Book Reviews 125 Ralph Schroeder, An Age of Limits: Social grave Macmillan, 2013), ix + 259 pp. ISBN David Marquand—academic and political o for its hedonistic individualism, its kowt talist markets, and the collapse of a delib vision of the future. Marquand sees these government, among the wealthy, and am have no ideals of public and moral values. the old elites, which Marquand identifies civil service and the leadership of the old quand, Mammon's Kingdom: An Essay on Br As a case-study, Marquand can put his society as a coherent moral entity: chur coming generation, a civil service with a ernment, and a labour movement albeit c Markets, especially financial markets, are alism needs to be restrained. Ralph Schroeder's new book discusses social theory's inability to put its finger on the causes and consequences of the current malaise in contemporary society. Social theory, now, is too often the sociology of the last five minutes, and Schroeder intends to give it a good shake and update it for the 21st century. Social theory has suffered from its own intellectual hedonism, a habit of mind unable to come to terms with a new age of limits. Schroeder's three pillars are politics, economy and culture. There is a rich and deep sociological knowledge about how these three have come together in the mass societies of modern industrialism, in particular how the tensions and conflicts between them are managed. Talcott Parsons stands out as a sociologist who gave an account of how societies differentiate into the sub-systems of economy, politics, cul ture and kinship and how norms and values keep the show on the road. Older social theorists like Marx emphasize the contradictions between the realm of capital accu mulation and the world of labour and sociality; likewise Max Weber with the con flictual differentiation of economy (impersonal, instrumental), culture and religion (a world of non-material values), and politics (the realm of struggle). Schroeder pre fers Luhmann to Parsons. The issue is how these sectors or realms communicate and interact with each other. The transition to the 21st century is the move from the age of extremes (using Eric Hobsbawn's short 20th century) to the age of limits (starting in the 1970-80s). Things happened in the age of extremes. In politics, class struggles were vehement and eventuated in the deepening and expansion of democracy and social rights. In the economy, markets were disembedded from traditional restraints and freed up to allow exchange driven by the maximization of interests (or, what Max Weber would characterize as the move from the householding unit to the always outward looking acquisitive economic entity). Culture is marked by secularization and, for Schroeder, the rise of science as monopolizing knowledge and the related dependence of high growth on large technological systems. In the coming age of limits, politics will wit ness the constraining of democracy and the universalism of social rights. In the econ omy, financial markets will superordinate and generate inequalities. In the cultural© Max Weber Studies 2014. 126 Max Weber Studies sphere, environmental limits will be encountered consumer demands placed on nature. These transitions have to be explicated through as well as interaction between the three orders o Talcott Parsons's social system worked brilliantly coordinating mechanism was embedded in each o cated downwards through to the micro level. Diff be maintained, argues Schroeder, and we should the orders will not be interacting with each othe negative impacts. In the short 20th century in the global North orders interacted was beneficial to growth, distri measures. Schroeder uses Luhmann only in a sche of each order and the flows between them. Inter municative interfaces. Instead flows are a matter nature and contents of each order, and this is an e cases and types of order-formation. Schroeder d cal, political and economic sociology and an array Michael Mann, John Hall Ernest Gellner and M ism, reformism, and conservatism. Schroeder l how social theory should be utilized. 'The vagar there are continual swings between theories whic context while others focus on macro-social patter and general social theory. When and where the la science, technology and social change and their m...