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.
My one, inconsequential and picayune, note on this is that the use of alienation here appeals to the personal/psychological experience of wage labor which itself is a moment in the process and product of alienation from land, means of production, productive self-activity, products, others, social space, and post-scarcity species being. Also, Levy has very clearly never done assembly line work under non-union speed up and surveillance, nor agricultural work in a peasant village or on a small farm.
My one, inconsequential and picayune, note on this is that the use of alienation here appeals to the personal/psychological experience of wage labor which itself is a moment in the process and product of alienation from land, means of production, productive self-activity, products, others, social space, and post-scarcity species being. Also, Levy has very clearly never done assembly line work under non-union speed up and surveillance, nor agricultural work in a peasant village or on a small farm.
I will let Levy defend himself if he chooses to do.
I agree that the focus here is on only one species of alienation.