USING MARX'S THEORY OF ALIENATION EMPIRICALLY.

Although there is a very large literature concerning Karl Marx's theory of alienation, there is unfortunately little agreement about even precisely what the theory is, let only how best to use it in empirical research. The purpose of the present paper is to try and identify the major issues concerning the theory. On a highly abstract level of generality, Marx's conception of alienation as it applies to individuals entails a separation between their person and their activity in general and their labour in particular, the products of both, which include such aspects of social structure as classes and the state as well as the immediate physical products of labour, other people in general and certain classes of them in particular, and themselves, including their future, fully developed selves. The problem with comparative-quantitative research into Marx's theory of alienation is not that non-Marxists have undertaken it. Nor is it that they have used the wrong unit of analysis, since Marx's theory has everything to do with individuals and much with their psychology. However, their equation of alienation with consciousness of it is grossly inappropriate, and their claim to have refuted Marx's theory in their own research is preposterous.