Alienation and anomie [1]

Both Marx and Durkheim were profound critics of industrial society in nineteenth-century Europe. What is striking is the markedly different bases of their criticisms of the ills of their societies, which can best be brought out by a careful consideration of the different assumptions and implications that belong to the two concepts of alienation and anomie, which they respectively employed. This chapter argues that they are both socio-psychological concepts, embodying hypotheses about specific relationships between social conditions and individual psychological states. It shows that they differ precisely in the sorts of hypotheses they embody, and explores that this difference derives in part from a fundamental divergence in the views of human nature they presuppose. The chapter examines the nature of that divergence, and in particular the extent to which the dispute is an empirical one. It concludes by exploring to what extent such approaches to the analysis of society remain relevant and important today.