed, already initiated, was intended to be a
bridge leading to the implementation of the original ideal. Such
an interpretation is suggested by the well-known passage in the
*Critique of the Gotha Program* where Marx mentions the conditions
wherein a higher phase of communist society will emerge. These
conditions are: disappearance of the enslaving subordination of
the individual to the division of labor and of the anththesis
between mental and physical labor; transformation of work into
life's prime object (while maintaining its functions as a means
of subsistence); and, finally, all-round development of the
individual, thus multiplying productive forces and bringing
about a more abundant flow of all the springs of associated wealth.

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The vision may seem hazy, and one may have one's doubts as to its
being in line with some other statements of the founders of Marxism,
but it is of momentous importance. For it can always serve as a
yardstick to measure partial achievements, a tool to expose
illusion and mystification, a precision instrument to detect the
distance between *polis*, the ideal of culture of the Greek, corrected
and passed down to us by the great humanistic tradition, and the
"perverse fulfillment" of this ideal, the cultural developments in
mass society.

## Twentieth Century: Marx's Concept and the Developed
### Industrial Society

The realities of developed industrial societies of the
second half of the Twentieth Century differ a great deal from the
capitalist conditions which supplied material for the Marxian
analysis of alienated labor and the Marxian vision of emancipation
of labor from the bondage of alienation. In the light of the new
system of social relations, new facts of social life, new tendencies
of social development and the shift in the previous ones, what does
Marx's concept look like?

To begin with, it is indubitable that, in spite of all
changes, the critical aspect of Marx's concept has retained its
value. Production in the developed industrial society is machine
production which, already raised to the second power, is being
raised to an even higher power. And, although the living and

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working conditions in the era of the second industrial revolution differ *toto coelo*--at least in the countries economically well-developed--from the horrible situation of workmen in the years of the first industrial revolution, the basic features and tendencies of the organization of the process of labor in the era of machine production, as depicted by Marx, continue to manifest themselves the more prominently the less they are tinged by primitive forms of exploitation.

According to Marx, the necessity of social regulation of the process of labor arises on introduction of large-scale cooperation and collective means of production, especially machines. But when labor is alienated, such regulation turns into its own caricature. The machine, which is supposed to release man from hard manual labor, also relieves him of the contents and sense of his work. Instead of setting the means of labor in motion, he has to follow their motion. Instead of handling the conditions of labor, he is being handled by them; it is machine production which gives a tangible technical shape to this inversion. A big modern factory is a powerful and autonomous mechanism, independent of the working individual--a mechanism which incorporates workmen as its living accessories, technically subordinated to the movement of the means of labor and to impersonal organization. The workman is getting increasingly dependent on industrial relations in their entirety; his

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helplessness, growing continuously, surpasses factory limits and
can only be comprehended on the scale of the whole society.

Transformed long ago into a fraction of a fractional machine,
the workman has become in turn an unwitting, impotent, helpless
and bewildered fraction of the organization of social relations;
and this organization, regular but impersonal, has its own
rhythm but escapes the control of the individual.

Such a paraphrase of Marx's writings is prompted by
the results, frequently described, of the organization of the
process of labor in the era of the second industrial revolution.
Some of these results are:

Fissure of the process of labor into elementary actions,
and its reintegration in the impersonal form of techno-
logical and organizational assembly lines.

Contraction of strictly production work, and ex-
pansion of the designing, planning, organizing and con-
trolling functions, which are also subjected to parcelling,
reshuffling, bureaucratic uniformization and, consequently,
routinization.

Organization, along the same lines, of trade,
services, and clerical work, which swell to absurd pro-
portions in developed industrial societies.

Concentration of fundamental economic decisions in
centres as far away from the factory shop as from the

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office of the manager of a single factory.

Ever-closer links between concentrated economic disposal
and the powerful and equally concentrated organizations of
political administration, military, propaganda, and informa-
tion disposal on a national and international scale.

Growing complexity and diversification of the problems
of management in a factory and of leadership in the society,
in conjunction with growing specialization and complexity
of the division of labor.

Ever greater distance between the average working man
and the place where decisions are made affecting the fate of
the individual, or rather of the mass of individuals--which
distance has grown so large that, in the eyes of both the
disposing and the disposed-of ones, the place of decision-
making seems to be non-existent and is identified with the
impersonal functioning of the entire social machinery.

Exaggerated as it is as regards its actual prevalence,
but only too true as regards the tendencies and typical features
of the most highly developed industrial societies, does not the
image just presented prove how profound is the depersonalization
of labor relations against the background of depersonalization of
social relations in their entirety? To be sure, the notion of
alienated labor seems to be too narrow; the Leviathan of modern
political relations, completely interlocked with economy and

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culture, makes it imperative to detect in the tendencies of
development of present-day societies the forecast of total
alienation, which has been given by sociologists the euphemistic
label of mass society.

As yet, the image does not reflect the situation in the
countries technically and economically underdeveloped. Their
labor relations represent various mixtures of the forms described
by Marx with some others, either more primitive or imported from
highly-industrialized organizations. But this does not diminish
the degree of alienation; it only alters its outward appearance.
The Marxian critique spoke of a society where division of labor
is the unfolding and development of the *motif* of division into a
mass of powerless performers and a handful of disposers, privileged
but obedient to the logic of their own function in the impersonal
mechanism of social relations--and this critique has remained
terrifyingly and overwhelmingly true.

But the question is, is the program of liberating labor
from alienation still valid, and to what extent? I shall not
venture to seek a firm and unequivocal answer here. However,
it is a fact that we are witnessing the continuity and, indeed,
intensification of the processes traditionally regarded as the basic
prerequisites of humanization of labor.

I have in mind, above all, the increase in productivity
of labor. This is the potential source of abundance of goods and

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reduction of labor hours, owing to which one can contribute the
time free of labor to public matters, cultural interests,
political participation. But when outlining such prospects,
Marx never underestimated the circumscribing factors. One of
them lies in the type of society where the performance of
managerial, political and cultural functions by the privileged
minority is balanced by the routine monotony of labor carried
out by the majority which has no access to those functions. But
even in case such division is overcome, it does not mean that the
increase of time free from labor can keep in step with growing
productivity of labor. For indispensable labor, as Marx calls
it, is of dynamic character; it augments in pace with the rise
in the necessities of life and the level of civilization. More-
over, indispensable labor must supply funds for different collective
needs and social services and for the general costs of adminis-
tration not belonging to production. No great effort of imagina-
tion is needed to realize what that means today; the volume of
indispensable labor is being influenced not only by the cost of
growing public services in the ordinary sense, intelligible to
anybody, but also by the cost of the peculiar reproduction on a
large scale of the bureaucratic administration and military
machinery, the cost of technical emulation between nations which
feel endangered if lagging behind, the cost of non-coordinated
but competitive aid to underdeveloped countries, and the cost of

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conspicuous consumption, collective and individual. Finally,--
and this was anticipated by Marx--potentialities inherent in
growing productivity of labor (shorter hours, labor less hard,
fewer people looking for a job to earn a living) come short of
the rate of growth.

Nonetheless, increased labor productivity, either
directly or through the growing abundance and variety of goods,
continues to be the prerequisite of humanization of labor.
Deep and all-affecting as alienation of labor may be in the
conditions of a developed industrial society, such a society
opens the prospects of reducing the time of labor and eliminating
hard manual labor. As pointed out in pertinent literature, such
a society is fraught with other possibilities--those of seeking
a job not so much for the sake of salary as for the satisfaction
that it may give. However, those are scanty possibilities, still
restrained by the division into a privileged minority and a
majority laboring for their living. In any event, there exists
a distinct tendency to replace the traditional contrast between
manual and intellectual labor by a contrast of another kind,
between labor and managerial work. And this tendency gathers
impetus in ratio with automation and the scope and dimensions
of the new technical revolution.

But technical equipment, organization of production and
the structure of political power in a mass society make us face

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new problems, so far unsolved. Those problems arise, to a
certain degree, irrespective of the form of direct property
relations, although the contents of the latter--division into the
disposing and privileged minority and the laboring majority dis-
possessed of influence and the power of control--is by no means
unimportant.

As I have mentioned, Marx and Engels strove for an
improved and expanded cultural ideal of the Greek *polis*. Freedom
within "the kingdom of necessity," as well as "the true kingdom
of freedom" which is supposed to be the sphere of full develop-
ment of man's spiritual and physical forces, was correlated by
Marx and Engels with creative and conscious participation in
public life, in the management of common affairs of the society,
in supervision of the issuance and performance of tasks, and in
fine arts and sciences. Productive labor, reduced in time,
coupled with public functions, performed consciously and freely,
enriched by universal consumption and even universal production
of cultural values--this was to be the meaning of work, affirming
the personality of man and totally identifying human individuals
with the human species. What in the Greek *polis* fell to the
selected few was to be multiplied and shared by everybody. But
for the time being, mass society culture is as far from this
ideal as man's "animal functions" are from the essence of his
species. Food, drink, propagation, home, clothes, if understood

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as a goal in themselves, were regarded by Marx as elements of man's "animal existence." And this cannot be altered by adding to the list a radio and television set, a motorcar and refrigerator, luxurious trips and sumptuous feasts. In the meantime, where does the mass-society man look for affirmation of his personality and satisfaction in life? Deprived of the chance of affirmation in work, lost in the perplexing jungle of political events which he cannot understand, pestered by the nauseating media of mass misinformation and stupid mass distraction, he uses the shorter hours of labor and the abundance of goods for self-affirmation or self-frustration as a private person, lonely in the crowd and governed by what the crowd likes in his spiritual loneliness. What is the value to a man in seeking success in life--career, prestige, fame--since they, too, become a goal in themselves?

As we see it, mass-society culture is the "perverse fulfillment" of dreams associated with technical progress. It is a side line on the great road to humanization of labor. Perhaps this is the cause of the malady of our age, which preys on the hearts of the learned social reformers. When compared with the realities of a developed industrial society, the Marxian vision dispels illusions, exposes mystifications, and lays the problem bare.

What is the way out of the entanglement? How to come back from the side line to the main road? How can the increase in labor productivity, with its immense possibilities of abundance

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of goods and constant reduction of the routine of labor, be relieved of the drawbacks of bureaucracy, competition, and prestige-seeking? How to remove the contradiction between intellectual work and organizational management on the one hand, and labor on the other. How to curb the process of professionalization and specialization of intellectual work and organization management without detracting from their positive aspects? How to cut down and finally erase the distance between the performer and the centre of disposal, and how to give universal access to the disposal, while making it human and personal? How to transform the media of mass propaganda and misinformation into the means of informing the intelligent public, and how to make entertainment nobler, non-commercial, and more individual? The list of questions could be prolonged. The very fact that they are so differentiated proves that we must not delude ourselves with panacea; no one can believe in a universal means to solve all the problems involved in these questions.

## Prerequisites and Limitations of the Reformist Model of Improving the Situation of Labor

In his essay on George Orwell, Lionel Trilling says that, like Cobbett, Orwell did not dream of a new kind of man; he was content with the actually existing kind, with all its vices and shortcomings. Trilling adds that what moved Orwell in his social, literary and political activities was the desire that the imperfect

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kind of man should have more "freedom, bacon, and proper work."
This seems to be an accurate characteristic of the reformist
approach and a correct definition of the psychological motives
of the reformist model of improving the situation of working men.
When reformulating the fundamental ideas of reformist socialism,
C.A.R. Grosland recalled the traditional philosophy of the
British labor movement, where the slogan *more welfare and greater*
*equality* continues to play a dominant role. And this is another
striking definition of the gist of the reformist program, not at
variance with the preceding one.

The problem of "bacon"--or material welfare and material
security--is the comparatively simple component of this program,
although it gives rise to controversial interpretation whenever
actual solutions are concerned. At any rate, unless it includes
a means of ensuring adequate amount, quality, and accessibility
of the means of man's "animal subsistence," any program of over-
coming this "animal existence," of delivering man from its ex-
clusive domination and crossing the boundaries of "the kingdom
of necessity," is so much blabber. "The kingdom of freedom,"
unless it is presumed to exist only in some other world, is not
for the undernourished slum-dwellers, harassed by sickness, want
and insecurity. Indeed, the gates of "the kingdom of freedom"
are locked to all those who--while regarding primitive exploita-
tion, utmost poverty and unemployment as things of the past,

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exotic events or distant memories--are still wearily and worry-
ingly racing against time, overcrowding the insufficient means of
public transportation, queuing up to do their shopping before or
after working hours. The gates are locked to these who are deprived
of the devices to cook a speedy meal and to keep the house clean,
confined to shortage of space and ugly surroundings at the places
where they work, live and relax, condemned to unrefined pleasures
and refined displeasures of life.

I have dealt so far with things so "elevated" that it
might appear that, following the example of some apostles of
"matters of the spirit" who are apt to pooh-pooh the annual world
harvest of bodies dead of disease and starvation, I fail to see
the fundamental task of developing productive forces, increasing
labor productivity, and struggling for a social and economic
system which will ensure ample quantities and more proper dis-
tribution of consumer goods. But these are still issues of
first-rate importance for the majority of inhabitants of this
world; steadily increasing material welfare, its improvement and
security, cannot be a matter of indifference even to the members
of those societies which are the most industrialized and relatively
most affluent.

The ideological tenets and political forms of "the
struggle for bacon" may vary. So may its conditions, immediate
results, and prospects--in both the countries of predominant

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private ownership of means of production, and in those countries
where industries have been nationalized, while social and collective
forms of ownership--other than state property exist in the remaining
branches of economy. Different is the form of "the struggle for
bacon," and different are its problems, in underdeveloped countries,
some of which have already cast the colonial yoke while the others
are only striving to do so. But in a certain sense it is clear that
whatever the historical conditions, ideological foundations and
political forms of this struggle, whatever level it has reached
in a given moment--its program can always be reduced to a certain
model of reforms intended to raise the material welfare of the
working people. Some time ago, on another occasion and in another
place, I put forth the idea that, whether statesmen and politicians
are aware of it or not, what is involved are the various and often
intricate ways of the world-wide transition from the capitalist
to the socialist phase of the industrial era; and that, if this
were brought to man's consciousness, it might facilitate and
accelerate the process and lead to mutual acceptance of the best
facets of each specific way. It might lead to a realization that
it is quite possible for the different ways to be complementary
instead of contradicatory, and thus greatly enhance the chances
of peace--which, being the indispensable condition of saving our
civilization, must be the object of first interest for representa-
tives of even extremely different political concepts. Despite

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the divergence between the systems in the Soviet Union and the
United States, the rivalry of reforms which would strive, in
both cases, for *more welfare*, should constitute a common feature
of civilization in the two worlds and, consequently, a prerequisite
of the formation of one world.

But as to the postulate of proper occupation and the
program of freedom and equality formulated in the model of gradual
improvement of the situation of millions of ordinary people, it is
very far from the comparative simplicity of the idea of material
welfare. Which occupation can be considered to be proper? What
kind of freedom and equality? Within the vision of total liberation
of labor from the bondage of alienation, the issue acquires a
certain meaning, which disappears outside that vision. Examining
the tendencies of development in contemporary societies from the
angle of prospects of technical revolution today, the programmed
increase of productive forces and labor productivity and the
resulting growth of material welfare can be regarded as completely
realistic and capable of acquiring different but concrete shapes.
However, the same tendencies are the origin of the conditions which,
taken in their entirety, augment the alienation of man in mass
society. For millions of people, an occupation may *seem* proper
because it gives them decent wages, a certain degree of security,
and the right to regular rest; but that occupation may in fact
be completely improper because the men have no way of controlling

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its conditions--cannot understand them and are bewildered by them, seeking affirmation in private life, in more or less sophisticated forms of man's "animal existence." For millions of people, freedom may mean the right to choose from a menu which, be it scanty or abundant, has been prepared beyond their range of influence and control, and which, if abundant, supplies an abundance not so much of dishes as of appetizing flavors and impressive names. For millions of people, their freedom may seem so all-embracing that, the brain-shaping media being out of their control, it never occurs to them that their freedom is not absolute and that the menu has not been generated by nature itself.

As to equality, myths have always had an astounding power. An adroit gesture, an empty form; a habit long deprived of its contents, but cleverly used to win people's minds; the promise of equality in some impossible future; shoddy goods merchandised as being equal to the best--this sort of thing works, even in semi-feudal conditions, even when poverty is accumulated on one pole and riches on the other pole of the society. And when the myth of equal political rights, while real domination over the fundamental functions of the society is extremely unequally divided, can be sold for the cheap price of equal chance to acquire larger refrigerators, better television sets and more luxurious cars--what is equality then? From that point, it is but a single step to one of the two forms of ideology,

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sometimes dressed up as scholarly reflections: either that small political participation of the population helps stabilize democratic relations, or that, *vice versa*, universal and enthusiastic participation of the population in political acts is an evidence of democratic relations. In one case--equality of refrigerators, and perhaps not equality of rights; in the other case--equality of enthusiastic political participation which may have the potential power of creating equality of refrigerators. In the final analysis, what is equality?

These problems are not dealt with by the *more welfare* program; but, let me repeat with the utmost emphasis, it is only against the background of increased material welfare that the problems acquire proper dimensions. They cannot and must not be slighted. For, to begin with, nowhere has the mass society been evolved so totally as to make the broad strata of population indifferent to the symptoms of social *anomie* (that is, social and personal disorganization - Ed.) which symptoms, consequently, are bound to generate frustration and dissatisfaction. Secondly, social *anomie* directly affects the process of production, reducing its efficiency and effects. A reform of labor relations carrying them beyond the program of material welfare of the working people, awareness of the complex personality of the working man and his social and political aspirations which have not yet been eradicated and the eradication of which might spell failure to the efficacious

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course of the very act of labor--all this may enlarge the scope
of the reformist model of humanization. And this is the source
of the concept of *human relations*.

It has been repeatedly emphasized in the literature of
the subject that the concept of *human relations* is tainted by the
interests of the milieu that has molded its pattern. The idea
is to obtain, not affirmation through work, but a well-functioning
and skillfully arranged illusion of affirmation; not actual participa-
tion of labor in the decisions made, but an impression of such
participation by means of establishing ingenious links between the
working man and the team, and the team and the institution. The
idea is not to send down information and send up guidance for
essential executive disposal, but, *vice versa*, to send down orders
adequately prepared so as not to be objectionable and to send up
information. In this version, the concept of human relations
amounts not so much to a component of the program of humanization
of labor as to the ideology and technology of manipulation in the
relations between management and subordinates, on factory scale
and nationwide scale alike.

No one can deny that such a conservative version of the
concept of *human relations* actually exists, is alluring and in-
fluential. But it is not the only version, potentially or
actually. There does exist a true striving for affirmation through
work, and, hence there exists, at least potentially, the problem

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of seeking real reforms in the interest of the working people,
to bring them closer to affirmation. There does exist a true
striving of the working people for honest information on matters
important for them, and for real power over their own destinies;
hence there exists, at last potentially, the possibility of reforms
which, despite the complexity of modern industrial societies,
would lead to actual participation of the working people in the
management of production and all public life. Indeed, these
possibilities exist not only potentially but in reality. In
different forms, with different impact and different success,
the struggle for real power of the working people over the conditions
of their own life is being waged the world over. The issue of the
workers' self-government is only a fragment of this struggle.

Perhaps the character of the industrial society of the
second half of the Twentieth Century is not conducive to the
objectives which this struggle strives to attain. Perhaps the
idea of struggle for the creation of the initial conditions of
humanization of labor, to be followed by reforms intended to carry
humanization into practice step by step--perhaps this idea borders
on Utopia. Perhaps those people are more realistic and sober-
judging who say that only material welfare is obtainable and are
skeptical as to the rest, finding justification--at least super-
ficial--of such skepticism in the character of social relations
of our era. Perhaps immediate success is in store only for those

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who have mastered the technique of adapting themselves and the
others to the growing demands of rationality of action, and
have excluded from their own life-program the shaping of the
conditions to which people are supposed to get adapted, leaving
that either to the impersonal course of technical progress or to
the groups that dominate society today. Perhaps the only effective
model of improving the situation of the working people is the
restricted one which envisages increased productivity and material
welfare; perhaps everything that exceeds the limits of improving
man's "animal existence," that goes beyond "the kingdom of necessity,"
is an illusion.

Perhaps. But on the other hand, the little we know
about social relations prevents our denying the possibility of
carrying out something which exists in human consciousness, since
the lack of this something causes frustration and suffering, and
weighs heavily on human life. This is the case of the program of
humanization of labor. What it means in practice is that the
search for reforms--necessarily partial ones--can go on and shall
go on, regardless of skeptics and pessimists. But it also means
that Marx's great vision is going to last as an instrument to
expose the mystification of manipulators, a measure of the reason-
ability of reforms carried out, and a directive and guidance.

That is how I understand the thesis of complimentariness
of the two models of humanization of labor. In actual fact, only

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a restricted model of reforms is ever put into practice. The
program that the model contains is always based on the conditions,
possibilities and relations of social forces; it depends on the
level of knowledge and on the illusions of the performers, even
on conscious mystification by the disposers. But the model can
be constantly controlled and verified; it can be altered and
improved; it can be broadened to embrace ever more fully the
sphere of affirmation of the personality of the working man; it
can be continuously cleansed of the influence of mystification
and illusion which are engendered, not only by lack of knowledge
and zeal on the part of manipulators, but also by the class and
ideological interests of the privileged few. Here is where
Marx's total revolutionary vision comes in. Implementation of
reforms without revolutionary critique invariably turns into
"perverse fulfillment." Revolutionary critique alone, without
concrete and actual reforms, restricted as they may be, is either
barren or simply covers up its own negation.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. H. Arendt, THE HUMAN CONDITION (New York 1959).

2. B. Baczko, WOKÓL PROBLEMÓW ALIENACJI (STUDIA FILOZOFICZNE, 6, 1959).

3. Z. Bauman, ROBOTNIK: Z DZIEJÓW STEREOTYPU (STUDIA FILOZOFICZNE, 2-3, 1960)

4. R. Bendix, MANAGERS, WORKERS AND IDEAS: RESEARCH IN INDUSTRIAL HUMAN RELATIONS (New York 1957)

5. E. H. Carr, THE NEW SOCIETY (London 1951)

6. C.A.R. Crosland, THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM (London 1957)

7. P. F. Drucker, THE NEW SOCIETY: THE ANATOMY OF THE INDUSTRIAL ORDER (New York 1950)

8. P. F. Drucker, THE PRACTICE OF MANAGEMENT (New York 1954)

9. F. Engels, HERRN EUGEN DUHRINGS UMWALZUNG DER WISSENSCHAFT (Berlin 1948)

10. F. Erler, A. Marchiodini, F. Pollock, A. Walther, A. Weber, REVOLUTION DER ROBOTER: UNTERSUCHUNGEN UBER PROBLEME DER AUTOMATISIERUNG (München 1956)

11. G. Friedmann, PROBLEMES HUMAINS DU MACHINISME INDUSTRIEL (Paris 1946)

12. G. Friedmann, OU VA LE TRAVAIL HUMAIN? (Paris 1953)

13. M. Fritzhand, W KREGU IDEI REKOPISÓW EKONOMICZNO-FILOZOFICZNYCH (Introduction to the Polish translation of OKONOMISCH-PHILOSOPHISCHE MANUSKRIPTE by K. Marx, Warszawa 1958)

14. J. K. Galbraith, THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY (Boston 1958)

15. J. Hochfeld, POLAND AND BRITAIN: TWO CONCEPTS OF SOCIALISM (INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 33, 1, 1957)

16. B. de Jouvenel, SUR UNE PAGE D'ENGELS (PREUVES, 115, 1960)

17. W. Kornhauser, THE POLITICS OF MASS SOCIETY (Glencoe, Ill. 1959)

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18. K. Marx, OKONOMISCH-PHILOSOPHISCHE MANUSKRIPTE AUS DEM JAHRE 1944 (K. Marx-F. Engles, KLEINE OKONOMISCHE SCHRIFTEN, Berlin 1955)

19. K. Marx, GRUNDRISSE DER KRITIK DER POLITISCHEN OKONOMIE (Berlin 1954)

20. K. Marx, DAS KAPITAL (Berlin 1951)

21. K. Marx-F. Engles, DIE HEILIGE FAMILIE UND ANDERE PHILOSOPHISCHE FRUHSCHRIFTEN (Berlin 1953)

22. K. Marx-F. Engles, DIE DEUTSCHE IDEOLOGIE (Berlin 1953)

23. E. Mayo, SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF AN INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION (Cambridge 1945)

24. R. K. Merton, SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE (Glencoe, Ill., 1959)

25. C. W. Mills, THE POWER ELITE (New York 1956)

26. S. Perlman, A THEORY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT (New York 1949)

27. D. Riesman (with N. Glazer and R. Denney), THE LONELY CROWD (New York 1953)

28. B. Rosenberg and D. M. White, eds., MASS CULTURE (Glencoe, Ill., 1958)

29. A. Sturmthal, UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN EUROPEAN LABOR (Glencoe, Ill., 1953)

30. L. Trilling, INTRODUCTION TO G. Orwell's HOMAGE TO CATALONIA (Boston 1955)

31. M. J. Vincent and J. Mayers, NEW FOUNDATIONS FOR INDUSTRIAL SOCIOLOGY (Princeton 1959)

32. H. L. Wilensky and C. N. Labeaux, INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL WELFARE (New York 1958)