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9 January 1996 On Monday I said that sociological theory developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber attempted to explain how and why the world of lords and peasants had been transformed into the modern world of cities and citizens. Today I want to develop that argument. The major questions are: What is sociological theory? Why did it develop when and where it did? We will also consider the regional/national differences that Ritzer identifies in distinguishing French, German, and BritishAmerican theories. In this context, we can consider the major, opposing theoretical perspectives, those of Marx and Durkheim, and consider how the debate between Durkheimian and Marxist social theory relates to the debates between enlightenment liberalism and conservative reaction (as described by Ritzer). Finally, I will use the four-celled table (on the overhead) to illustrate the socialphilosophical-political context within which classical sociological theory emerged. Then, time permitting, we will consider August Comte, the assigned reading for this week in Farganis, and consider the question of how and why you should read Farganis. First, what is sociological theory? If we break the concept down to its components, we might consider two questions: What is sociology? What is theory? I've already suggested that theory is simply a compelling argument or explanation. For our purposes, we may define theory as a set of assumptions, assertions, and propositions that are organized in the form of an explanation. But what is sociology? Max Weber defined the subject of sociological inquiry as "social action--action that takes others into account." This "taking into account" might not involve physical contact or even co-presence. Even habits--ways of thinking, speaking, and acting are social to the extent that they were learned and influenced by others, particularly significant others (especially parents, teachers, and friends). When young ladies habitually cross their legs or keep their knees together (even if they are wearing pants) that is social action. It is clearly not instinctive. They are "sitting like ladies" because their mother taught them to do so or because they have learned from painful experience that men will stare at them and make inappropriate attributions if they were to sit like 1 men--with legs stretched and spread or folded with ankle across knee. Aside from that, the actors need not be flesh and blood individual human beings. Sometimes we talk about categories of individuals who act in particular ways (as in my example of men and women). Sometimes we talk about groups of individuals (people having lunch together) who tend to exclude (perhaps, even intimidate) others. For example, a group of faculty men eating lunch in the commons might intimidate students (and even women faculty) who might feel unwelcomed--not by the individuals but by the group. In this case, a particular interesting question is the extent to which certain categories of individuals (males or faculty) tend to form more or less exclusive groups. Moving beyond groups, which are, after all, composed of individuals, organizations (and even institutions) can also engage in social action--taking other organizations and institutions or even groups and individuals into account. Thus social action involves a variety of actors and actions that in one way or another influence each other's behavior. Social Psychology tends to focus on individuals and groups, but other sociologists, including the major classical theorists, focused on institutions and organizations, particular how and why relatively enduring forms of social organization (institutions) change. So, now that we know what sociological theory is, why did it develop when and where it did? I've suggested that social theory develops when people start asking questions like who am I, what am I doing here, why? and so what? When are people likely to start asking such questions, and, more importantly, why would universities (which are inherently conservative institutions) develop departments of sociology to deal with the explicitly social aspect of identity and behavior that is not the primary concern of philosophy, economics, or psychology? Clearly, people ask these questions when they are uncertain, most specifically, when their social identities and social actions change. For example, adolescents spend a lot of time dealing with their social identities and social actions, as they change from child to adult, boy to man (or girl to woman), as their friends become distinguished as girlfriends, boyfriends, and "just 2 friends" (which seems to refer only to members of the opposite sex, but that may not be true any longer). Similarly, even conservative academics may be inclined to consider the social world of identities and actions when that world fundamentally changes. When the relations between men and women, parents and children, owners and workers, rulers and ruled, clergy and laity all fundamentally change, as they did in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in Western Europe and the United States, it seems that even the most conservative university president might want to look for a new academic discipline that is uniquely qualified to explain what happened and to suggest the implications of the change. That is why sociology became institutionalized as a discipline, in the nineteenth century [change is exceedingly slow in universities] in Western Europe and in the United States. After the traditional world of lord and peasant was destroyed in the violent revolutionary struggles of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, particularly in England (1688), France (1789), and Germany (1871), even conservative college presidents were searching for answers. Why had the social world fundamentally changed? What was likely to happen next. So does this mean that every time that there is a revolution that we will get a new academic discipline? Yes and no. The communist and fascist revolutions of the twentieth century fundamentally changed sociological theory, particularly Marxist theory, and the fall of communism is having significant (although distinctive) effects. We should expect that the collapse of republicancapitalism will also have significant effects, but it is not clear that it will produce a new social science. Aside from this, even less clearly defined "revolutionary" changes, like the communications-mass-media-computer revolution have yielded new social sciences (e.g., communications) that may or may not endure as academic institutions (it is still too soon to say whether communications or hotel and restaurant management will be become internationally recognized academic institutions). First of all, there are clear differences in the social and political context of revolutionary change, even in Western Europe and the United States. In Great Britain, where the revolution came first (17th century) and the 3 violent struggle was less protracted, liberal enlightenment theory (the social contract, etc.) was less challenged by reactionary or radical parties, and sociology developed as an off-shoot of biology, dominated by Social Darwinism and the evolutionary theory of Herbert Spencer. The U.S., which lacked a tradition of lord and peasant and had its colonial revolt (which was hardly a revolution) in 1776, followed a similar path. France suffered a protracted, bloody, political struggle between its revolution of 1789 and the commune-the first working class socialist revolt?--of 1871. Here, the protracted political debate between enlightenment liberals and reactionaries (royalists, emperors and their followers, etc.) provided more fertile ground for an independent sociology, which began with the evolutionary theory of Comte (who was a philosopher--not a biologist) and become institutionalized in the functional theory of Durkheim. Germany, which was a late bloomer, experiencing revolution in 1871, after protracted struggles with Czars and empires, and continuing a path of political instability that continued into the twentieth century (with Hitler), was the other major center of sociological theory, beginning with the dialectical theories of Marx and his followers and institutionalized in the interactive (historical-comparative) theories of Max Weber. The difference between German and French sociology is important, but the similar social conditions are the more important point at present. Not simply political chaos but a protracted institutionalized struggle between enlightenment liberalism and royalist or fascist reactionaries created a niche for an independent social science that was neither liberal nor reactionary. The fact that conservative functional theory developed in France, while radical dialectical theory developed in Germany (under what might appear to be similar conditions), is a critical ingredient in the institutionalization of Western European Sociology. The fact that two diametrically opposed perspectives, which were independent of (or orthogonal to) the institutionalized political debates made the institutionalization of this discipline possible. The chaos of the institutionalized political debate created the need and the opportunity for an independent social science that would not be co-opted or repressed by the state. The fact that there were two diametrically opposed theories created the dynamic that fueled the development of 4 sociological theory, both in Germany and in France and, eventually, even in England and the United States. 27 august 1995 Marx was a radical, who rejected the promise of liberal enlightenment and the reactionary claims that what was needed was to re-establish the virtue and morality of the aristocracy. Marx believed that the feudal order of lord and peasant had been rife with internal contradictions. It had, essentially, self-destructed in the violence of middle class (bourgeois) revolution. He also believed, however, that republican capitalism would meet a similar fate. This time, however, the workers (proletariat) would be the revolutionary party, and they would create a workers state in which everyone worked together (to each according to his ability) and everyone shared in the product (to each according to his need). As indicated in the model of political attitudes presented last week. Radicals are optimistic about human nature. Marx believed that people were inherently social (Farganis, pp. 70-71) and productive. In fact, people realize their true nature (or specie being) through labor (Farganis, p. 41). In the German Ideology, Marx developed the idea that what separates man from other beasts was that man was capable of transforming the material means of production. Man can transform the naturally occuring material world by cultivating plants, domesticating animals, and developing new technologies that can make nature more productive. This capacity, in Marx's opinion, would ultimately enable man to create a utopian socialist world in which fairly limited collective labor would produce more than enough for everyone. He was, in fact, so optimistic aqbout human nature that he thought that the workers would figure out for themselves (just as the bourgeoisie had done) what needed to be done once they had seized the means of production from the capitalists. Marx never developed a very clear picture of what socialism would look like because he thought that the industrial workers would know what to do. that is incredibly optimistic. Marx was equally pessimistic about the instituted order and all preceding institutions that were based on the exploitation of labor. Marx believed that the harmony 5 between human and nature (and between different classes of humans) was destroyed by the act of exploitation--the appropriation of another's surplus labor value. In Capital (volume I) Marx describes how labor is the source of all value and how labor (at least theoretically) was naturally expended in producing useful products to meet the needs of the laborer and his family. This harmony was destroyed, however, by the intrusion of nonlaboring classes who seized control of the means of production (traditionally, land) and on that basis alienating labor from production oriented toward needs (or use-values) and established commodity production, in which products are produced for for an impersonal market, governed by the laws of supply and demand. Once labor is alienated from productive enterprise by the imposition of exploitation, the laborer becomes alienated from his human nature, his fellow workers, and, in general, his life. But all forms of production that are based on the exploitation of labor are plagued by internal contradictions and thus ultimately self-destruct. Once human labor is no longer producing for the needs of the laborer, the economy becomes plagued by periodic crises of over-production in which the increasing capacity of productive enterprise exceeds the capacity to distribute and consume the products. Marx illustrated this general principle in his analysis of the General law of Capital Accumulation (Capital, vol 1, chapter 25). Under primitive accumulation, capitalists increase production by hiring more workers. Since the increasing demand for workers tends to increase wages and thereby decrease the rate of profit, capitalists must employ even more workers in order to claim a reasonable profit. This vicious cycle of increasing wages and falling rates of profits would lead to bankruptcy if capitalists were not able to increase the productivity of labor. When capitalists invest in new technologies that increase the productivity of labor, they can produce more with fewer workers, thus decreasing the demand for labor while increasing production. In the medium run these technological innovations drive competitors out of business. Those who can not afford the new technologies cannot compete, so this tends to produce few but larger capitalists who invest more money in machinery than in 6 workers in order to produce more products per worker. Thus as fewer workers produce more products the demand for labor declines and wages fall until ultimately improverished workers are producing incredible quantitites of products that no one can afford to buy. This is the nature of the crisis of over-production. Marx believed that these crises would ultimately generate a proletarian revolution, when the workers of the world seized control of the means of production and collectively produced what they collectively needed. Marx believed that this would happen, because it fit the pattern of "all known history" that he and Engels described in The Communist Manifesto. The Roman Empire, for example, was based on a slave economy that periodically produced more food and more slaves than the economy could absorb. This lead to increasing military enterprises to conquer new lands that might be brought under cultivation, but this also created more slaves. Ultimately, the Romans hd to rely on mercenaries to carry-out their wars of conquest, and finally the barbarians won. Then the remnants of the barbarian or mercenary armies formed private armies under the control of a prince (or lord) who occupied a territory in which peasants cultivated the land, offering protection from other lords in exchange for a share of the harvest (or a specificed number of days of work on the lords lands). As this "protection racquet" was institutionalized the productive efforts of the peasants began to produce surpluses. On the one hand, there was surplus food, in good years--more the lord and his army could consume. On the other hand, there were surplus peasants--children who were too numerous to divide the available land. The problem was that many sons made for a wealthy peasant--he had lots of labor to increase the productivity of his small piece of land. But many sons made for many poor (or landless) peasants in the next generation. In this regard the internal contradictions of feudalism are apparent. So the surplus peasants took the surplus food and established themselves as bandits or trades, eventually forming urban settlements (or burghs, and becoming burghers). These burghers in their wars against bandits (who were, in same sense, the same people) established the basis for trade between estates, which provided the tax base of organizing states that might defend the rights of 7 free trade. Ultimately, the surplus products and surplus peasants destroyed the feudal lords (or the aristocracy) in the revolutionary struggles that ushered in the age of capitalism. Thus Marx saw history as a series of violent revolutions, each inspired by the internal contradictions of economies based on the exploitation of labor. 21 October 1995 The big picture is that sociological theory developed in the nineteenth century in western europe and the U.S. in response to fundamental changes in social life (especially institutions: economy, government, religion, family). These changes inspired protracted political debates, as liberal enlightment thinkers faced reactionary (loyalist/royalist) interests in an ongoing struggle for political authority. Within the context of this political debate, an orthogonal (academic) debate emerged between radical (Marxist/dialectical) and conservative (Durkemian/functionalist) theorists. This debate became institutionalized in sociology, as liberals (like Weber) attempted to accomodate the contradictory theoretical perspectives and orient the debate toward empirical analysis (particularly historical-comparative research). So we can characterize nineteenth century sociological theory by three political perspectives, three models of society, and three institutional realms that were the focus of each theoretical perspective. Theorist Partisanship Model Institution Marx Radical Dialectical Economic Durkheim Conservative Functional Cultural Weber Liberal Interactive Political These theories were applied in attempts to understand the fundamental social transformations that we might characterize as the shift from feudalism to capitalism. In varying degrees, the theorists were able to explain what 8 happened, how, why, and so what--what might the future hold. Marx offered the most deterministic (predictive) model, but history proved him wrong in predicting the destruction of capitalism and the rise of communism as the logical consequence of capitalist development. In fact, the twentieth century produced a variety of paths to the modern world--state socialism, corporate capitalism, and fascism. Thus twentieth century sociologists (and social theorists) attempted to develop the three theoretical models that they had inherited. In some cases (particularly, NeoMarxism), they tried to expand one model. In other cases (structural functional and conflict theories), they tried to combine models. In some cases (symbolic interactionism), they tried to reorient theory from a focus on institutional structure to a focus on the process of social action. As I argued in lecture, Structural functionalism combined a functional model of social systems with an interactive model of the relations between functionally differentiated systems (culture, economy, and government, in particular). This combination of Durkheimian (functional) and Weberian (interactional) theory provided the foundation for modern functional and conflict theory. The later was more political (and more liberal) and focused on the conflicting interests between elites (or authorities) and masses (or subordinants). The general thrust of the conflict perspective is the assertion that established institutions serve the interests of elites (functional for elites) who have the power and organization (they are a mobilized interest group with leadership and organization) to impose their will on nonelites. They have a vested interest in the status quo and attempt to accomodate conflicting interests while minimizing social change. As Darhendorf suggests, conflict can be accomodated by offering nonelites at least some opportunities for mobility and, at least, routine access to political influence (voting, petitioning, etc.) if not authority. Unlike conflict theory, NeoMarxist theory builds on Marx's dialectical materialism and attempts to develop dialectical models of culture (NeoHegelian), ideology (Critical), and government (structural). In attempting to link government and economics, some critics argue that Poulantzas produced a functional theory, but I would argue that he (and Skocpol, one of his critics) produced an 9 interactive Weberian model. Those who built on this structural tradition in analysis of corporate liberalism, the welfare state, and the fiscal crisis of the state (especially O'Connor) were more successful, but there are continuing debates on the relations between economy and government, which now must accomodate the analyses of how both economy and government have changed since the nineteenth century: specifically, the development of monopoly (versus entrepreneurial) capitalism and the expansion of capitalism into an international (world) system. The various types of NeoMarxist theory are rooted in dialectical materialism (the internal contradictions of the exploitation of labor), but as they move into the analysis of political discourse, international trade, income inequality, and social movements they often build on Weberian (interactionist) theory and offer contingency (rather than causal) models. Nevertheless, despite the influence of Weber and the failure to develop a comprehensive dialectical theory, NeoMarxist theories are distinguished from conflict theory by their concern with internal contradictions that generate conflict and change (dialectics) and suggest (at least) the possibility that the struggle may ultimately resolve the internal contradictions in revolution. The extent to which that revolution must be violent and must be led by the proletariat are just two of the many points of contention within NeoMarxist theory. Symbolic Interactionism developed the interactive model of Weber and reoriented the focus from the relations between individuals and society to the focus on the relations between individuals. Mead's early work suggests that self, other, and society were three interacting elements in the negotiated order. Blumer (reacting against Pasons, in particular) offered an extreme version of a process theory that denied structural constraints. Goffman and the structural Symbolic Interactionists have brought structure back in by examining how the interaction process is structured through the use of culturally available definitions of the situation within which identities are embedded (Goffman) and how identity is structured by a hierarchy of salient identities that are more or less appropriate over a wide range of interactions and others (structural SI). 10 With the return to structuralist concerns in Symbolic Interactionism, the prospects for combining this micro perspective with either NeoMarxist or Functionalist/Conflict perspectives are improving. Labelling theory, for example, combines interactionist and conflict perspectives. Differential Association theory seems to be closer to functionalism, but clearly incorporates interactionism. Links between NeoMarxist and interactionist theories are less apparent in the crime and deviance literature (although Rieman, Spitzer, Scull, Ohlin, Cloward, and others have been working on Marxist theories of crime and punishment). The bridge is more clearly defined in historical (and contemporary) social movement theory, where resource mobilization and political process theories (Tilly, McAdam, Tarrow) that are clearly rooted in Marxist (and Weberian) theory are attempting to incorporate the more interactionist perspectives on how leaders "frame" collective action and how the media exploits (and is exploited by) social movements (Gamson, Snow, Gitlin). These are the theoretical tools at your disposal. Explore the different theoretical models--compare, contrast, combine them in attempting to answer the question that is the focus for your next paper. You might want to bear in mind, however, that dialectical and functional models can both be combined with interactive models but cannot be (or, at least, have not yet been) effectively combined with each other. To illustrate how classical theorists and theoretical models have influenced the major contemporary theorists, the following table presents contemporary theorists and identifies the major classical influences, the models employed, and the institutional focus of each. This might help you to sort out the large number of theorists and the different types of theories. 11 Contemporary Theorists Theorist Influence Models Institutions Parsons Durkheiem Weber Functional Interactive Culture various Merton Durkheim Weber Functional Interactive various science Dahrendorf Weber Durkheim Interactive Functional Political Mills Weber Interactive various Gramsci (NeoHegelian) Early Marx Hegel Dialectical Culture Habermas (Critical) Early Marx Weber Dialectical Political Culture Althusser (Structural) Late Marx Dialectical Politics Economics Thompson (Historical) Middle Marx Dialectical various Dialectical trade Wallerstein Late Marx (World System) Lenin Recall that "early" Marx (German Ideology) is more philosophical, late Marx (Capital) is more structural economic determinism, while middle Marx (18th Brumaire) was more socio-historical. Recall also the functional, interactive, and dialectical models that were offered in lecture. 12