Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

96 P. F. Lazarsfeld
The goal of our investigations is to study the scientific, cultural andtechnical outlook, the
social and occupational activities, the ideals and tastes of various groups of workers
classified according to age, sex, education, occupational characteristics and residence?
It is regrettable that we have little detailed information on the type of questions
asked so that we could make direct comparisons with Western studies. Western
reporters are usually interested in specific findings rather than in methods;
Communist colleagues are not aware of studies carried out by Western so-
ciologists whose names are not prominent enough to catch the attention of for-
eigners.
Take, for example, the problem of alienation. This, of course, is of great
interest to Communist students. On one hand there is the expectation that the
alienation discussed by Marx would disappear in a Communist country; on the
other hand, there is the fear that new forms of alienation might appear, at least
during periods of transition.
In our society, contradictions still exist between the collectivity and the individual; this
is due to the fact that society cannot yet completely satisfy the material and spiritual
needs of all men, and also because in many cases the members of the collectivity, in-
cluding some of the workers, have not yet become aware (pis conscience) of how
their own fundamental interests and those of socialist society coincide. How to suppress
the alienation of man in a socialist regime can be scientifically studied through socio-
logical inquiries.40
Now this problem of alienation has also interested a number of empirical sociol-
ogists in the United States. The conceptual meaning of the term has been ana-
lysed to the point where quantitative scales for its measurement have been
developed.4'
It is hoped that some student, possessing both the necessary linguistic and
methodological skills, wil one day compare various techniques in detail. The
problem wil be to see whether concrete sociologists steeped in the Marxist
tradition have found new ways of putting such a complex notion as alienation
to empirical test.
2. Work. ACommunist society is bound to face a double task. On one hand,
it must be concerned with the efficiency of factory work; on the other it has a
programmatic objective, to make work as meaningful to the individual worker
as possible.
Increasingly machines perform the monotonous mechanical work which used to ravage
(abrutissait) the worker. Man liberates himself progressively to devote himself to
creative activities. But this process is not the same for various groups of workers, dif-
ferent according to age, sex, education and professional characteristics. Society there-
fore has to solve extremely complex problems such as the training and readaptation of
the supervising staff, the organization of young people's work, the organic fusion of
manual and intellectual work, the possibility to choose one's own occupation and to
move from one type of work to another. The research of concrete sociology should bring
out the social psychological factor in the raising of productivity, in the organization of
the work process, and in the development of social relations.42
Capitalist countries have a similar problem which is usually called that of work
morale. But the situation in these countries is different. Morale is studied for