Robert Michels

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For the American physician, see Robert Michels (physician).

Robert Michels (9 January 1876, Cologne, Germany — 3 May 1936, Rome, Italy) was a German sociologist who wrote on the political behavior of intellectual elites and contributed to elite theory. He is best known for his book Political Parties, which contains a description of the "iron law of oligarchy." He was a student of Max Weber, friend and discipulus of Sombart and Loria. Politically, he moved from the Social Democrats, to Italian socialist party , Psi,adhering to the Italian revolutionary syndicalism wing and later to Italian Fascism, which he saw as a more democratic form of socialism.

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[edit] Biography

Michels , from a wealthy German family, studied in England, in Paris (at the Sorbonne), and at universities in Munich, Leipzig (1897), Halle (1898), and Turin. He became a Socialist while teaching at the University of Marburg, and became active with the radical wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany; he left the party in 1907. Brilliant pupil of Max Weber, in that epoque he achieved high fame for a writing , historical and sociological well based, Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie. Untersuchungen über die oligarchischen Tendenzen des Gruppenlebens (1911),( Sociology of political parties in modern democracy :a study on oligarchic tendencies in political aggregations) , in which he demonstrated that political parties can't be democratic, even the socialist ones, because they quickly transform themselves in bureaucratic oligarchies. In Italy he adhered to the Italian sindacalismo rivoluzionario( not related to the revolutionary syndicalism, being the Italian movement still socialist ), a left branch of Psi. Michels was really critic on Marx's materialistic determinism;he based his socialism in a more empirical way, stated on Sombart's historical methods. He was really attracted by Italian culture, and the mix between this fact and his universal high reputation in social sciences gave him , thanks to Luigi Einaudi and especially to Achille Loria, the professorship at the University of Turin, where he taught economics, political science and socioeconomics, in despite of the lack of economical studies. In 1914, he became the professor of economics at the University of Basel; where he taught until 1926. After WWI he adhered to Fascism, party leaded by the ex national leader in chief of Psi , Mussolini , being convinced Michels that the direct link between Mussolini's charisma and the proletariat was in some way the unique mode to realize a real proletarian government, without political bureaucratic intermediation. His last years were spent in Italy teaching economics and the history of doctrines at the University of Perugia.

[edit] Writings of Michels

  • Syndicalisme & socialisme ... (1908)
  • Proletariato e la borghesia nel movimento socialista italiano (1908; 1975)
  • Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie. Untersuchungen über die oligarchischen Tendenzen des Gruppenlebens (1911, 1925; 1970). Translated, as Sociologia del partito politico nella democrazia moderna : studi sulle tendenze oligarchiche degli aggregati politici, from the German original by Dr. Alfredo Polledro, revised and expanded (1912). Translated, from the Italian, by Eden and Cedar Paul as Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (Hearst's International Library Co., 1915; Free Press, 1949; Dover Publications, 1959); republished with an introduction by Seymour Martin Lipset (Crowell-Collier, 1962; Transaction Publishers, 1999, ISBN 0-7658-0469-7)
  • Grenzen der Geschlechtsmoral. Italian translation, Morale sessuale; versione dal tedesco del dott revised and expanded by Alfredo Polledro (Fratelli Bocca, 19-?). Translated as Sexual Ethics: A Study of Borderland Questions (Walter Scott, George Allen & Unwin, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914); republished with a new introduction by Terry R. Kandal (Transaction Publishers, 2001-2, ISBN 0-7658-0743-2)
  • Probleme der Sozialphilosophie (1914)
  • Imperialismo italiano, studi politico-demografici (1914)
  • Amour et chasteté; essais sociologiques (1914)
  • Organizzazione del commercio estero (1925)
  • Sozialismus und fascismus in Italien (1925)
  • Storia critica del movimento socialista italiano : dagli inizi fino al 1911 (La Voce, 1926)
  • Corso di sociologia politica (1927). Translated, and introduced by Alfred de Grazia, as First lectures in political sociology (University of Minnesota Press, 1949; Arno Press, 1974, ISBN 0-405-05515-3)
  • Sittlichkeit in ziffern? Kritik der moralstatistik (1928)
  • Patriotismus, prolegomena zu seiner soziologischen analyse (1929)
  • Einfluss der faschistischen Arbeitsverfassung auf die Weltwirtschaft (1929)
  • Italien von heute ; politische und wirtschaftliche Kulturgeschichte von 1860 bis 1930 (1930)
  • Introduzione alla storia delle dottrine economiche e politiche (1932)
  • Boicottaggio, saggio su un aspetto delle crisi (1934)
  • Boycottage international (1936)
  • Verelendungstheorie; Studien und Untersuchungen zur internationalen Dogmengeschichte der Volkswirtschaft, witha foreword by Heinz Maus (1970)
  • Elite e/o democrazia (G. Volpe, 1972)
  • Antologia di scritti sociologici; edited by Giordano Sivini (1980)
  • Works on paper, 1918-1930 (Barbara Mathes Gallery, 1984)
  • Critique du socialisme : contribution aux débats du début du XXè siècle; articles selected and presented by Pierre Cours-Salies and Jean-Marie Vincent (Editions Kimé, 1992, ISBN 2-908212-43-9)

[edit] References

  • "Robert Michels And the "Iron Law of Oligarchy"," chapter 12 of Revolution and Counterrevolution: Change and Persistence in Social Structures by Seymour Lipset Martin
  • Entwicklung zum faschistischen Führerstaat in der politischen philosophie von Robert Michels by Frank Pfetsch (1965)
  • Robert Michels; vom sozialistisch-syndikalistischen zum faschistischen Credo by Wilfried Röhrich (Duncker & Humblot, 1971, ISBN 3-428-02610-1).
  • Organizzazione, partito, classe, politica e legge ferrea dell'oligarchia in Roberto Michels by Giorgio Sola (1972)
  • Sociology and estrangement: three sociologists of Imperial Germany by Arthur Mitzman (Knopf, 1973, ISBN 0-394-44604-6). Republished with a new introduction by the author (Transaction Books, 1987, ISBN 0-88738-605-9).
  • The anti-democratic sources of elite theory : Pareto, Mosca, Michels by Robert A. Nye (SAGE, 1977, ISBN 0-8039-9872-4).
  • Dilemmi della democrazia moderna : Max Weber e Robert Michels by Francesco Tuccari (Laterza, 1993, ISBN 88-420-4243-9)
  • Intelectuales, masas y élites : una introducción a Mosca, Pareto y Michels by María de los Angeles Yannuzzi (UNR Editora, 1993, ISBN 950-673-041-5).
  • Robert Michels : die Herausbildung der modernen politischen Soziologie im Kontext von Herausforderung und Defizit der Arbeiterbewegung by Joachim Hetscher (1993)
  • Robert Michels und das eherne Gesetz der Oligarchie by Gustav Wagner in "Wer wählt, hat seine Stimme abegeben" Graswurzel Revolution pp. 28

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