John McGowan

The Future of the Intellectuals: Was Alvin Gouldner Right?

Why are there intellectuals and what are they good for? Alvin Gouldner’s 1979 work, The Future of the Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class, sets out to answer that question through a class-based functionalist analysis. Within a capitalist society, Gouldner finds, there are actually three classes, not the two that Marx identified. In addition to the capitalists who finance the means of production and the proletariat who do the labor of production, there is a “new class” that provides the technical expertise required by the complex operations of capitalist production. There are various ways to characterize this new class, and perhaps the professional upper middle class is the one most current in our time. Gouldner prefers the term “intellectuals,” even as he acknowledges the power of the professions and the psychological importance of professional identification among those he calls intellectuals. Whatever we call this new class, he insists they are on the rise because they are indispensable to the workings of capitalism. Without the contribution of research scientists, of more practically oriented technicians and engineers, of managerial experts, and of communication specialists, the capitalist can neither make his productive enterprises maximally efficient nor survive in a dynamic environment in which innovations that provide a competitive edge are always required. The capitalist is dependent on the intellectuals and deeply resents that dependence.

Arendt Contra Sociology: Theory, Society and its Science

views. Urbatsch’s examination of birth-order effects (Chapter 4) is similarly flawed—using fixed-effects models he could have examined birth order effects on a wide range of outcomes. There is much to be admired about this book, but despite my interest and anticipation, Families’ Values did not deliver as expected. Urbatsch does not really focus on the models and conclusions developed in past research, but jumps around, almost indiscriminately, attempting to take advantage of available data sets that allow him to focus on specific questions and collecting conclusions about the potential role of various aspects of family on political orientations. The book reads like a dissertation under the familiar model in which the student writes three or more separate papers with few requirements to tie them together. His ‘‘magpie-like’’ approach is unsettling, jumping from one topic or data set to another with minimal effort to tie the various strands together. Chapters Five and Six continue in this pattern, focusing on the effects of the presence of children (and their gender) on one’s views on a number of policy matters. The discussion of these issues has the benefit of Urbatsch’s political science training. Finally, the reader should be advised that the approach exemplified in Families’ Values is ahistorical and atheoretical, demonstrating an insular lack of appreciation for the fact that political attitudes develop over the life span and that family influences shape attitudes at different life stages. There is a considerable literature on this topic, which Urbatsch essentially ignores. His approach, by contrast, looks at relationships in crosssections of the population at a point in time, wondering what accounts for relationships without any effort to understand their origins in the life-span development of attitudes. One of the conclusions of Political Attitudes over the Life Span (Alwin, Cohen, and Newcomb 1991) was that it is important to understand the influences of family within a life-span developmental framework. On the simplest level, attitudes develop over time. Some influences—those of parents and siblings—affect one’s outlook relatively early in life. Subsequently, non-family influences become more important. And to the extent that spouses and children have an influence, this must occur much later. What is missing in Families’ Values is a theoretical framework that construes the development of political attitudes across the life course, focusing on the different environments and reference groups inhabited by the developing person at different developmental stages and reinforced by life choices. Urbatsch does introduce statistical controls for age in many of his analyses, but this does not come close to the kind of sensitivity to the life course that is needed. If Urbatsch continues to work on this topic, perhaps in his future studies he might take a longer view of how political attitudes develop over the life span.

Pragmatism and Social Theory.

Rising concerns among scholars about the intellectual and cultural foundations of democracy have led to a revival of interest in the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism. In this book, Hans Joas shows how pragmatism can link divergent intellectual efforts to understand the social contexts of human knowledge, individual freedom, and democratic culture. Along with pragmatisms impact on American sociology and social research from 1895 to the 1940s, Joas traces its reception by French and German traditions during this century. He explores the influences of pragmatism--often misunderstood--on Emile Durkheims sociology of knowledge, and on German thought, with particularly enlightening references to its appropriation by Nazism and its rejection by neo-Marxism. He also explores new currents of social theory in the work of Habermas, Castoriadis, Giddens, and Alexander, fashioning a bridge between Continental thought, American philosophy, and contemporary sociology; he shows how the misapprehension and neglect of pragmatism has led to systematic deficiencies in contemporary social theory. From this skillful historical and theoretical analysis, Joas creates a powerful case for the enduring legacy of Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead for social theorists today.