Work in industrial and post-industrial society can be alienating for the work force. Comment.

Alienation means 'separation from'. Alienation is about loss of human power in society and alienation of labour from product.

Marxian notion of alienation believes that in modern societies, work is alienating because capitalist infrastructure is based on maximisation of profit rather than satisfaction of human needs. In modern societies, wage labour is a system of slavery, where labour produces, yet doesn't get his product.

Mechanization and associated mass production reduce the need of skill and intelligence and remove all 'individual character'. The product doesn't bear spirit and genius of worker, rather mundane output of a machine.

Specialization of roles in post-modern world make people trapped in their occupational roles. Freedom and fulfillment are not possible in such a scenario.

Thus workers become alienated from

Alienation results from monotonous structure of bureaucracy and mass society that stands on consumption.

However, some jobs do provide for creativity and individual finesse like making movies, animation, sports but they are only few in number.

Alienation in advanced industrial society is found more in 'consumption of products' than process of production. People do not seek fulfillment in themselves and in their relationship but recognize themselves in their commodities like people find their soul in smartphones, virtual world, gadgets.

In service sector too, there is shift from skills with things to skills with persons.

Powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, self-estrangement are psychological states of alienation in work in advanced societies. Automation is seen as deskilling of work force. New technology degrades work by limiting need of human input.

Weber uses 'disenchantment' for overpresence of bureaucracy that robs people of their spirit in modern work-culture.