: I'm not sure I understand this "alienation" thing. Alienation is the thing that fucks everything up under capitalism, and most likely provides the source of most of the tensions between the classes.
Despite the changing nature of the workplace, the process of production still requires alienated labour.
We don't control how we work! Our labour is a forced labour: ie we have to do things a certain way under command of a hierarchy we don't elect.
This hierarchy, or our bosses, dictate to us what we produce and how we produce it. But notice the concept of the "team" is so prevalent in business - are you a team player?. You might hear "we just opened a store in 3rdworldville!" but you won't hear "we just fired me!".
And in the bigger scheme of things, we are told what to consume and when to consume it, what to think and when to think it, what to dream and when to dream it, giving alienation new & scary dimensions.
This heirarchy, in a bigger sense sometimes called a democracy,(ha what a joke!) tries to alienate the worker even from our conciousness of being alienated and of being exploited!
Some (read most in 1st world countries) of us don't actually "produce" things but as we are in service industries, we are service-ing the production process so we might as well be included in there with the rest of us working class mob.
The point is: who OWNS the means to produce things? The answer is PRIVATE ownership. ie Individuals. ie 358 people owning as much as 45% of the world's population (UN 96 Hum. Dev. Rep.)
There is anarchy of production between companies, and there is undemocratic control within companies. The working class lives at the whim of the bosses.
Some people don't feel like they're alienated. That is not an unusual thing because a great deal of money and resources has been spent to ensure we feel ok about our present work relationship. We are more and more increasingly fed our information to us so more and more we are being excluded from even thinking! The consent for the society we put up with was manufactured for us, we did not "vote" for it.
The majority of the world is sitting there scratching their heads going "there's something arong with the world but i just can't put my finger on it. oh lets just blame human nature!"
A positive thought to end on:
which force will turn out to be stronger in determining the workers attitude to the society they live in: the mystifying ideas they receive, yesterday in the church and today through the T.V, or the social reality they confront and assimilate day after day through practical experience?
