On a feature of Smith and Marx on Alienation

A classic paper in the philosophy of work is Adina Schwartz’s (1982) “Meaningful Work” that appeared in Ethics. [HT: John McHugh] In the paper, Schwartz (now emerita at John Jay) attributes to Adam Smith (amongst others) the following claim: “When persons work for considerable lengths of time at jobs that involve mainly mechanical activity, they tend to be made less capable of and less interested in rationally framing, pursuing, and adjusting their own plans during the rest of their time.” (p. 637)

Something like this is indeed entail by Smith’s account, which posits a trade-off between ‘dexterity at [one’s own particular trade’ which seems ... ‘to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual virtues.’ (Schwartz quoting Smith, p. 637). Marx noted a variant of the trade-off in Capital, “It converts the labourer into a crippled monstrosity, by forcing his detail dexterity at the expense of a world of productive capabilities and instincts.” (Quoted from Levy cited below.)

In this paper, Schwartz notes that Smith’s (and Durkheim’s) point is echoed in then fairly recent “statistical investigations:”

An implication of Kohn and Schooler's study is that the jobs described…do not prevent persons from acting autonomously only while at work. They also hinder them from developing the intellectual abilities that they must have if they are rationally to frame, adjust, and pursue their own plans during the rest of their time. Other quantitative work argues, in addition, that these routine jobs cause persons to be less inclined, in all aspects of their lives, to engage in the purposeful striving that is characteristic of autonomous individuals (p. 637)

We can recognize here the posit that alienating work permanently undermines autonomy in the sense that Schwartz entails. To be sure, Schwartz does not use ‘alienation’ in her article (nor does Smith in Wealth of Nations), but we can recognize in this analysis one aspect of what the young Marx called ‘alienation.’ I am by no means the first to suggest that Smith’s material anticipates features of Marxian alienation. To be sure, I also agree with Vanessa Wills’ argument in her excellent, recent Marx's Ethical Vision (OUP 2024) that the mature Marx is still committed to most features of the young Marx’s treatment of alienation.

Even so, with recent emphasis on the plasticity of the human brain, I wondered whether Smith, Marx, and Schwartz are right about the permanent effects of repetitive work. (I would also doubt — this doubt was shared by Marshall I learned from David Levy — that work under modern labor laws is so all-consuming that there couldn’t be off-setting practices outside of work during other parts of the day.) The scholarship Schwartz cites at this point is Melvin L. Kohn and Carmi Schooler, "The Reciprocal Effects of the Substantive Complexity of Work and Intellectual Flexibility: A Longitudinal Study," American Journal of Sociology 84 (1978). The paper does not mention alienation or Marx’s role in stimulating interest in it. (It does mention Marx, but on the division of labor.)

Unfortunately, I was not especially impressed by the way Kohn and Schooler constructed their measure for intellectual flexibility (which as one of its components relies on “the interviewer's appraisal of the man's intelligence” P. 38)) and has other unsettling features. My suspicion is that their result(s) are an artifact of the way they constructed their measure, which is an index built on a number of components. About the philosophy of science details some other time more because I am actually trying to learn how contemporary sociologists view this line of argument. (That’s turning into a fun story.) If you, dear reader, have expertise on this I would be delighted to hear from you!

Smith’s own solution to the problem of alienation he diagnoses is to advocate for education and diversions, including religion and theatre. But this has dissatisfied many.

Back in the day, I learned from David M. Levy that this very issue was much debated in the 1960s. Once he sent me a work he described as “juvenilia.” It dates from the 1960s when he was still “an Associate Editor of New Individualist Review and doing graduate work at the University of Chicago,” he published a piece “Marx and alienation” in New Individualist Review. I will be citing a libertyfund edition because it is easily available, (Friedman, Milton and Hamowy, Ronald and Hayek, Friedrich and Raico, Ralph and Rothbard, Murray. New Individualist Review. Liberty Fund, 1961, pp. 926ff), but I think this piece was published in 1968 in Vol 5(1), pp. 34ff.

Anyway, Levy notes that twentieth century interest in what we may call the psychological effects of alienation was revived by the dissemination of Marx’s previously unpublished writings.* But what makes his account so fascinating is that he also traces how this issue was part of the reception of Smith by economists, including editors of Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

So, for example, McCulloch (usually treated as a follower of Ricardo), notes the discussion of this issue in his edition of Wealth of Nations. But as Levy reports, McCulloch notes that workers on an assembly line have something that isolated craftsman and country laborers lack, “By working together in considerable numbers they have what the agriculturists generally want, constant opportunities of discussing every topic of interest or importance; they are thus gradually trained to habits of thinking and reflection; their intellects are sharpened by the collision of conflicting opinions; and a small contribution from each individual enables them to obtain supplies of newspapers and of the cheaper class of periodical publications.”

This is a thoroughly Smithian argument (with its emphasis on sociability and a liberty grounded in a kind of intellectual egalitarianism) to show that Smith has more resources than he imagines. As an aside, notice also the Millian point about the collision of conflicting opinions. McCulloch’s claim dates back to his (1827) "Rise, Progress, Present State, and Prospects of the British Cotton Manufacture" in the Edinburgh Review (which he then later put in his Introduction to his edition of Wealth of Nations.) I would be amazed if Mill was unfamiliar with it.

Of course, what McCulloch’s point about mutual learning within the advanced and populous division of labour under a single roof reveals is that how the workplace is organized does matter here. If there are very restrictive workplace rules that prevent communication among workers, then McCulloch’s ‘solution’ to this version of the problem of alienation fails. So, especially in contexts where one should not expect alienation-induced-through-boring-repetitive work to whittle away soon (in poorer countries with a sizeable industrial sector) a Smithian may well be receptive to workplace rules that prevent silencing and socializing of the workforce in light of the public (and perhaps moral) interest in a population capable of autonomous judgment.

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*In a note Levy mentions, in particular, Eric Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man (1961), pp. 43-58; Robert Tucker, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx (1961), pp. 234-43; Daniel Bell, End of Ideology (1960), pp. 335-68.