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Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zavitiation of the worker, objectification as a loss and as servitude to theobject, and appropriation as alienation (quoted in Nisbet, 1974: 291).One can only really understand this paragraph when it is borne in mind thatMarx afforded central importance to the concept of man as labourer or maker(homo faber). Man attains self-realization by means of his labour orproductivity. According to Marx, the capitalist system as it existed at the timeof his writing, resulted in man being alienated from the product of his labourby a system of inequality and injustice. This system consists of two clearlyidentifiable classes: the owners (bourgeoisie) and the workers (proletariat). Thefundamental inequity of the system is situated in the nature of productionrelations: in relative terms the worker contributes more to the productionprocess, while the owner derives a far greater benefit. The worker’s productiveability is reduced to an object (reified), i.e. regarded as merely anothercommodity on the market. Alienation, therefore, inevitably results when thatwhich is intrinsic to the existence of man is reduced to a mere object orcommodity.It is within this economic theory of alienation that we encounter the first cleardefinition of the connotation of the concept. Despite die fact that it is a highlytheoretical and abstract concept, we now have a clearer grasp of what is meant.The reason for this better grasp of the meaning of the concept is because dierelationship between alienation and better-known concepts such as labour,production relations, and inequality have been established within theframework of a theory. It is evident that these concepts are still highly abstractterms. Nonetheless, the fact that the term alienation has been embedded in anintersystemic relationship with these other concepts, has undoubtedly led to amore exact definition of its meaning.In 1959 Melvin Seeman published an article (On the meaning of alienation) inwhich he further advanced the conceptual explication of alienation. His pointof departure was that it was possible to define modern mass society moreclearly by emphasizing five essential structural elements:(1) the development of impersonality and a reduction of relationships as aresult of position;(2) the development of a bureaucracy that leads to secularisation;(3) an increase in social differentiation and specialisation of tasks;(4) increasing social mobility, and(5) an increase in scale or bigness.According to him these five elements are fundamental to three alienationrelevant factors: (1) a loss of control of work and product, (2) a lack ofintegration within large organizational structures, and (3) a low level ofaccessibility to reward values. Seeman maintained that the objective alienationin mass society eventually leads to five social-psychological phenomena:61