The Contexts of Social Mobility by Anselm L. Strauss

Author:Anselm L. Strauss [Strauss, Anselm L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Social Classes & Economic Disparity
ISBN: 9781351484473
Google: xRwuDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-12T03:26:44+00:00

Riesman, Aiken, Glazer, Jacobs, Kolko, Galbraith, Harrington, Lasch

Among Warner’s colleagues at the University of Chicago in the 1950’s was David Riesman, a noted social commentator on the sophisticated new America. In his best-selling The Lonely Crowd (1950), Riesman and his co-authors suggested a change from an “inner directed” national character (based on the imagery of the striving nineteenth century businessman) to more “outer directed,” group-oriented responses.7 Three years later he published a thoughtful commentary on Veblen,8 in which he suggested that Veblen’s earlier critique (1899) of the conspicuous consumption of the industrial elite, which once spoke volumes to the liberal community, no longer made much sense during the present affluent era when everyone was enjoying an increasing consumption. (Also Veblen did not foresee how much his own books “would influence people’s attitudes toward consumption.”9) In the first place, “the bounteousness of modern industry . . . has done more than almost anything else,” Riesman hazarded, “to make conspicuous consumption obsolete here.” But probably even more important is that our expanding economy “has created new fortunes much faster than their possessors could possibly be tutored by the old rich in the proper consumption values of the latter.” No mere “400” can dictate now the proper standards. Also—and here is De Tocqueville’s civilization and masses theme again—universal education has doubtless “exposed many people, who later have come into means, to tasteful critiques of working-class extravagance.” Whatever the sociological reasons, occupational achievement (with its accompanying conspicuous consumption) probably has declined as a primary motive while leisure activities increasingly have moved toward the forefront.

While this has been happening to all of us, including the industrialists, the corporations have also been changing. (With characteristic tentativeness, aware of the complexities of real life, Riesman also suggests that the nineteenth century entrepreneur probably also had ambivalence about conspicuously flaunting his success, and that Veblen failed to emphasize that “some small groups among the very rich were learning to be offended by conspicuous display.”) Riesman coins the term conspicuous production to indicate his belief that corporations are not focused wholly on profits but are spending for ceremonial, prestigious, communal, and humane reasons. In talking of improvements made for workers, Riesman remarks, “We can say, I think, that corporate consumption, in which each company goes into business as a junior welfare state, does currently rearrange our motives in a new configuration.” One contributing factor is the increasing professionalism of management. Whereas the earlier industrialist, (born on a farm or thinking in rural terms, “regarded his firm as a farm, and his work force as hired hands .. . or as a small-town business, paternalistically run”) did not bother much with “human relations,” the modern industrialist works in an organization and must communicate well. While tax and labor policies have helped to move him in these directions, “the desire of businessmen themselves to become professionals in human relations seems” also to be a major factor. (This imagery has some kinship with Berle’s.)

In such passages, Riesman assumes his customary stance toward

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