British Labor’s Defeat  

The British elections have created only a faint stir. For once, the expected took place largely as expected. A million and a half voters who in 1945 had supported the Labor Party simply abstained from the ballot, thus allowing the …



Asia: The Peasant’s Way  

    The publication in our last issue of “Can Asia Industrialize Democratically?”, reprinted with some small statistical deletions from Asoka Mehta’s pamphlet, SOCIALISM AND PEASANTRY, stirred broad enthusiasm and interest, notably among students of Asia. Below we present another …



The Price of Non-Conformity  

IT IS A WELL-ESTABLISHED axiom that a state must jealously guard itself against the large-scale disaffection of its citizens. Those whose personal convictions have prevented them from adequately fulfilling their obligations to the state have often been punished as an …



Cain and Humphrey  

Americans for Democratic Action would be a vastly improved organization if it would do two things. The first would be to unfrock the Hon. Hubert Humphrey as its vice chairman. The second would be to give its annual award this …



Can Asia Industrialize Democratically?  

    In January 1953, Asoka Mehta, one of the leaders of the Indian Praja Socialist Party, published a pamphlet—really a little book—entitled Socialism and Peasantry. In this study Mehta tried to find an answer to the most difficult and …



The Problem of Social Planning  

POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND WELFARE: PLANNING AND POLITICOECONOMIC SYSTEMS RESOLVED INTO BASIC SOCIAL PROCESSES, by Robert A. Dahl and Charles E. Lindblom. Harper & Brothers, New York. 1953. 557 pp. The past ten years have not been easy for democratic socialist …



From Malenkov to Khruschev  

If there is one lesson to be learned from the Malenkov “resignation,” it is that most of the journalistic guesses about the specific power relations in the Kremlin are utterly fruitless. No one really knows. And if the subject were …



Hollywood, Killer of the Dream  

The American Dream enjoins limitless social mobility. Class barriers don’t exist for it, or if they do they are so fluid as to be virtually without meaning. “From each according to his abilities … ” could really stand as its …



The Changing Status of the Negro  

Surely the most curious paradox in recent U.S. history is the breakdown of caste relations between the races. It is curious because it is occurring under official auspices—under the sponsorship of a government not noted, at least in recent years, …



Anxiety in Politics  

How does it happen that the masses sell their souls to leaders and follow them blindly? On what does the power of attraction of leaders over masses rest? What are the historical situations in which this identification of leader and …







Sects: Lewis Coser Replies  

Geltman’s and Plastrik’s critique of my essay seems to me to be based on a misunderstanding of what a typological procedure aims to accomplish. Social scientists can use concepts which are closely geared to the empirical and historical reality at …