Custom essays: The concept of alienation by K. Marx and the concept of anomie by E. Durkheim

In this paper the concept of alienation by K. Marx and the concept of anomie by E. Durkheim are going to be analyzed, compared and contrasted.
Let us first analyze the concept of anomie. In 1897 Durkheim formed the idea of anomie as the one about the loss by an individual of the feeling of identification with his cultural group.
Anomie is a state of society in which an appreciable part of its members, knowing of the existence of binding norms, treats them negatively or indifferently. Anomie theory was introduced in the sociology by E. Durkheim as a part of his historical evolution concept, which was based on the opposition of “traditional” and modern industrial societies. According to Wrong and Gracy anomie is a product of incomplete transition from mechanical to organic solidarity because an objective basis for the latter – the social division of labor – is progressing faster than finds moral support in the collective consciousness. Necessary condition of anomie, the discrepancy between the two rows of socially generated phenomena, is being constantly recreated: by the needs, interests and abilities to meet them. The prerequisite for a seamless non-anomie person, according to Durkheim, is a stable and cohesive society. The hierarchical traditional society (eg, feudal) has been stable since it set specific targets to different social strata and allowed everyone to feel his life as meaningful within a narrow closed fiber. The course of social evolution gives rise to a dual process: increases “individuation” and simultaneously undermines the power of collective supervision, solid moral boundaries, characteristic for the old time. The degree of individual freedom from tradition, collective mores and prejudices, the opportunities for personal choice of occupation and mode of operation expand dramatically.

But the relatively free regulatory structure of industrial society no longer determines the livelihoods of people and begins to play anomie in the sense of a lack of hard life goals, norms and behavior patterns. This puts many in an uncertain social status, deprives of collective solidarity, sense of connection with a particular group and with society, which leads to increase of digressive and self-destructive behavior in it. Anomie gets special concentration in the economic life as a sphere of constant change and personal calculation, with the free market, competition. Traditional limits are broken the most completely, but the new morality of individualism is still fragile, adequate to modern society. In this area, anomie has almost become normal phenomenon. One of the major social and historical causes of anomie is destruction or loss of the former functions of the institutions and groups, intermediaries between the individual and the state. The psychological paradox is revealed: a person feels more secure and free of the rigid, closed system with a small choice of employment and limited possibilities of social advancement than in the conditions of uncertainty in the mobile open system with universal standards formally equal for all. (Wrong and Gracy, 1977, pp. 179-186). Nevertheless, the path of the weakening of anomie is not in an artificial restoration of the patriarchal and oppressive discipline of traditional institutions, and in the further development of the liberal “moral individualism” of new occupational groups, free of medieval isolation, but able to take over the function of moral control and protection of its members before the state. Regarding human behavior, the concept of anomie by Durkheim includes two aspects: one relates to the availability of certain goals, the other – to what extent these goals are feasible (they may be clear, but inaccessible).