Daniel Bell Research Articles

Releer a Daniel Bell. A 40 años de la publicación de Las contradicciones culturales del capitalismo

The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, published by Daniel Bell in 1976, exercised a visible influence on the intellectual debates of those years and it has maintained a relatively constant presence in sociological literature. Bell argued mainly that culture had radically changed in a direction that made it incompatible with the reproduction of the capitalist economy. Forty years after the appearance of the book, in this article we seek to assess the consistency of this thesis. The perspective is critic. We want to show its weaknesses revealing the misuse of Weber’s idea concerning the relationship between protestant ethic and development of capitalism, the shortcomings of the theory of society built by Bell in order to settle the existence of contradictions and the adoption of concepts of culture and religion restrictives.

Kultura i niepewność

This article concerns uncertainty, which is considered by many social theorists (forinstance, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Daniel Bell, Eric Hobsbawm) to be a charac-teristic trait of the contemporary world. Uncertainty is produced by rapid, multidimen-sional changes in the conditions around us—by their instability and unpredictability—and by a lack of future vision. Continual change becomes an element of everyday life.Culture understood as a collection of permanent meanings, norms, and values loses itsordering function—it no longer serves to elucidate the world; the past does not providehelpful examples. There is an expansion of mutability, a multiplicity of possible choices,and an excess of information—which paradoxically, like its lack in an isolated society, isa cause of uncertainty, fear, and presentist thinking. In Polish society, these phenomenaare strengthened by tradition and the sense of economic insecurity accompanying thesystemic transformation.

The Dynamism of Integral Liberation: Reconsidering Gustavo Gutiérrez's Central Concept after “the End of History”

This essay questions Daniel Bell Jr.'s claim that liberation theology is ignorant of the links between the cultural and structural formations of capitalism. Focusing especially on Bell's treatment of the thought of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the article argues that Gutiérrez's concept of integral liberation provides a complex account of the manner in which the structural, cultural, and theological levels of liberation are interrelated. It contends, contra Bell, that Gutiérrez's concept does not reduce politics to “statecraft” but instead provides an illuminating framework for understanding the integrity of Christian life within the contemporary neoliberal globalization project. Finally, the paper moves to consider the manner in which Gutiérrez's concept might be fruitfully paired with Leslie Sklair's theorization of global capitalism in order to specify the process of liberation today.

Razumeti »novi konfucianizem«: ponovno odkrivanje konfucianizma in prihodnost Kitajske

Članek se osredotoči na pomembno spremembo v kitajski misli 20. stoletja: ponovno rojstvo konfucianizma kot intelektualnega gibanja, imenovanega »novi konfucianizem«, ki se v sodobni kitajski družbi ponuja kot možna alternativa marksistični ideologiji. Vendar kaj sploh je »novi konfucianizem«? Avtor najprej izpostavi problematiko poskusa opredelitve konfucianizma z zahodnega zornega kota in težave, ki se pri tem pojavijo. Opre se predvsem na dela Jiang Qinga 蒋庆, enega osrednjih mislecev tega idejnega gibanja, ter na študije njegovega glavnega zahodnega interpreta, raziskovalca Daniela Bella. V nadaljevanju pretrese nekaj najpogostejših oznak: novi konfucianizem kot religija, kot družbena doktrina ali kot nova politična opcija. Ne glede na neulovljivost koncepta se zdi, da se gibanje v moderni kitajski družbi razvija povsem spontano in pridobiva vse več privržencev, tudi s pomočjo lahkotnejšega literarnega žanra, v katerem se lahko prirejene Konfucijeve misli kot nasveti za soočanje z vsakdanjim življenjem približajo širši množici.

Ren, Feng 任鋒, Transmission of Confucian Doctrines and Political Structure 道統與治體

The mainland New Confucianism has undoubtedly become one of the most popular academic topics in contemporary China. Nonetheless, its political philosophy gives rise to doubts and critiques. Against this background, the book Transmission of Confucian Doctrines and Political Structure 道統與治體 by REN Feng 任鋒 advocates a “constitutional dialogue” to rebuild consensus among Confucianism, liberalism, and other schools of thought. As the author declares in the preface, he is a Confucian scholar who also appreciates Western theories (5). In other words, the combination of East and West—or “the ancient” and “the modern”—may be the key to understanding the standpoint and methodology of New Confucian scholars like him. The articles in the book are classified into four groups. Two groups focus on intellectual history while the rest discuss contemporary ideological arguments. It is apparent that Ren intends to respond to modern challenges with the help of Confucian resources. Correspondingly, this review will investigate these two issues: challenges and solutions. Since the publication of JIANG Qing’s 蔣慶 works, New Confucian scholars have developed political theories which have aroused debate and tension. For example, how can we understand and then rebuild the “rule of rite” (lizhi 禮治)? Jurist ZHANG Qianfan 張千帆, who is also known as a liberal, treats rite as a Chinese version of natural law, while other scholars like CHEN Lai陳來 and Daniel Bell regard it as a governing system beyond Western individualism and “rule of law.” JIANG Qing is the most radical figure in this debate, who advocates to restore ancient institutions such as the House of Confucians (tongru yuan 通儒院) to formulate the rite system. The three versions of interpretations represent the three poles in academic circles, namely, liberalism, Dao (2016) 15:311–314 DOI 10.1007/s11712-016-9494-x

Of sorcerers and thought leaders: marketing the information revolution in the 1960s

Hoopla about the emergence of an information economy was widespread by the 1990s, when academics, politicians and the press celebrated the social transformations brought about by computers. Yet the rhetoric of high-tech revolution long predates Windows 95 or even the World Wide Web. Building on the work of Howard Brick and others on postwar debates over technology and the economy, this article explores how the trope of the “information revolution” entered public discourse in the United States in the 1960s. It considers how the general idea of a post-industrial society – an economy in which manufacturing might play a diminished role – became specifically tied in the public imagination to information technology and intellectual property. Technology firms waged a concerted campaign to assuage anxieties about technological unemployment while extolling the importance of computing and other new technologies to the nation’s economic future. It illustrates how advertisers developed a public relations message for firms such as RCA and IBM, aiming to reassure the public about the potential of computers and automation to transform society for the better. This promotion of the information revolution actually predated the influential discussions of a post-industrial society by theorists such as Daniel Bell and Alain Touraine in the early 1970s. The essay also highlights how prominent public intellectuals, such as Margaret Mead and Herman Kahn, and government officials lent their credibility to claims about the value of a future economy based on creating and processing information during the 1960s.

Teorija nastanka postindustrijskog društva Danijela Bela

Twenty-five years after the publication of the famous Daniel Bell's book The Coming of Post-industrial Society, new edition of the book was published with a foreword written by the author named 'The Axial Age of Technology'. In the foreword Bell clarifies his theses and predictions in relation to the changes that have taken place in meantime in contemporary society, as well as regarding to the critics of his theory. The aim of the paper is to show how Bell explains social development in the second half of the twentieth century as well as the main characteristics of that society of 'transitory nature' in which we live. Bell's starting theoretical and methodological point of view are discussed as well as the explanation of transition from industrial to post-industrial society and the possibilities of development of the third world societies. The main characteristic of post-industrial society, according to Bell, is the codification of theoretical knowledge and the new relation between science and technology. Main post-industrial developments are: the rise of service sector, occupational changes, changes in professions and education, growing role of financial and human capital, new forms of infrastructure and knowledge theory of value. New form of society is emerging, with changes in stratification system, economy, organization and consumption. Bell doesn't plead for a holistic view of society. Instead, he considers society as comprising three realms that can change in different ways, so historical change is not unified. Major instrument of historical change is technology, it poses problems for culture and political system but it doesn't determine them. He rejects the accusations of technological determinism because technology often operates in context it doesn't make. Daniel Bell was one of the first authors who stated that modern society had been fundamentally changing. His aim was to make a conceptual framework for the comprehensive explanation of contemporary social change. One can point to several theoretical and methodological problems Bell's explanation of modern society faces with (as well as some other theories of social change) such as technological determinism, unilinear concept of development and so, but he has built a sociological theory of contemporary social change, which encouraged intense debate in the social sciences and set up one of the possible starting points for understanding the contemporary social dynamics, theories of the information society.

Open Government: Missing Questions

This article places the Obama administration’s open government initiative within the context of evolution of the U.S. information society. It examines the concept of openness along the three dimensions of Daniel Bell’s social analysis of the postindustrial society: structure, polity, and culture. Four “missing questions” raise the challenge of the compatibility of public service values with the culture of openness, address the right balance between postindustrial information management practices and the capacity of public organizations to accomplish their missions, and ask to reconsider the idea that greater structural openness of public organizations will necessarily increase their democratic legitimacy.

The East Asian Challenges for Democracy: Political Meritocracy in Comparative Perspective ed. by Daniel A. Bell, Chenyang Li (review)

Reviewed by: The East Asian Challenges for Democracy: Political Meritocracy in Comparative Perspective ed. by Daniel A. Bell, Chenyang Li Michael Masterson (bio) The East Asian Challenges for Democracy: Political Meritocracy in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Daniel A. Bell and Chenyang Li. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xv + 400. Hardcover $81.00, isbn 978-1-10-762377-4. The East Asian Challenges for Democracy, edited by Daniel A. Bell and Chenyang Li, is an anthology of articles that discuss the possibility and desirability of combining meritocratic elements with democracy from both Confucian and Western perspectives. Its main contribution is a different take on the Asian values debate. Instead of asking whether Western values are universal, this book asks what Western democracy might learn from Asian views of meritocracy (p. 7). The wide range of perspectives presented ensure that the work has something to offer anyone interested in democracy, Confucianism, meritocracy, or East Asian government. The book begins with an introduction by Daniel Bell, who introduces some problems facing democracy, such as long-term planning and money in politics, as well as some challenges facing meritocracy, including how to define merit and prevent corruption (pp. 5–6, 22). He explains that contributors to the book were “asked to think about how meritocracy can and should be reconciled with democracy” (p. 7). The three sections of the book discuss the theory of political meritocracy, the history of meritocracy, and how to realize meritocracy today. In the first section, the first chapter by Joseph Chan defines political meritocracy for the purposes of the book as “the idea that a political system should aim to select and promote leaders with superior ability and virtue” and gives an overview of both ancient and modern Confucian writings on meritocracy (p. 31). In the second chapter, Tongdong Bai criticizes Western democracy by arguing that it does not account for the interests of nonvoters, that it leads to the triumph of the interests of the powerful, and that the people often do not know their own interests (p. 56). He offers an alternative that he calls “Confu-China,” which would respect rule of law and human rights while making reforms to “one person one vote,” such as adding a meritocratic house in the legislature and “institutional arrangements that help prevent the incompetent citizens from having too much a voice in . . . political matters” (pp. 65–67). In chapter 3, Ruiping Fan presents the most extreme vision of a Confucian society, arguing that in addition to meritocratic institutions, authentic Confucian society would have leaders who hold Confucian values (pp. 88–89). He argues that Confucian values and metaphysics would have to be established in a state’s constitution, but they would be promoted with incentives not prohibitions (pp. 99–100). It is important to note that Fan does not argue that this system is superior but only that an authentic version of Confucian meritocratic government must first be articulated before it can be evaluated (p. 109). [End Page 973] The rest of the first section looks at meritocracy from a Western standpoint. In chapter 4, John Skorupski uses liberalism to criticize democracy as practiced in the West, arguing that the founding thinkers of liberalism, particularly John Stuart Mill, envisioned meritocratic institutions that limited democracy such as weighing the votes of qualified individuals more highly (p. 118). Skorupski’s most serious concern is that democracy may lead to a “moral and spiritual leveling down” through conformist pressures and the ability of capitalism to satisfy people’s desires (pp. 132–133). In the final chapter of this section, Philip Pettit makes the case that “meritocratic selection is consistent with representative standing” because meritocratic authorities can garner legitimacy through “indicative representation” if they are bound by strict guidelines that most people support (pp. 139, 146–148). The second section focuses on the history of political meritocracy. First, Yuri Pines traces the concept of “elevating the worthy” in ancient China and finds that what constituted merit was hotly contested and that, while some empires allowed more social mobility than others, the system of meritocratic officialdom in China was never fair, failed to promote morality, and that its impressive achievements came at high...

Reading that Isn’t Reading

writers enough energy and coherence to make possible a sustained confrontation with the new sensibility.” I never met Howe, though I corresponded with him briefly. Although I criticized his vaporous socialist agenda, I felt an affinity with him because I too disliked the “new sensibility” and also because our nonpolitical enthusiasms were the same: the poetry of Robert Frost, the ballets of George Balanchine, the paintings of Edouard Vuillard—and the baseball playing of Willie Mays! Like Howe the New York intellectuals were mainly essayists. “If to the minor genre of the essay the New York writers made a major contribution,” Howe says, “to the major genres of fiction and poetry they made only a minor contribution.” Edmund Burke once asked: “Who now reads Bolingbroke?” Today one might ask: Who now reads the essays of Irving Howe, Lionel Trilling, Irving Kristol, Sidney Hook, Alfred Kazin, Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Daniel Bell—to name some of the most prominent New York intellectuals? Howe surmised the work of the New York intellectuals would not last because their writing “was always in response to something. That was the sense of the essay that we all did. And that’s why none of us is likely to survive.” He may have been right. Yet the essays of the New York intellectuals will always be of interest to historians, since these writers wrestled with political and cultural questions that preoccupied this nation in the sixties, seventies, and eighties.

The Moral Economy of the Great Recession

This article examines the critique of greed in America, with special reference to how that critique of greed varies with economic conditions. American history is characterized by an alternation between celebrations of acquistion and calls for asceticism. This dialectical process illustrates a fundamental cultural contradiction of American capitalism, first discussed by Daniel Bell. The analysis focuses on the disourse of greed during the Great Recession of 2008, and suggests that cultural criticisms of greed have powerful, but limited, political effectiveness. As economic crises continue and people come to blame polticians who fail to resolve them, rather than the “greedy” who are purported to cause them.

From ‘Post-Industrial’ to ‘Network Society’ and Beyond: The Political Conjunctures and Current Crisis of Information Society Theory

This article critically discusses the intellectual and conceptual shifts that have occurred in information society theories (and also policies) in the previous four decades. We will examine the topic by focusing on the work of Daniel Bell and Manuel Castells, arguably two of the most important information society theorists. A key element in the academic shift from “post-industrial” (Bell) thinking to the discourse on “network society” (Castells) is that it has brought forward a different way of understanding the role of the state vis-a-vis the development of new information and communication technologies, as well as a new assessment of the role of the state in the economy and society at large. Against the Keynesian undertones of Bell’s ideas, Castells’ network society theory represents a neoliberally restructured version of “information society” that is associated with the rise of flexibility, individuality and a new culture of innovation. We argue that these changing discourses on the information society have served a definite hegemonic function for political elites, offering useful ideals and conceptions for forming politics and political compromises in different historical conjunctures. We conclude the article by looking at how the on-going global economic crisis and neoliberalism’s weakening hegemonic potential and turn to austerity and authoritarian solutions challenges existing information society theories.

Can the Market Save? An Intersection of Economy, Mimesis, and the Atonement

Can the Market Save?: An Intersection of Economy, Mimesis, and the Atonement Gawain F. de Leeuw This project arises from some dissatisfaction. I found many public commentators unconvincing in their description of market activity, and churches and individuals lacked a roadmap for negotiating commerce as disciples of Christ. Although sympathetic to the desires for a world where wealth is more equitable, I found many standard analyses of commercial economies by theologians to be insufficient. Certainly, along with Barack Obama, Alan Greenspan, and Pope Francis, there is some problem in our system of arrangements; however, my intuition is that the brokenness in our current state of affairs is not a found in advocating for either a commercial or a planned economy. In this paper, I seek to show how mimetic theory can illuminate markets and our role in the institutions that participate in them; and how it links with one theory of the atonement. Mimetic theory sheds light on how a diminishment of government will result also in a diminishment in the virtues within commerce. As institutions, both corporations and governments make plans and share information within their organizations; both consume; and both produce. The venn diagram between the different institutional sectors and their actions, overlap greatly. Many theologians are familiar with Adam Smith, Hayek, Marx and Keynes. Some theologians, like Michael Novak, Max Stackhouse, and James McCann emphasize the creative, wealth producing aspects of capitalism; other theologians, such as Daniel Bell, D. Stephen Long, and Timothy Gorringe challenge the market. In one of the more illuminating dialogues between the economists Rebecca Blank and William McGurn, we see a general acceptance of the market, but a disagreement about the role of government intervention. It is my view that the stalemate can be broken with a deeper reflection about the dynamics of the market, desire, and freedom, from an alternate view of the individual and the institutional forces that shape individual behavior. To undertake this task, I will first seek an accurate understanding of what markets are. This will require an assessment of the neo‐classical economic self, the acquisitive self, which I will argue conceals, rather than describes, how people actually behave. I will then illustrate how our institutions, whether operating primarily in the market or as representative of the public will, mutually reinforce each other because the networks cannot be kept separate. Although I believe the scriptures indicate a preferential option for the poor, require hospitality toward the stranger, and an understanding of our economic life as dependent upon God, the case for a specific economic system remains elusive. We don't need to have a particular faith to defend a system, and we need not assume that our religious codes of conduct require adherence to an economic philosophy. Neither socialism nor capitalism needs Christianity to make their case. But if we do assume Jesus saves, we can assume that some transformation requires understanding our relationship to the market differently. What I will do is offer, by the end of the paper, some possibilities and challenges for Christian communities. They will not be exhaustive. One primary challenge arises from a seemingly simple category confusion: the distinction between the descriptive and the normative. Economists can study how markets actually work. They look at data, distinguish between correlation and causation, and look for mathematical ways to explain the flow of money. This may be different than a theory deduced from a model that assumes we are rational, self‐interested actors who think like economist. Empirically defined research can reveal the different ways incentives work, but an economist may begin by elevating the calculating, acquisitive, self‐interested person, implying that a kingdom of industrious private shopkeepers is our free‐market utopia. Fortunately, some economists have sought to quantify and challenge a narrow version of “economic man” through the study of behavior. I will discuss a realist position of who the economic person is, using a few examples from behavioral and institutional economics. The descriptive problem in economics led me to ask two intersecting sets of questions. The first concerns the market: what is it? What does the market show about human psychology? Can I describe a familiar, non‐mathematical model that interests religious...

The Domestic Information Machine

ABSTRACTThis article explores how a group of Soviet designers investigating the future of the domestic interior at the “All-Union Scientific Research Institute for Technical Aesthetics” (VNIITE) sought to assess how technological progress might alter the relationship of the socialist citizen to their home and the objects within it in the years 1968–75. Their various designs for the Domestic Information Machine were part of a broader attempt to imagine an information-age socialism. Their research specifically engaged with Western experimental architecture and theorists of the post-industrial, such as Daniel Bell, Marshall McLuhan, and Alvin Toffler. By placing emphasis on the role of information exchange and the social agency of objects of communication, the machine's designers imagined a restructuring of the Soviet domestic interior linked to the wider world facilitated by an electronic infrastructure of machines. Aping the immaterial nature of the electronic impulses it would send and receive, the machine was imagined as a “deartifactualized” piece of equipment that could transform itself and the domestic interior according to the desires of the owner. Their work constituted an attempt to conceptualize the material environment of a “post-industrial” socialist future by questioning preconceived notions of the collective as well as the nature of consumption in the Soviet Union by replacing objects with information.

Daniel Bell e lo Stato post-industriale: percorsi di "assemblaggio" dello Stato americano

Discusses Daniel Bell’s reflections on the American State between World War II and the political, economic and social crisis of the 1970s. The A. rejects the traditional image of US as a stateless society and shows how Bell’s sociological approach permits rethinking the American State, pointing out how the coming of post-industrial society brings about a new political organization, which draws on the interplay between public, private and hybrid governmental structures. This fluid and polycentric political organization - the post-industrial State - is presumed to reduce the increasing administrative overload, fueled by the expansion of social programs, and to defuse social unrest. Bell calls for a privatization of some social functions of the State, foreshadowing the contemporary transition from government to governance.

Meritocracy as Plutocracy: The Marketising of 'Equality' Under Neoliberalism

Meritocracy, in contemporary parlance, refers to the idea that whatever our social position at birth, society ought to facilitate the means for ‘talent’ to ‘rise to the top’. This article argues that the ideology of ‘meritocracy’ has become a key means through which plutocracy is endorsed by stealth within contemporary neoliberal culture. The article attempts to analyse the term ‘meritocracy’, to open up understandings of its genealogy, and to comprehend its current use. It does so through three sections. The first section considers what might be wrong with the notion of meritocracy. The second traces some key points in the travels of the concept within and around academic social theory, moving from Alan Fox and Michael Young’s initial, disparaging use of the term in the 1950s, to Daniel Bell’s approving adoption of the concept in the 1970s, and on to its take-up by neoconservative think tanks in the 1980s. The third section analyses the use of meritocracy as a plank of neoliberal political rhetoric and public discourse. It focuses on the resonance of the term in relatively recent British culture, discussing how what it terms ‘meritocratic feeling’ has come to operate in David Cameron’s ‘Aspiration Nation’. This final section argues that meritocracy has become a potent blend of an essentialised and exclusionary notion of ‘talent’, competitive individualism and the need for social mobility. Today it is a discourse which predominantly works to marketise the very idea of equality.

Daniel Bell – American Menshevik

Long before he became one of the leading voices in American sociology and letters, Daniel Bell had a tough early life. He experienced poverty and socialism early, in a life taking on the big themes of the 20th century: communism, capitalism, Marxism, Americanism, modernism. In this he was the beneficiary as well as the critic of modern Americanism, or American modernism. In this essay I focus on a relatively overlooked Bell classic, Marxian Socialism in the United States (1996 [1952]). Here Bell works in an essentially Weberian optic, but one which takes Marx and Marxism very seriously. This is a major contribution to history of ideas and to labour studies, but also to cultural sociology. Some closing remarks connect Bell’s legacy and these frames to the much more influential, if also unread, collection The End of Ideology (1960).

‘Profane’ rather than ‘secular’

Daniel Bell’s writings are often cast as offering a contemporary jeremiad regarding the corrosive effects of culture upon the modern economic and social order. In this paper, I take the opposite approach and argue that Bell is a sensitive cultural analyst who is claiming that human experience ought not to be deprived of culture – understood as symbol and myth that tap into the felt need for human transcendence. Bell could therefore be seen as a strong advocate for the concept of culture, and for a cultural sociology. It is only that the modern (and postmodern) versions of culture do not realize the full potential of culture to move and inspire human actors. The conclusion is reached that what ails modern culture is neither rationalization nor secularization, but rather what Bell termed the ‘Great Profanization’. Rendering culture profane is much more serious, and deleterious, than any of the other specific dynamics sociologists have diagnosed regarding modern culture.

Daniel Bell, conservative

Daniel Bell was one of the leading American sociologists in the 20th century, widely read both inside and outside the universities. He produced influential theses about the rise of post-industrial society and about the cultural contradictions of modern capitalism that saw it torn between restraint and hedonism. Bell was also notable for another reason. He was, most certainly on cultural matters, a conservative, and on a number of policy matters he was closely associated with the first generation of American neo-conservative thinkers. Bell’s conservative inclinations were rare in the American academy of his time, and this essay explores the nature and significance of those conservative views.

The culture crunch

Daniel Bell’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism lies at the intersection of the three main theoretical currents of sociological thought, those of Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. His ‘three realms’ methodology moves away from deterministic accounts that subordinate the political and cultural to the economic realm. By granting each realm an autonomy and principles of their own, Bell locates the contradictions of capitalism in the friction between them. With constant innovation, individual expressiveness and libertarian social values becoming forces in-and-of-themselves, prevailing social structures and the roles within them are left looking increasingly incoherent, illegitimate and meaningless. Likewise, the shift from Protestant asceticism to modernist hedonism creates a sharp tension between the demand for a disciplined and responsible workforce and the demand for economic growth through unrestrained and instantly gratifying consumerism. The result is a complex of crisis scenarios which were manifest with the end of the post-war boom. However, as other commentators have pointed out, Bell’s prophetic theses often seem to fail under the light of subsequent history.