Ralf Dahrendorf (1929-2009) established modern sociology as a normal science in the traditional university in post-war Germany. After ten years as a Full Professor, he joins the German liberal party, then in opposition. He stands successfully in a regional and then a national election (Landtag, Bundestag). He serves as junior minister under chancellor Willy Brandt and becomes a European commissioner less than a year later. Upon his resignation from the European Commission, he makes the UK his home and becomes a (...) British subject, becomes knighted and later appointed Lord. The second half of his life, as an intellectual amid the powers and a liaison between England and the continent, as a self-described 'straddler', may have been even greater in importance than the first, with his meteoric rise as a highly visible professor of sociology and as German politician of national prominence. His analysis of society and democracy in Germany, though dated (1965) appears still for the most part as valid. Historically, his own elite positions mark transition periods in the process of generational change. (shrink)

This edited volume of original contributions deals with the economic and political thought of Michael Polanyi. Requiring little prior knowledge of Polanyi, this volume further develops a somewhat neglected side of Polanyi's work. In particular it examines the 'tacit integration', of subsidiary details into focal objects or actions as central to all knowing and action. It traces ontological counterparts in the structures of comprehensive entities and complex actions, and a multi-level universe in which lower levels have their boundary conditions, the (...) extents to which they apply, determined by those of the next higher level, whilst each possessing its own laws or operative principles. This schema of 'dual control' preserves the reality and relative autonomy of each level, and its interactions with others, against the various reductions. The essays in this volume also employ and develop important additional concepts and distinctions such as: 'corporate' and 'spontaneous' order; 'public' and 'private' liberties; 'general' and 'specific authority'; and 'moral inversion'; which, as the essays show, are necessary for understanding and maintaining a free society and the freedom of institutions within it. Among the topics treated with them are: more of the prerequisites of freedom in public liberties dedicated to principles and transcendent values; totalitarianism and society as spontaneous order; the balance of general and specific authority in society and particular institutions; reductionism, totalitarianism and consumption in consumer societies, as moral inversions; the mutual interactions of economics and politics as distinct and autonomous but interacting levels; the sociological aspects of economics; and Polanyi's own contributions to sociology. Although, as indicated, Polanyi has his special terms, the essays in this volume, like his works, give them meaning with concrete examples and so avoid merely shuffling a mass of abstractions. Together the essays show that his work is a rich seam of ideas and inspiration for yet further extension and application--Publisher. (shrink)