I'm not really sure what you mean by obscure (perhaps historically?).
Levy-Bruhl, who I am beginning to think of as the original cultural
historical theorist, followed Durkheim at the University (I can't
remember which one right now, was it the Sorbonne?) by a couple of years
I believe. He used Durkheim as a jumping off point I think but of course
expanded his horizs as time went on. Still in the early formation of
his theory I believe he was with Durkheim, Janet, and that whole group.
Vygotsky I think is easier. He was surely influenced by Marx, but
I have never considered him a strict idealogue. But the Bolshevik
government adhered to a strict Marxist lines. I think one of the
reasons Durkheim was not more explicity used through his work may
have been the rivalry between Durkheim and Marx (although Vygotsky
did explicitly use Levy-Bruhl, but at the same time may have made
unfair criticisms of him).
As to the alienation of labor. I can only give the arguments that
I have been influenced by lately. When you have workers on the floor,
and a boss demanding they engage in a certain activity to meet their
needs, and the floor workers have no control over the issue, then
you have alienation of labor, because the workers are completely
alienated from the production process and the distribution system,.
This is very different from a situation in which an autonomous
indivdual consciously makes the self part of the group and the group
part of the self, submerging the self's immediate desire by merging
individual need with group need. Let me give you an example I have
been working with, especially since we have been talking about stone
chipping (at least somebody mentioned it). The development of tools
was incredibly important to the development of joint labor for the
h. erectus. The tools were used to quickly dismember carcasses and
carry them away before more powerful predators and/or scavengers
arrived. Nick Toth, who does work in the development of tools,
suggests that tool making was incredibly dangerous during that period
because a chip could easily fly off and sever an artery, and this
would mean certain death. Yet tool makers made tools and even
experimented in making them. Could you call this alientation of
labor even though the labor was separate from actualy production,
and the individual was submerging his or her own needs. I think
the answer is no for a very important reason.
This is because this labor was communal, "band" labor as almost
all labor was I think unitl about five thousand years ago, and
we moved into stratified civilization. But even stratified societies
did not immediately rove the individual from the production process,
and maintained a simple and immediate, if very unfair distribution
system. The alienation of labor was something that developed out
of stratified societies, and reached fruition in capitalism. Now
this isn't the only way to look at the idea I know; it is perspective
that is deeply influenced by an evolutionary and paleoanthropoligical
view point. But I think it adds some interesting insights to the
study of human development all the same.
Michael
Michael Glassman
University of Houston