This collection of essays represents a comprehensive socio-political analysis of public and private bureaucracy, emphasizing its dangerous ramifications for democracy and individualism. The contributors analyze a variety of bureaucratic systems, providing a combination of theory, case studies, and proposed solutions, in an effort to enable the reader to confront the real problems of bureaucracy. Emphasis is on programs and principles directed to the maintenance of democracy and freedom within the limits and conditions of modernity. Bureaucracy Against Democracy and Socialism offers valuable implications for anyone interested in organizational theory and behavior.

This collection of essays focuses on Weber's political ideology as well as his political sociology. This interdisciplinary work draws upon the expertise of a number of writers and challenges major schools of thought on Weber. In the first section on ideology, scholars question whether Weber's political predictions were based on a realistic appraisal of social development or if his objectivity was compromised by events in Weimar Germany. They then address Weber's attitudes toward socialism in light of contemporary sociology and his early writings. Part two examines Weber's theory: the concept of rationalization; ideas about charisma; and the decline of charisma in light of the growing role of the media. A study of Weber's analysis of the 1917 events in Russia concludes the volume.

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.

As recent events in the Far East have demonstrated, China is a nation that is in the midst of a massive social and political upheaval. The Chinese leadership is as uncertain as the populace on the future course for modern China, and remains dramatically split over capitalism and communism, pragmatism and realism, and democracy and despotism. In this work, Ronald Glassman analyzes the remarkable changes that are occurring in China, and examines the country's difficult movement from state-run economics to free enterprise, and from Communist Party dictatorship to electoral democracy.

The book focuses on the emergence of a modern middle class in China, illuminating their political and economic desires and their impact in a postcommunist society. Glassman provides a Weberian analysis of the recent radical changes, using the concepts of rationalization, the bureaucratic middle strata, the greater degree of efficiency of capitalism over socialism, the independent power of the state, and charismatic leadership to help explain China's transition to modernity. His study is divided into four sections, covering the majority middle class and democracy, free enterprise and democracy, the transition to a legal democratic state, and political culture, legitimacy, and charisma. The book concludes with the thesis that China will make the transition to democracy when the new generation of leaders comes to power and the middle class becomes the mediating stratum. Students of sociology, political science, and Chinese history will find this work to be a valuable resource, as will both public and academic libraries.

While the romantic notions of social and economic equality once espoused by the socialist movement have been overshadowed by the realities of government power, bureaucractic inefficiency, and class divisions, Glassman claims that the quest for equality and social justice can and must be pursued within legal-democratic societies. He contends that the quest for equality within the democratic framework is politically, economically, morally, and socially beneficial. Using the theoretical principles of Aristotle, Rawls, and Keynes, Glassman demonstrates that the development of practical programs can allow an expansion of the middle class and a greater degree of equality within capitalist democratic societies.

Along with these three non-socialist theories for equality, the book analyzes some contemporary democratic-socialist programs that have been developed for the same objective. All the proposed programs throughout this book emphatically establish democracy as an essential factor and then work toward achieving greater equality within the parameters set by the legal-democratic state. "Democracy and Equality" will prove invaluable to anyone interested in social theory, the principles of equality, and political and economic developement of the industrial state.