For Democracy: The Noble Character and Tragic Flaws of the Middle Class

These sociologists and theorists, long concerned with the critical role in society of the middle class, trace its historical, structural, and cultural links with democracy since ancient times. They show how the middle class has been instrumental in spawning industrialization and capitalism. They consider the rise and decline of fascism and communism and the development of multinational capitalism. They reflect upon the decline of the working class, the growth of an underclass, and the need today to counterbalance the power of the rich and big business. They ponder how to break an iron cage of bureaucracy and to revitalize democracy. This socio-historical analysis from a neo-Weberian perspective deals with issues that are central to sociologists, political theorists, and historians.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Capitalism, Democracy, and Class Balance The Merchant Class and Democracy in Ancient Greece From the Polis to the Nation-State Industry and Democracy High Technology Multinational Capitalism Bibliography Index

About the Author :
RONALD M. GLASSMAN, Professor of Sociology, William Paterson College of New Jersey. He is the author of China in Transition: Communism, Capitalism and Democracy (Praeger, 1991), Democracy and Equality: Theories and Programs for the Modern World (Praeger, 1989), and Bureaucracy Against Democracy and Socialism (co-authored with William H. Swatos and Paul L. Rosen Jr.), (Greenwood Press, 1987), among other books in recent years. WILLIAM H. SWATOS, Jr., is Editor of Sociology of Religion, the official journal of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. He is the author of Time, Place and Circumstance: Neo-Weberian Studies in Comparative Religious History (Greenwood Press, 1990) and co-author, with Ronald Glassman, of Charisma, History and Social Structure (Greenwood Press, 1986) and Twentieth Century World Religious Movements in Neo-Weberian Perspective (1992), among other works. PETER KIVISTO is Associate Professor of Sociology at Augustana College. He is the author of American Immigrants and Their Generations: Studies and Commentaries on the Hansen Thesis after Fifty Years (1990) and Ethnic Enigma: Salience of Ethnicity for European Origin Groups (1989) and co-authored with William Swatos, Jr., Max Weber: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1988).