Ralf Dahrendorf
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Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf, Baron Dahrendorf, KBE, (born May 1, 1929) is a German-British sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and politician.
He was born in Hamburg, the son of Lina and the late Gustav Dahrendorf, a social democrat member of the German Parliament. He studied philosophy, classical philology and sociology at Hamburg University between 1947 and 1952, became a doctor of philosophy and classics (Dr. phil.) in 1952. He continued his academic research at London School of Economics as a Leverhulme Research Scholar in 1953-54, gaining a PhD in 1956. He was a professor of sociology in Hamburg (1957-60), Tübingen (1960-64) and Konstanz (1966-69).
From 1969 to 1970 he was a member of the German parliament for the Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party) (the German liberals), and a Parliamentary Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1970 he became a Commissioner in the European Commission in Brussels. From 1974 to 1984 he was director of the London School of Economics, when he returned to Germany to become Professor of Social Science, Konstanz University (1984-86).
He settled in the United Kingdom in 1986, becoming a Governor of the London School of Economics, and also from 1987 to 1997 Warden of St Antony's College at Oxford University.
Having adopted British citizenship in 1988, in 1993 he was granted a life peerage and was created Baron Dahrendorf of Clare Market in the City of Westminster by Queen Elizabeth II. He sits in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher.
His famous book Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (1959) argued that Marx defined class too narrowly and in a historically-specific context. Instead of describing the fundamental differences of class in terms of property, Dahrendorf claimed that power was at the root of differences in class. Thus, society could be split up into "order takers" and "order givers".
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[edit] Works available in English
[edit] Works available in German
- Über Grenzen: Lebenserinnerungen, C.H. Beck Verlag, 2002, Munich (ISBN 3-406-49338-6)
- Der moderne soziale Konflikt: Essay zur Politik der Freiheit, dtv wissenschaft, 1994, Munich (ISBN 3-423-04628-7)
