Morality and Method

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Morality and Method in the Work of Barrington MooreAuthor(s): Dennis SmithSource: Theory and Society, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Mar., 1984), pp. 151-176Published by: Springer

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151

MORALITY AND METHOD IN THE WORK OF

BARRINGTON MOORE

DENNIS SMITH

Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy was

published in the United States in 1966, eight years after his collection of

essays entitled Political Power and Social TheorY Eight years represents,for Moore, a relatively long gap between major publications.2 During the

period since the end of the Second World War, books by Moore have

generally appeared at intervals of four to six years. The considerable

attention which has been devoted to Social Originshas tendedto hide from

view the range of the corpus of scholarship to which that particularbook

belongs. Although Moore's contribution to historicalsociology is still verymuch work in progress t may not be premature o look for some unifyingthemes in the enterpriseas a whole. These themes mayalso be located with

reference o a wider intellectual debate in progress.This articleis an attemptto begin that task of assessment.

Moore's work fascinatespartlybecause of therangeof intellectual nfluences

it expresses:for example, theanthropologicalwork of Sumner,Kroeberand

Keller,the philosophical writingsof MorrisCohen and George Santayanaand, not least, the variants of criticaltheoryrepresentedby Franz Neumann

and Otto Kirchheimer.Furthermore,during much of Moore's career, his

friend Herbert Marcuse has evidently provideda fertile source of creative

disagreement.3The excitement engenderedby Moore's work owes a greatdeal to the fact that whilebeingan authenticproductof Americanacademic

culture,rooted in the practicaland moralpreoccupationsof that society, he

has remained open to the influence of the critical tradition in twentieth-

century European thought. In this article, Moore'swork will be contrastedwiththat of E. P. Thompson and JiirgenHabermas n orderto demonstrate

some of its similaritiesto, and differencesfrom, certain aspects of recentwork in Europe.

Management Centre, UniversitY f Aston, UnitedKingdom.







152

Before I develop the line of inquiry mentioned above, it will be useful to

present a brief summary of some central features of Moore's principalpublications.Intheirsubjectmatter the mainworkscomplementeach other

in ways that are not evident at first sight. For example, whereas Social

Origins is mainly concerned with the effects on the rural order of the

modernization of variouscommercializedagrariansocieties, Injusticedeals

with a similar theme from the point of view of the (German) industrial

proletariat.The latter book pays great attention to forms of consciousness

among the lowerorders.Bycontrast, Moore'searliestworks,Soviet Politics

and Terrorand Progress USSR, examine the content and consequencesofthe ways of thinking of the Soviet modernizing elite. The works justmentioned dealing with Germany and Russia help to make up for the

exclusion of two chapterson those societies which Moore had intendedto

include in Social Origins.4

Inmuch of hiswork Moorefocuses uponvarious modalities of theprocesses

whereby peasants or other kinds of workers become citizens. He is very

interested in the conditions under which they acquirean investmentin thesocial orderthroughtheirconnectionwiththemodernizing tate.Inhisview,in the modernworld,the existingstate has become the mainagency, indeed

the only agency for the achievement of all purposes by all sections of the

population. 5The processes ust mentioned are looked at froma numberof

anglesbutespeciallywith reference o changesin relationsbetweenthe rural

and social orders and between the masses and the elite.

The three major empiricalstudies considered in this article - the inquiriesinto Soviet Russia, Social Originsand Injustice- were punctuated by two

collections of essays, respectively Political Power and Social Theoryand

Reflections on the Causesof Human Misery A briefprogrammaticreview

of these books may be helpful.6The questions underlying he Soviet studies

are, respectively,how has the Soviet elite managedto cope withthe conflict

between the goals of its ideology and the means it has used in order to

exercisepowerin an industrializing ociety? Soviet Politics)and how is this

regime likely to change following the death of Stalin?(Terrorand ProgressUSSR). In Soviet Politics, Moore studiesthe tactics used by Leninand the

Bolsheviks to establishcontrol over the Russianstate,the dilemmasfacedbythe political elite duringthe 1920s and early 1930s,and the contradictions

inherent in Stalinist rule. Specifically, in a book appropriatelysub-titled

The role of ideas in social change, he argues that Marxist-Leninist deas

have imposed important constraints on the practical options open to the

leadership, for example during the period of the NEP. Moore pays most

attention to the difficulties encounteredby

the Stalinistbureaucracy

in







153

maintaininga stablepolityand productiveeconomy but emphasizesthat, in

spite of these problems, the regime has been able to managean industria-

lizing society over several decades. More briefly, in Terrorand ProgressMoore pays particularattentionto the threat to the totalitarianbureaucracyof tendencies towards more developed social stratification(as an aspect of

tradition ) nd a more prominentrole for apolitical experts as an aspectof rationality ).

Political Powerand Social Theorycontainsa series of essays on topics such

as modes of acquiring political power, totalitarianism in pre-industrial

societies, the family,conformityin industrialsocietiesand the methodologyof the social sciences, in which Moore deals with aspects of the question:which elements of the social order in contemporaryindustrial societies are

both unique and necessaryto those societies? The issue implicit in his next

work, Social Origins, is: what forms of modernizing transformation in

commercializedagrariansocieties are favorable to democratic outcomes?

Although this is the most familiar of the major texts, it may be worth

recalling that Moore is especially interestedin two sets of relationships-

among landlords,urbanbourgeois interestsand state officials and betweenthe peasantry and their masters - and that he distinguishes between

democratic(England, France, United States), authoritarian-fascistJapan,

Germany)and peasantrevolutionary(Russia, China)routes to the modern

world.

Reflections on the Causesof Human Misery is largelyconcerned with the

problem:which aspects of human miseryare, in principle,unnecessaryand

what prospects, in fact, are there for eliminating them? The analysiscontained in those essays leads to the development of a model of rational

political authority whose implicationsareexplored further in Injustice.In

this latterwork Moore examines the developmentof the Germanindustrialworkforce from an age whenguild organizationwas predominant, hroughthe 1848crisis,the riseof the Social DemocraticParty,the FirstWorld Warand the unrest of 1918-20, to theemergenceof the Nazi Party.This historical

analysis is accompanied by a discussion of the thesis that a social contract

specifying norms of reciprocityand the principles of justice is practicallyuniversalwithinhumansocieties. Moore also examines thecircumstances nwhich apparently unjustified oppression acquires moral authority and

speculatesas to what conditions are likely to encourage moraloutrageandactive rebellionto takeplace. Itshould beevidentfromtheabove summariesthat moralconcernshave become increasinglyprominentin Moore'swork.The implicationsof this fact will shortly be explored.







154

Democracy is in our American mores. It is a product of our physical and economic

conditions. It is impossible to discuss or criticise it. It is rhetoric. No one treats it with

complete candor and sincerity. No one dares to analyse it as he would aristocracy orautocracy. He wouldget no hearingand wouldonly incur abuse.... The mores contain the

normbywhich, if we should discuss the mores,weshould havetojudge the mores.Welearn

the mores as unconsciouslyas we learnto walkand eat and breathe.... Thejustificationof

themis that whenwe wake to consciousnessof life we findthemfactswhichalreadyhold us

in the bonds of tradition,custom,and habit. The mores contain embodiedin them notions,doctrines and maxims, but they are facts.7

Who now reads William Graham Sumner?We can be surethat BarringtonMoore has done so.8 The latter receivedhis originaltrainingin the social

sciences from Albert Keller, Sumner'sgreatest pupil and scholar. 9In

Social Originsof Dictatorship and Democracy, Moore has attempted to

conductthekindof analysis implied by Sumner'sremarksat thebeginningof

theabove quotation, in otherwords,a criticaldiscussion of thedevelopmentof democratic and non-democraticsocieties, including the United States.

This analysis was one product of the pursuit of an ambition which has

informed much of Moore's work.Crudelystated,Moore'sobjectivehas been

to develop a strategyof social analysis which will enable valuejudgementsabout how men and women should behave towardsone another,especiallyin the political sphere, to be derived from the application of reason to

discoverable facts about the empiricalworld.

Moore has tendedto treatmoresor moralcodes as lodes of ore whichmight

eventually yield the treasurehe seeks. Sumneradopted a more pessimistic

approach.In Folkways,he concluded that anymorality s betterthan moral

anarchy. Mores, he observed, vary widely according to the stage of

civilisation and the fashions of reflection and generalization. They can

make anything right. However, despite their considerable variation in

content, mores always contain philosophical and ethical judgments as to

societal welfare that derive from the habitual or customary responses of

humanbeingsto needs definedbythe struggle or existence. Moralrules,the

product of human experience of the world as it is, become part of that

unquestionedexistingworld: The morescontainembodiedin themnotions,

doctrinesand maxims, but they are facts. 10

Moore is unsatisfiedby Sumner'smoral relativismwhichasserts the impos-

sibility (and sometimes the irrelevance)of attempts to make ethicaljudg-ments between moral codes arising in different social conditions. It was

under the guidanceof Sumner'sold pupil, Keller,that Moore encountered,in the context of his interestin Russianaffairs,an alternativeapproach to

moral codes whichhe finds not only unsatisfactorybut also abhorrent.This

is moralchauvinism, an approachwhichpredicates he ethicalsuperiority







155

of a particularmoral code while treatingall previous moral codes as beingboth

historicallynecessaryor and

historicallysupercededbythat code. In

Moore's view the Soviet version of moral chauvinismillegitimatelyasserts

the mandateof historicalnecessityas a justificationfor immoralacts. 1

One object of this article is to consider Moore's attempts to establish a

position with respectto the analysis of human behavior which avoids both

moral relativism and moral chauvinism.A second object is to examine the

consequences of Moore's efforts in the above respectfor his practiceas a

historian and asociologist. Following

a briefcomparison

of his intellectual

enterprisewith those espoused by E. P. Thompson and Jurgen Habermas

respectively, I will suggest that Moore has drawn upon both the Hegelianand the Utilitarian raditionsin Western hought in hisattemptto bridgethe

gap between the is of the social scientistand the ought of the politicalor

moral philosopher. His three major enterprises- the Soviet studies (pub-lished during the 1950s), Social Origins (which appeared in 1966) and

Injustice (published in 1978) - are progressively more ambitious in this

regard.In his Soviet studies Moore identifies the structural limits and

potentialities (includingideologicalconstraintsand imperatives)which con-

ditioned the attempts of the Bolshevik regime to shape social reality. In

Social Originshe not only conducts a broadlysimilaranalysis of the devel-

opment of contrasting Western and Asian societies but also attempts to

evaluate in moral terms the political outcomes whose origins he has ex-

plained.In InjusticeMoore onceagainconductsanalysesof thekind indicat-

ed above. However, he also seeks to achieve two much more ambitious

objectives.First,he

attemptsto derivefromthe

empiricalanalysisof

pastand

presentmoralcodes a model of rationalpoliticalauthority which oughtto govern presentand futurepolitical behavior. Second, he tries to demon-

strate that the historical development of the Germanworking class was in

factprofoundly nfluencedbyitsmembers'adherence o the moralcode from

which his model of political authority is derived. In this latest work is

revealeda strong hankeringfor the marriagebetween moral certaintyand

scientific objectivitywhich was an ambition dear to the hearts of thephilo-

sophesof the

Enlightenment.

The reference to the Enlightenmentis worth developing briefly. Moore's

writings express a determined adherence to American aspirations whichwere fought for in the late eighteenth century and in the mid-twentieth

century.Ironically,although both the AmericanRevolutionand the SecondWorld War are neglected topics in his work, these conflicts have been

perceived by many of Moore's compatriots as successfulassertions of the

right to pursuehappiness

in ajust

and freesociety.

The Christian and







156

classicaltraditions- reshapedby the Enlightenment,asserted n the Revolu-

tion, molded by the experienceof Americandevelopmentin the nineteenth

and twentiethcenturiesand defended in the 1940s- furnish culturalresour-

ces upon which Moore draws deeply. The Spencerianismof Sumner and

Kellerprovidesa sardoniccommentaryupon many of the deep-ingrainedAmericanaspirationsembeddedin this culture.However,certainaspectsof

Moore's early careersuggest some possible reasons why he has been veryreluctant to accept that any one moral code is as good (or as bad) as anyother.12Moore's nitial academictrainingat university evel wasin Greekand

Latin, the staple diet of the philosophes. He has had ready access to the

intellectualuniverse of men suchas Adam Smith, to whom, incidentally,he

makes quite frequent reference in his work.13Furthermore, during the

Second World War Moore served as a political analyst in the Office of

Strategic Studies and in the Departmentof Justice. The war was generallybelievedto be a militaryconfrontation between thedictatorships nd the

democracies. It is significantthat this terminologyappears n the title of his

most well-known book and that most of thechaptersare concernedwith the

major participants n that conflict.

Moore has been concerned with the interplay between the occurrence of

majorstructuralchangesin societies and theglobal orderand theexercise of

human influence within these processes.He has been in quest of two prizes.

First, by acquiring an accurate understandingof the world he wishes to

maximize the degree to which human beings may be made aware of their

capacity to influence the way in which it develops. Second, and more

ambitiouslystill,he wishes to establish with as muchcertaintyas is humanly

possible the moral criteria with reference to which human beings should

exercise their capacity for choice. Underlyingall of Moore's work is the

following question:how may historicaland sociological knowledge be ac-

quiredby men and women and usedin orderto comprehendand master heir

destiny, within the limits of their moral and rational developmentand the

stageof evolution reachedbythe societiesand theglobal orderto whichthey

belong?

In orderto emphasizethe distinctivestrategywhich Moore has employed it

will be useful to summarizebrieflythe approachesto this same issue which

have been taken by Jurgen Habermasand E. P. Thompson. In much of his

work Habermasis seekingto find ways of promotingthe liberationof men

and womenfrom ideological mystificationsso that they mayconfront what

he regardsas a primaryproblemin social theory:







157

How is knowledge of the social interrelationshipsof life with a view to political action

possible?How, within a politicalsituation,can we obtain clarificationof what is practically

necessaryand at the same time objectively possible?'4

Habermas argues that the social sciences have been separated completelyfrom the'normative elements that were the heritage of classical politics.

Citing in particular the work of Aristotle, he asks:

How can the promiseof practicalpolitics- namely,of providing practicalorientationaboutwhat is rightandjust in a given situation - be redeemed without relinquishing,on the one

hand,the

rigourof scientific

knowledge,which modern social

philosophydemands

incontrastto the practicalphilosophy of classicism?And on the other,how canthe promiseofsocial philosophy, to furnish an analysisof the interrelationships f social life, be redeemedwithout relinquishing he practicalorientation of classicalpolitics?'5

E. P. Thompson has his own answer to the question of how objective

analysis of the interrelationships of social life may be reconciled with a

practical orientation to political action. In his Open letter to Leslek Kola-

kowski he argues that an historian may achieve objective knowledge about

historical processes, i.e., practices ordered and structured in rational waysand also about what he calls historically emergent potentia, i.e., the limits

upon human possibilities that are simultaneously disclosed and imposed in

given societies with given technological levels and given social systems.

Beyond this, however, Thompson enters a realm of faith. He has, he writes,a faith in the ultimate capacity of men to manifest themselves as rational and

moral agents. '6 He believes, on this basis, that within limits imposed by

given technological levels, it is possible to control nature and achieve human

emancipation.

In Thompson's opinion, value judgments have no objective basis. His posi-tion is that in evaluating the consequences of particular historical processesthe historian is at liberty to identify with one or other of the potentialoutcomes which the occurrence of those historical processes has made

possible or, perhaps, foreclosed. Objective knowledge and faith are com-

bined in this act of choice. He writes:

Imay sayas a matterof faith hat Ichoose to identifywith onepotentia and not theothers,and I maysay as a historicalinvestigator hat the chosen potentia is one of the historically-observable possibilities of choice, and I may add that I am, in my choosing and valuingnature,an outcome of thispotentia.l7

Immediately following this passage Thompson acknowledges that he is a

philosophical neophyte who is fumbling within the portico of one of the

most exacting of philosophical problems - the segregated domains of the 'is'







158

and the 'ought. ' Although he speculates that with the advance of an

infinitely-subtle,empirically-foundedsocial psychology it might becomepossible to translate certain notions of value, of good and evil behaviour,into diagnosticnotions of psychichealth and neurosis, Thompsondoes not

pursuethis hazardousapproach.

He accepts that the evaluation of history is an inevitableactivity for the

historian.However,thisprocess s no more- and no less- than an act of faith

that is made against the background of achieved objective knowledge.

Thompson's more recent involvementin public campaignsagainst the nu-clear arms racemay be understoodas an extension of this logic. In 1973 he

wrote: we have seen the capacityto control natureas, simultaneously,the

capacityto lay naturewaste,bringingwithit simultaneousopportunitiesfor

humanemancipationandself-destruction. Heclearly dentifieshimselfwith

the former rather han thelatterpotentia. Heevidently hopesthat otherswill

join him in this act of faith when in possession of the relevant objective

knowledge.18

Habermas,who is certainlyno fumbling philosophical neophyte, also en-

counters the problem of the relationshipbetween the is and the ought.

However,hedealswithit in a differentwayas willbeseenshortly.Habermas

is centrally concerned with the process of self-reflection. In the course of

self-reflection men and women, the subjects of history, reconstructtheir

understandingof their past and present. Self-reflectionis the tool of the

emancipatorycognitiveinterest.In otherwords, it helpstowardsrealization

of the demand for material and intellectual conditions that will permitnon-alienatingworkand free nteraction.This demandstems romarecognition

that certainforms of social communication are necessaryfor the effective

pursuit of humankind's technical and practical interests. The activity of

reasoningand thepursuitof knowledge implya willto actualizeascomplete-

lyas possiblethe conditions underwhichreasonmaybe mostfully manifest:

that is, an open, inquiringand self-criticalcommunity. One aspect of the

process of self-reflection is the critical examination of assumptions em-

beddedin those historically-produceddisciplines,suchaseconomics, sociol-ogy and political science, which purport to explain the social order. An

important issue guiding this examination is the following: to what extent

must the pursuitof the emancipatorycognitive interestbe containedwithin

limits imposed by genuinely irremovablesocial constraints and what are

those limits?Habermasbelieves - as does BarringtonMoore - that many

constraintsimaginedto be inevitableare in fact removable.In Habermas's

opinion, a major concern of critical social science is to determinewhen

theoreticalstatementsgrasp

invariantregularities

of social action and when







159

they express ideologicallyfrozen relationsof dependencethat can in princi-

ple be transformed. '9

UnlikeThompson, Habermasdoes not appearto believethat the criteriaof

valuejudgmentshaveno objectivebasis.In the latter'sview,theactualization

of reason- and, withit, the manifestationof truth,freedom andjustice- can

only occuramong the emancipatedcommunity of free inquirersmentioned

above. However,Habermasbelievesthat even the distorted communication

which we have alreadyachieved in a society, many of whose membersare

unfree,deceived and unjustlytreated,does in fact containimplicitlywithinitthe normative foundation which at some future time may become explicitwith the actualizationof idealspeech, .e., a form of discoursedrivensolely

by the compulsion of argument itself.20In other words, values may be

discoveredthrough the analysis of past and existing social forms. They are

not simply imposed by the analyst as an act of faith. This position is verysimilar to that proposed by Moore in Injustice.

Habermasbridgesthe gap between the is and the ought to some extentthrough his suggestionthat human aspirations necessarilytend towardsan

ideal that is, in principle,discoverableby empiricalinvestigation.However,he does not arguethat values which have an objectivebasis may be adduced

as a meansof legitimizingor prescribingany specificset of politicalactions.2'

As willbe noticed shortly, BarringtonMoorepaysconsiderableattention to

developing a form of moral calculus which may be used to evaluate the

comparativeworthof alternativepoliticalstrategies.In this regardhe differs

from both Thompson and Habermas. However, in his methodology as ahistorian Moore has manyresemblances o Thompson. Inhis orientation to

normative isses he moves closer in several respectsto Habermas. Moore's

approach will now be discusseddirectly.

Running through Moore's work is a strong Aristoteliantendencyto regardthe polity as the majordomain of moral action. At one point he comments

thatalthough someportionof personalunhappiness s probablyan inevita-

ble partof humanfate, a very large portionstems from institutionalcauseswhichare,to a degree,subjectto influenceby humanaction.22Suchaction in

the political sphere derives, in Moore's view, from moral understandingswhich ultimatelydetermine the kinds of social compromisethat are accept-able withinthe rangeof possibilitiesofferedby any givenlevel of technologi-cal and intellectualdevelopment. He is especiallyconcerned with the conse-

quences for human miseryand happinessof relations between the politicalrulerand his(or her)subordinates. Thisfocus is evidentin hisearliest books

on Soviet Russia and inreflected in the title of the second

-Terror and







160

Progress USSR. How much authoritarian terror is justified in pursuitof

humanprogress? s an implicit question runningthroughmuchof Moore's

work.

On thequestionof whetherhumanbeingscaninfactsuccessfullymanagethe

moral arena of the polity through the application of reason, Moore veers

between,on the one hand,the resignedattitudeof Aristotleand theancients

who, in Peter Gay'swords, werealwaysaware of theubiquitousthreatof

tyranny or the savage power of the passions and, on the other hand, the

optimism of the Enlightenment, particularlyin its earlier phase.23Very

crudelystated,this optimismconsistedin theexpectationthatthepracticeof

Science, that is, the rational examination of data derived from the natural

and social worlds, would facilitatediscoveryof universal aws expressedin

thesespheres.Accordingto thisview,moral rulesabout interpersonalbehav-

ior and the regulationof society are grounded in the nature of humankind.

Thephilosophes combineda passionto discover whatthesemoral ruleswere

with a conviction that existing social arrangementswereneither moral nor

- and this would be to say the same thing - rational.

By the mid-nineteenthcentury(if not before) Science, the supposed hand-

maiden of the philosophes, had helped to underminethe optimism of the

Enlightenment in three ways. First, as evidence accrued about different

societiesit becameapparentthat theirinstitutionalarrangementsand moral

understandingsdid not yield clearevidenceof universalmaxims but in fact

varied considerably through time and space. Second, the practitionersof

scienceincreasinglydefinedtheir taskas thediscoveryof the is as opposed

to the ought. Third, they performedthis function to an increasingextent

underthe patronageof governmentswhichcontinuedto displaymanyof the

characteristicswhich thephilosophes had consideredto be immoral.

Moorehas shrunk rom a viewof theworldwhichcombinesmoralrelativism

and scientificpositivism.Two philosophicaltraditions,bothemerging n the

wake of the Enlightenment,have offered him the bases for a strategyfor

reconcilingthe is and the ought. They are Hegelianismand Utilitarian-

ism. The former approach contains an assumption that although ways of

thinking and behaving differ between historical epochs, the moral order

appropriateto any particularsociety has a necessaryconnection with the

institutional forms within which thought and practice are expressed, for

example, the division of laborandforms of domination.The latter,Utilitar-

ian, approach derives from the psychological proposition that men and

women are self-seeking.In the well-knownwords of Bentham:







161

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters,pain and

pleasure. It is for them to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determinewhat we

shall do. On the one hand the standardof rightand wrong, on the other hand the chain ofcauses and effects,are fastened to theirthrone.24

It is intriguing o noticethat Sumner'swritingcombines elements of both the

above approaches. For example, he writes:

The folkways are attended by pleasure or pain according as they are well fitted for the

purpose [of satisfying human interests]. Pain forces reflectionand observation of somerelationbetween acts and welfare. At thispoint the prevailingworldphilosophy ... suggests

explanations and inferences,which become entangledwithjudgmentsof expediency. How-ever,the folkwaystake on a philosophyof rightlivingand a lifepolicyforwelfare.Thentheybecomemores,and they maybedeveloped by inferencesfromthe philosophy or the rules nthe endeavour to satisfy needs without pain. Hence they undergo improvementand are

made consistent with each other.25

Moore has not adopted either approach uncritically.For example, on the

one hand he accepts the Hegelian assumption that the impulse towards

freedom in any particularsociety is relatedto its members'rationalanalysis

of the obstacles that existing social forms present to the realizationof thevalues and goals (such asjustice) possessed by members of that society. On

the other hand, he does not believe that succeeding epochs necessarily

manifest a progressiveunfoldingof reasonand its concretemanifestation n

institutionsexpressingever-higherprinciplesof freedom.26Moore'sviewson

this matterareconsistent with his perceptionthat social developmentis to a

significantextent affected by human choice.

Turningto Utilitarianism,Mooreadaptsitscentralpropositionto arguethathuman beings pursue happiness (rather than pleasure)and abhor misery(rather hanpain). Healso assertsthatalthoughdefinitions of happinessvaryalmost infinitely there is a broad, perhaps universal,consensus about the

undesirabilityof specific forms of miserysuch as war, hunger,crueltyand

intolerance.

Moore'smodified Hegelianismis orientedto the historicalanalysisof whole

societies, identifyingthe institutionaland normativeconstraintsand poten-tialities in terms of which choice has been exercised by individuals and

groups in the past. Moore has sometimesstressedtransformations n struc-turalconstraints at the societal leveland sometimes the processesof human

responseto suchtransformations.Moore'smodifiedUtilitarianism s orient-ed to the ahistoricalanalysisof thecosts and benefits of particularstructural

changesand specificationof the goals that menand women should strive torealize through social and political organization. The quasi-Hegelianap-







162

proach predominates n Moore'searlierwritings, eadingupto andincludingSocial Origins.27 Utilitarian formulations, already implicit in this early work,

begin to surface in Social Originsand are made explicit in Reflections. His

latest work, Injustice,is in part an attempt to reconcile aspects of the two

approaches. These shifts of emphasis will be traced while pursuing the

furtherobjectiveof exploring the impact of Moore's moral concerns,uponhis practiceas a sociologist and a historian.

It should be stated immediatelythat Moore does not perceivesociologicalfacts as

havingan

ontologicalstatuswhichisdifferentfromthat of historical

facts. Facts about the characteristicsof types of social structure(includingforms of thought) and their modes of variation over time have the same

status as facts about the characteristicsof specific individualsand groups

(includingtheir beliefs and motivations).A factual statementconveys infor-

mation whose accuracycan be tested without referenceto the existence or

desiresof the personmakingthe statement.Facts have to be discoveredthat

are relevantto whateverquestion is being investigated.Various meansmaybe used. For

example, comparative analysisof social

arrangementsis an

indispensable procedurewhen seeking to establish factual generalizationsabout the characteristicsof types of social structure and social process.

Furthermore,painstakingresearch s indispensable n the search,one which

is rarelysuccessful,for all the facts which are relevantin any instance.

However, factual statements are not the only kind of statement that is

relevantto the questions which Moore asks. In his opinion, humanchoices

andchanges

insocialstructure houldbeevaluated n termsof theirtendencyto produceoralleviatehumanmisery, especiallyin so far as these tendencies

are expressed in relations between rulers and subordinates.28The preciseformulation of this issue varies in different parts of Moore's work. In his

earlierwork, leading up to and includingSocial Origins,he tends to frame

the question as: whatforms and what degreeof violence and repressionare

necessary n orderto produceor maintaina givendegreeof human freedom?

In Reflections and Injustice he tends to reformulate the issue as: what

combination of freedom andrepression

is necessary in order to reduce

human misery?

Apart from factual statementsand statementsabout the criteriaof moral

evaluation, a third kind of statement is, in Moore's view, relevant when

analyzinghumanchoices and transformation n social structure n the past

and present.These are statementsabout what islikelyto havehappened n

the past if certainantecedentconditions or specifichumanchoices had been

different;and statements about what is likely to happen in the future







163

depending upon whether choice A or choice B is actually made or whether

structuraloutcome X or structuraloutcomeY actuallyoccurs. This kind ofstatement is neitherfactualnor does it involvea moralevaluation. However,

Moore argues that rational and objective proceduresexist on the basis of

which such statementsmay be madeand criticized.Indeed, such statements

are a necessary component of the process of morally evaluating social

processesand human choices with referenceto their costs and benefits.29

In all his work Moore has beenconcerned with the relationshipbetweenthe

threekinds of statementindicated above. It is convenient tobegin

the more

detailed analysis by examining some of his earliestattemptsat establishing

empiricalgeneralizationsabout social structuresand social processes.Dur-

ing the 1940s, Moore tried and quickly turned away from the statistical

procedures of a positivist version of social science.30He also resisted the

claims of normative functionalism. In 1953 Moore's article entitled Thenew scholasticism and the study of politics appeared.31It anticipatedC. Wright Mills's laterand more well-knowncritiqueof Parsonianism and

statisticalempiricism.32

heseviews weredeveloped

intheessays

collectedin

Political Powerand Social Theory.Inthisvolume Mooredisplaysconsider-able virtuosityinapplyingthestrategiesof comparativeanalysis,functional-ism and evolutionarytheory. For example, in his Notes on the process of

acquiringpower hedistinguishes eudalism,rationalbureaucracyand total-itarianismas modes of controlandcoordination,each withits own structuraldilemmas. The paper exemplifies the significance that Moore attaches to

recurringcyclesof similarstructurewithina broadevolutionaryschemeandalso his

sensitivityto the invariantcharacteristicsof the

rangeof

organiza-tional formswhichmaybe used to coordinate the behavior of largenumbersof human beings.

In another paper, on the basis of a comparativeanalysis of Totalitarian

elements in pre-industrialsocieties, Moore arguesthat repressionwith the

objective of maintaining irrationalstandards of behaviour is a typicalresponseto problemsfor which a culturehas no solution.Totalitarianism,he

concludes, is not confined to industrial societies and has nonecessaryconnection with the mode of production. Having made the case that totali-

tarianism is a phenomenon recurring hroughtime and space and not con-fined to industrialsocieties,he goes on in his Thoughtson the future of the

family to make a contrastingargument.According to Moore, the family,which is widely considered to be universal, is threatened with extinctionbecause it is losingitstraditional unctions inthecourseof evolution. Finally,in his Reflections on conformityin industrialsociety, Mooreidentifiesfiveforms of conformity whichare

inescapablynecessaryn such a society.

They







164

include:conformityto the logical principlesof the world aroundus;confor-

mityto some form of

managerialdecision-making concerningthe

produc-tion and allocation of resources;conformityto a degreeof social control to

cope with basically selfish, aggressive and evil tendencies in biologicalhumannature ; onformityto some set of non-empiricalbeliefs since this

hasempiricallybeen oneof the main basesof social cohesion ;and confor-

mityto the basic cultural rules whichmake socialcommunicationpossible.33

In these papers Moore's underlyingstrategy,which is implicit rather than

explicit, is to employ conventional techniquesof evolutionary,functionalist

and comparative analysis in order to obtain provisional answers to three

questions. They are: Which elements of the social order in contemporaryindustrial societies are unique and necessaryto those societies? Which ele-

ments are sharedwithothertypesof society, possiblybecausetheybelongto

a limited range of workable solutions to problemsencounteredin similar

forms in many kinds of society? And, finally, are there any elements of

industrialsociety commonly assumed to be necessarywhichare in fact not

necessaryand which could

disappearwithout the disintegration of that

society following as a necessaryconsequence?

Moore's unidentifiedadversary n this book is, one may surmise,his friend

and formercolleague, HerbertMarcuse,whose book Eros and Civilization

had appeared three years previously.34Marcuse argues that the formal

freedomsof bourgeois society disguisean apparatusof repressionwhichhas

in-built tendencies towards totalitarianism. Repression was, in Marcuse's

opinion, requiredn

less-developedsocietiessince enforced

conformitywasa

necessary aspect of the mode of production. However, in advanced bour-

geois society the demand for conformity extends far beyond the limits

necessaryto producethe material bases of civilization. In such a society, he

believes, the possibility of happinessis denied to its membersby the use of

oppressivetechniquesfor producingconformity.

Moore regardsthe position to which Marcuse'swork leads as being one of

merepeevishness

about thepresent,

which isperceived

as being totally

repressive,and sheeroptimismabout the future which is seen as being a

realm of complete freedomwhose achievementdependsupon the superces-sion of capitalism.35In response Moore attempts to determine, through

functionalistanalysis,the minimumdegreeof conformitythat is necessary n

industrialsocieties.Healso, through comparativeanalysis,arguesthatmanyinstitutionalarrangementsand politicalcycles,suchas thoseassociatedwith

totalitarianism, thought to be peculiar to industrial societies are in fact

sharedby others. Finally, throughan exploration of evolutionaryideas, he







165

infers that the limits within which change may be possible within a society

depend upon the consequencesof its priorhistoricaldevelopmentin closing

off certain options and opening up others.

Although he rejects Marcuse'sdevelopment of Hegel, Moore presentshis

own position on values in the late 1950s as being basicallythe conclusion

that Hegeloffers us at the end of hiscontradictions,whentheyarestrippedof

their mystical and quasi-mysticalovertones. He argues that the rational

frameworkunderlyingthe externalworldmaybe discoveredby disciplinedand rational thinking. His hope is that the concept of a perfect society

might be reached, takingoff from real societies, to reacha critical stand-ard. 36 He adds:

Perhapsthe bestwecan do atany givenmomentinhistoryis to drawout the potentialitiesof

the social forms that exist before us in such a way as to set up a critical standard for

evaluatingthe status quo.37

Unfortunately, although Moore is able to imagine such a procedure in

principlehe does not find a way of applying it in 1958.The prospect he isforced to envisageis of the intellectualhaving togo down withhisship,with

all bannersflyingand steam hissingfrom the boilers,on behalfof principlesabout which absolute certaintyis impossible. 38At this point Moore's ap-

proachto valuesisverysimilar o Thompson'spositionasdescribedearlier n

this paper.

Moore's books on the Soviet Unionwrittenat about this time arenot unduly

inhibited by what he clearly recognizes as a lacuna in his methodological

armory because in these studies he is concerned not to specify how that

society should develop but ratherto identify, first, the causes of its political

development up until 1950and, second, the most likely (as opposed to the

most desirable)futuredevelopmentsin its politicalstructureafterthe death

of Stalin. The values relevant to these tasks were not his own but those

embedded in the chartermyth of Soviet communism.39Moore mobilizesa

greatdeal of historicaland contemporarydata to which he appliesmany of

theanalyticaltechniquessubsequentlyoutlinedin Political Power and SocialTheory.In Soviet Politics Moore emphasizesthreeaspects of post-revolu-

tionary Russia: first, the restrictions that the functional requirementsof

industrialsociety and the pressuresof external relationsimposed upon the

attempted realization of an utopian ideology; second, the functions that an

ambiguousideology could performfor a totalitarianregime n an industrial-

izing society;and third, the dilemmas and costs unavoidablyimposed uponsuch a regime and members of the society in which it holds power. The







166

achievement of this book is to have cut through the distorted perceptions

producedin the United States

byfear of the Soviet Union and to have

produced a rational and empirically-basedanalysis of the structuralcon-

straintsand opportunities in terms of which the Soviet leadershiphad to

make its politicalchoices.40

In Terrorand Progress USSR Moore applies a similar strategy in his

assessment of the likely costs and benefits to the Soviet regimeof possible

changes in ideological emphasis and forms of social control tending awayfrom totalitarianterrorand towards either

greaterbureaucratic

rationalityora greateremphasis upon tradition.Moorearguesthatthe relevantconsid-

erations include not only the continuing functional requirementsof an

industrialsocietybut also the implicationsof thesepossibletendencies both

of which have beento some extent realized- forthe powerand legitimacyof

the politicalelite.41

In passingfrom his Soviet studiesto theanalysiscontainedin Social OriginsMoore makes two

importanttransitions.

First,he shifts from the

relativelyfamiliarcompany - familiar to a Harvard intellectual- of urban politicalelites to the much less familiar ruralenvironmentof the peasantcommunityand its aristocratic overlords. Second, he directs his attention away from

Soviet Russia, which he had been able to analyze as a knowledgeableand

insightfuloutsider,and towards the Westerndemocratic societies of which

he is so clearlya product.Itmust beacknowledgedstraightaway hat Moore

manages the first transition with far greater success than he manages the

second. In Social Originshe triesto introduce the

processof

systematicmoralevaluation into his analysis to a degreewhich he does not attempt in

his Soviet studies. It is a disappointment that in his specification of the

characteristicsof democratic polities which are worthy of our approvalMoore should limithimselfto itemizingthefamiliarlist of formallegislativeandjudicial institutions,apparentlyassumingalmost without questionthat

they realizein practicetheir claimto guarantee freedom. 42n otherwords,

the claims of democratic ideology are denied the clear-sightedscrutinyto

whichSoviet communismis subjected.Instead,Moore

beginshis book with

a short chapter on England whose development after about 1830, when

parliamentary emocracyestablished tselfpeacefullyand broadeneddown

from precedentto precedent, s presented, mplicitlyat least, as a hallowed

example by which other societies should bejudged.43

I have deliberately begun with the most serious of my criticismsbecause I

thinkthat,despitethis weakness,Social Origins s a considerable ntellectual

achievement whose flaws are a consequence of its Herculean ambition,







167

In this book the results of prolonged and detailed historical researchare

presented hrougha subtleinterweavingof narrativeandcomparativeanaly-sis. Moore explorestwo modalities of the rural order'sresponseto commer-

cialization and bureaucratization.These are: first, its confrontation with

modernizing urban society; and, second, the transformation of forms of

domination in the countryside. In respectof both Moore is concernedwith

the costs and benefits of particular sequences of modernizationand their

implicationsfor the developmentof repressionand freedom.

The heart of the book consists of a comparativeanalysis of the moral and

material conditions of existence of groups belonging to the configurations

binding togetherpeasants,landlords,merchants,rulersand publicofficials.

On the basis of a masterlyexposition, deployedover severalchapters,Moore

sets out to build two complementaryintellectual structures.The first is a

series of causal explanations of a number of rapidand dramaticstructural

transformations,entailing considerableviolence and suffering,such as the

French and Chinese Revolutions. The second is a series of analyses of the

morally-relevantconsequencesof theprocesseswherebymodernizing

urban

society has impingedupon the ruralorder. The analyticalstrategiesareverydifferent in the two cases.

In constructinghis causalexplanations Moore typically presentshisempiri-cal findings with respectto the following: 1)the potentialitiesfor and limits

upon structuralvariations in the society concerned at its specific stage of

development;2) the tendenciestowardscohesion and disintegrationwhich

areactually present n thatsociety,

withparticular

reference o thedivision of

labor and forms of domination; 3) the perceptions of their material andmoral interests manifested by specific groups within the society; 4)theoccurrence of specific events or tendencies which presenta threat to those

perceived interests sufficiently sudden or drastic to stimulate people into

action;5) the identityof thepotentialallies,opponentsandvictims of specificgroupswhoseperceived nterestsarethreatened;and6) the options in histor-ical development which have been closed off in that society as a result of

precedingsequencesof historicalchange.

Data is also presentedwith respectto how peopleactuallybehaved afterthethreat had occurred and with respect to the structuraloutcomes to whichtheirbehaviorcontributed.Thesetwo finalcategoriesof data areinterpretedwith referenceto the findings listed above. In other words, the responses(activeor passive)of threatenedgroupsareinterpretedwithreference o their

perceptions, ncludingtheirperceptionsof the penaltiesof failingto respond.The structuraloutcomes of the interplaybetween the processes that were







168

perceivedas threateningand the responses of threatenedgroups are inter-

pretedin terms of the following factors: the society'spotentialfor structural

variation, the strength and character of tendencies towards cohesion and

disintegrationwithinthe society,and the options for structuraldevelopmentthat areavailableinthe society in the lightof its previoushistoricaldevelop-ment.44

This strategyof causalexplanation is broadlythe same as that employedbyE. P. Thompsonin his workon eighteenth-andnineteenth-centuryEngland.In Social Origins,as in TheMakingof the English WorkingClass,explana-tions depend upon detailed knowledge about particulargroups or even

individuals.Inboth worksspecifichistoricaloutcomes such as the American

Civil War and the Reform Act of 1832are accounted for with referenceto

structuralconditions and human motivations interactingwitheach other.45

Moore'sanalysesof causation arecomplementedbyan assessmentof moral-

ly-relevant political outcomes of modernizingprocesses. His overarching

typologyof modernizing routes sbaseduponthe latterand not the former.

A brief consideration of the very differentcausal processes responsiblefor

the American Civil War and the French Revolution, both of which had

democratic outcomes, makes this point immediatelyobvious. Indeed,the

lack of symmetrybetweenMoore's treatmentof causes and his treatmentof

outcomes may be responsible in large measurefor the deeply ambiguouscriticalresponsewhich Social Originscalled forth.46 n this respect,Theda

Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions has done more to satisfy conven-

tional expectations while being less ambitious in its objectives.47

Although Mooresuggeststhat eventssuch as the French Revolutionand the

American Civil War clearedthe way for democratic outcomes in those

societies, he should not be understood to mean that violence as such caused

those outcomes.48Hisprocedureof moralassessment s to setthese costs on a

balance sheet alongside the benefits, if any, obtained in terms of human

freedom. Also relevantare the costs and benefits (in terms of miseryand

freedom)whichhavenot been incurredas a resultof a failureto developin an

alternative way which was genuinely in the cards. In other words, an

element of opportunitycost entersinto moralassessment.

Theabove procedure,whichis fundamentalto Moore's orientationto social

analysis,is disabledin Social Origins n a numberof ways. First, Moorefails

to distinguishhis proceduresof moral assessmentfrom his causal explana-tions with sufficientclarity.The distinctionand its significanceonly become

evident when Moore'swritingsare consideredas a whole. Second, as argued







169

previously, he fails to define democracy or specify its morally-approvedcharacteristics

xceptin a mannerthat leaveshim

opento a

chargeof

naivetywhich neitherhis previousnor his subsequentwork would support.Third,Moore tends, especially in the chapter entitled The democratic route to

modernsociety, to reifychangesin the credit balanceof his moralledgerso

that they appearas the index of a benevolent force located in the historical

process, expressing itself in successive societies. He writes that it makes

sense... to regardthe English Civil War, the French Revolution and the

AmericanCivil Warasstages nthedevelopmentof thebourgeois-democraticrevolution. 49On

readingthis one has a sense that

Hegeliantendenciesare

momentarilysurfacingin Moore's mindin resistance to the ahistoricalbias

of a quasi-Utilitarianmoralcalculus.

In Reflections and InjusticeBarringtonMoore finally conducts a seriesof

frontalattacks upon the problemof derivingthe criteriaof valuejudgmentsfrom objective knowledge about human societies. In the former book he

develops a moralcalculuson the basis that Theevidence is reasonablyclear

that humanbeings

do not want a life ofsuffering,

at least not for its own

sake. 50He confrontsa number of difficultiesin applyinga calculus of costs

and benefits,difficultieswhichwould have been farless acuteif theyhadbeen

encountered within a Hegelianframework.Threeexamples may be given.First, Mooreasks how long one would have to wait after an event such as the

FrenchRevolution beforedrawingup the moralledgerof costs andbenefits.

A Hegelian would surelyjust keep his ears open for the beating wings of

Minerva'sowl, in the meantimerepeatingthe reputedanswer of a Chinese

communist leader to thisveryquestion

that it is tooearly

to tell.Second,Moore asks how one assesses, in moral terms,humanactions such as those

carriedout by the Inquisition.Its tortures and punishmentsare indefensible

in the light of Moore's own values but they wereinflictedin the sincerehopeof deflectingvictimsand potentialvictimsfrombeliefsandpracticeswhich,it

was widely assumed, would damn them to an eternity of misery. Again, a

Hegelianwouldpresumablyhavelittledifficulty nlocatingthe Inquisitionata relativelyearlystage withinthe dialecticalprocessof reasons'unfolding.51

Third,Moore is forced to

acknowledgea contradictionbetween two

princi-ples: on the one hand, intellectual speculation and innovation should be

controlled in orderto protect the stability of a society's moral orderand to

avoid thediversion of resourcesfrom the task of reducingthe level of miserywithin the limits of existing knowledge; on the other hand, he insists, it is

impossibleto relinquish he principlethat thedisinterestedpursuitof truthand beauty should continue even though new knowledge might be pro-duced whichunderminesbeliefs whichsupportthe moralintention of reduc-

ing misery na particular ociety.52OurHegeliantheoristwould, however,be







170

well awarethat the dialectical contradictionsexpressedin part throughthe

aspirationstowards freedomandjustice would tend to undermine he exist-

ing order in preparationfor the higher synthesisof a succeeding epoch. In

fact, Moore takes some cold comfort from his perception, as a critical

rationalist, hat inanycase the most likelyoutcome of existingtrendswithin

andbetween societies is thecollapseof politicalauthorityandacceptedcodes

of behavior.53

Moore snatches four sets of positive conclusions from his rathergloomy

analysis in Reflections.First,in his two essays on predatorydemocracy n

the contemporary United States, he effectively disposes of the charge of

naivety by subjectingliberalism,the current ideology of capitalist demo-

cracy, to criticalscrutiny.54Moore arguesthat both the supportersand the

opponentsof liberal deologytend to assume,quite mistakenly,thatmanyof

the features of Americansocietywhichproducehumanmiseryareinevitable

aspectsof capitalism.Instead,Mooresuggests,men and womenmaychoose

to reformaspects of this society, without alteringits capitalisticnature, in

such a way as to reduce the miserywhich is a consequence of war, poverty,

hunger, injustice,oppressionand intolerance.Adopting a strategyreminis-cent of his analysis in Terrorand Progress USSR, he itemizesthe costs and

benefits of various potential means of pursuingthis desirablegoal.

Second, Moore sets out the conditions which,in hisview,arenecessary or a

society to permitfull and freediscussion of any and all sorts of viewpointson all subjects. 55 hese conditions, which may be recognizedas a compro-mise betweentherequirements f Habermas's idealspeechcommunity and

Moore'sperceptionsof the minimumrequirements or socialstability,are as

follows: a rational consensus should exist on the need to forbid the use of

technical meansfor primarilydestructivepurposes andalso on the needto

control the rate of intellectual innovation and the direction of research

investment; he societyshouldbe made safefromforeignthreats; ts inhabit-

antsshouldbeemotionallysecure,rationalandin possessionof the technical

and intellectualcompetence providedbya broad andcoherent liberaleduca-

tion;and a roughsocio-economicequalityshouldexist to inhibit theappear-

ance of a powerfulestablishmentcontrollingthought.56

Third, Moore identifiestwo seriousobstaclesto the establishmentnot onlyof the intellectually reesocietydescribedabove but also of a societydedicat-

ed to minimizinghuman misery.These obstaclesare: the irreducibleuncer-

tainty and insecurity stemming from competition between individuals,

groups and states;and the constant temptationfacing individualsto avoid

the sanctionsand commands of moral rules for their own advantageand to







171

the detrimentof others.57This conclusion is positive insofar as by acknowl-

edgingthe

inevitabilityof the above factors efforts

maybe concentrated

upon pursuingthe implications of his final conclusion. This is that a majorsource of social conflict is moral disagreementabout the principles thatshould be expressed within political orders. This conclusion leads him to

devote his attention to establishing, through a combination of reason and

empiricalevidence,thebasesof a legitimateform of politicalauthoritywhich

may, he hopes, be acknowledged as an appropriate replacementfor the

defunct modes of liberalismand communism.58

The task of specifyingthe principlesof what Moore calls rationalpolitical

authority, which was begunin Reflections,is carried urther n Injustice.In

the former work he deduces from the application of his quasi-Utilitarianmoral calculus that rulers should govern in such a way as to minimize

suffering within their societies insofar as this is humanly possible.59In

Injustice he attempts to demonstrate that his view of the ought in this

matterexpressesa consensusabout the natureof political rightsand obliga-tions which is

universallyassumed in fact.

Furthermore,he

arguesthat

failureto enacttheseprinciplesproduces moraloutrage. Theexperienceof

misery,he suggests,only fails to elicitsuch outrage when it is thoughtto be

inevitable, beyond human control.60

The maindevelopmentin Moore'sintellectualposition in Injustice s his new

emphasisupon the redefinitionof inevitability whichoccurs in succeedingepochs. An importantconsequenceof this processof redefinition s that the

potential scopeof human control and hence human choice is

perceivedas

becoming greater.61This new intellectualemphasis permits Moore to copewith evidence that the actual expectations of subordinates about rulers'behaviorhavediffered ndetailbetweensocietiesandepochs. Indeed,Mooremobilizes an impressivenumberof data on the developmentof the German

workingclass whichtends to show that although the aspirationfor decenthumantreatment remainedconstant, changingperceptionsof theextent towhich the society's rulerscould provide it gradually led to an increase in

expectations.62

Bystressing,on the one hand,theconstancyof humanaspirationsand, on theother hand, the transformabilityof human perceptions of the scope foreffectiveaction, Mooreproducesa reconciliationbetweenhisquasi-Utilitar-ianism, which assumes a universalpsychology, and his quasi-Hegelianism,which assumes that political ideologies undergochange over time. On thisbasishe reaches or the prizewhichSumnerhad beenable to describebutnotachieve:







172

A reallygreatand intelligentgrouppurposefoundedon correctknowledgeand reallysound

judgment,can infuse into the mores a vigorand consistentcharacterwhich will reacheveryindividual with educativeeffort. The essential condition is that the group purposeshall be

founded on correctknowledgeand reallysoundjudgment. The interestsmustbe real and

theymust be the interestsof the whole,andthejudgmentas to meansof satisfying hem must

be correct.63

Thebigquestionraisedby Injustice s whether nfact Moorehassuccessfullyanchored his moralcalculusand his model of rationalpoliticalauthorityin

anthropologicalevidence that demonstrates their imperativecharacterand

universalapplicability.

The readercertainly

closes the bookfeeling

well

travelled. For example, visits are made to the TrobriandIslands,classical

Greece,the Semai of Malaya, eighteenth-centuryEngland,the Barotse,the

Kapauku Papuans, the Ming Empire, the Lovedu people and the North

Alaskan Eskimos - all before page 37.64 This inductivist approach, which

bracketsor sets aside considerations of historicaldevelopment in order to

discover constants that transcendgeography and history, has recurred n

Moore'swork from the beginning.65nthis case, does hisevidenceprovehis

point?

It mustfirst be recognizedthat it is not surprising hat an Americanscholar

should find congenial resonances in a Germanculturewhich has played a

large part in gestating the values to which he is committed. However, the

intellectualgroundwork orconcludingthat similarmeaningsabout political

obligation may be inferredfrom societies much moreestranged n time and

place does not appear in Injustice.Indeed, one may readilyconclude from

theargumentsof,

forexample, Quentin Skinner,

that the intended illocu-

tionaryforce of statementsderivingfrom suchcultures cannot be identified

without considerable nvestigationof contemporarydebates,includingtheir

repeatedemphases and significantsilences.66Moore does not attempt this

exercise- apartfrom his discussionof Germanmaterials.Inview of this the

case must remain,at best, non-proven.

However, Injustice may usefully be consideredas being composed of two

books, one a speculativeessayin

philosophical anthropology,the other a

highlyskilledand successfulenterprise n historicalsociology. Inhisstudyof

themakingof the Germanworkingclass, Moore explicitlyacknowledges

the influenceof Thompson, whose workwas discussedearlier. Heattributes

to the English scholar the perception that workers in an industrializing

society werecapableof developingthroughtheirownexperiencestheirown

diagnoses and remedies for the ills which afflicted them. 67 n his own

attempts to draw out the social ideals implicit in the German workers'

consciousness,Moore isalsoengaging nanenterprise loseto theintellectual







173

concerns of Jurgen Habermas. However, Moore goes beyond both writers

by carefully analyzingthe interplaybetweenhumanagencyand the structu-

ralconstraintsderivingfrom, for example, the mode of production. In this

way he not only explores morethoroughlythan does Thompson the objec-tive coordinates within which working-classconsciousnesstakes shapebutalso pays more attention than does Habermasto the concretedynamics ofthe process of strivingtowards an ideal community life. 68

Finally, the historical methodology adopted in Injustice may be brieflycontrasted with Moore's approach in his own earlier work. In his Soviet

studies he gives equal emphasis in his analytical narrative to structuralconstraints and human choice; in Social Origins he tends to place more

emphasis upon the structuralconstraints that made revolutions and civil

warspossible;in Injusticehe drawsspecialattention to the scope for human

choice whichattended the behavior of Ebert and the SPD in Germanyafter

the First World War.69Moore's particularinterest in this last issue stems

from an observationhe madein Soviet Politicsnearlythirtyyearspreviously.If the revolutionary uprisingin the Ruhr had produceda left-wing govern-

ment in Germany,would Stalin have risen to power in the Soviet Union?Would the Third Reichhave come into existence?Would the Second World

War have occurred?70Once again we are remindedof the unity of Moore's

workover morethan threedecades and of the moral concernwhichhasbeen

its drivingforce.

In drawingthe argumentto a close, threeconclusions may be offered aboutthe relationship between morality and method in the work of Barrington

Moore. First,hedoes not finallypersuadeus thatthe moralcriteriawhich he

applies have an imperativecharacterderiving from the very nature of hu-

mankind and social relationships. Despite his reluctance to retreat to

Thompson'sposition that a commitment to specificvaluesinvolves an act of

faith, Moore is unable to derive the ought from the is. Second, even

though we may readily subscribe, as an act of faith, to the assumptionsexpressed in his moral calculus and the model of rational authority whichderivesfrom it, the lattermodel is verydifficultto applyto modernWestern

societies. Itassumes theexistence of a unitaryrulingelitewithresponsibilityfor the welfare of all citizens. Neither Britainnor the United States in the

early 1980s- to take two relevantexamples - appear to meet these condi-tions. Furthermore,how can this model cope with multinationalcorpora-tionsandtradeunions(forexample)whichhavesuccessfullyclaimedauthori-

ty over the welfare of constituencies which rarelycoincide with that of thenation-state?The model may well work betterwhen applied to the classicalGreekpolis or even the Soviet Union but outside such spheres it is a very

impracticalmoral blueprint.







174

However, a third - and much more positive - conclusion is that Moore has

demonstrated that it ispossible systematically

toincorporate

a consideration

of human motivations, perceptions and choices at the very heart of our

attempted explanations. Furthermore, he has persuasively insisted that the

social processes most worth examining are those which have not only deeply

affected the values and aspirations which we hold but have also circum-

scribed the means and opportunities that we have to pursue them. By placing

the ought at the center of his concerns he has maintained a consistent

objective in his work which has minimized the need or inclination to seek

securityin a

single sociologicalscheme or tradition. In his

borrowingfrom

functionalism Moore has not lost his concern for social change; he has

employed the idea of evolution without neglecting the importance of persist-

ing characteristics of organizational forms: he analyzes structural constraints

in the same breath as he insists upon the part played by human motivations;

in his concern with structures he recognizes the mutual interplay between

material and normative conditions; his narratives are interwoven with subtle

comparisons which help to generate rather than simply to illustrate his

arguments;and his causal

explanationsare

closelyinterlocked with

carefullyargued moral evaluations. This article has been largely concerned with the

difficulties which Moore has encountered in establishing an intellectually

satisfying basis for his moral evaluations. However, through his dogged

pursuit of the ought Moore has told us a great deal that we did not realize

before about the is. It would, finally, be misleading to attempt to assimilate

Moore to any single disciplinary school or academic tradition. Not the least

of the merits of his books and essays is that they spring from the heart of

Americanculture. His work

expressesthe

aspirationsand

ambiguitiesof a

society whose members obstinately seek moral significance in human expe-

rience and the realization of ideals in human action.

NOTES

1. An earlier version of this paper was deliveredto the History and Sociology seminar at

Oxford University organizedby Frank Parkin and R. W. Johnson of MagdalenCollege. I

am gratefulfor thecommentsof both the above-namedandalso for the usefulobservations

of Val Riddell.2. The works by Moore to which referencewill be madeare as follows: Soviet Politics - The

Dilemma of Power: The Role of Ideas in Social Change(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, 1950; hereafter Soviet Politics); Terrorand Progress USSR: Some Sources of

Stability and Change in the Soviet Dictatorship(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press,

1954; hereafter Terrorand Progress); Political Power and Social Theory (Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, 1958;hereafterPolitical Power);Social Originsof Dictatorshipand Democracy:Lordand Peasant in the Makingof the Modern World(London: Penguin,1969; hereafterSocial Origins);Reflections on the Causes of Human Miseryand uponCertain Proposals to Eliminate Them (London: Penguin, 1972; hereafter Reflections);

Injustice:TheSocial Basesof Obedienceand Revolt (London: Macmillian,1978;hereafter

Injustice).Unfortunately,this article was written before the publication of Moore's mostrecentwork on

privacy.







175

3. See D. Smith, BarringtonMoore Jr: A CriticalAppraisal (White Plains: M. E. Sharpe,1983; published in Britain by Macmillan with the title Barrington Moore: Violence,Moralityand Political Change;hereafterBarringtonMoore),7,43,47,53-4,58-61,87, 109,

115, 132, 145, 154, 162, 164, 172, 177.4. Social Origins,viii-ix. 5. Reflections,35.6. More detailed accounts may be found in Smith, BarringtonMoore.7. The quotation is from W. G. Sumner, Folkways (New York: Mentor, 1960, with an

introductionby W. L. Phelps;originally publishedin 1906),81.8. References to Sumner are scatteredthroughout Moore'swork, e.g., Reflections,55; Injus-

tice, 12,85,435.9. Phelps, introduction to Folkwals, xi; Soviet Politics, xiii.

10. Folkways,539, 49, 438ff, 81.11. Soviet Politics, xiii; Injustice,434-5.12. Cf. Injustice,3; M. Harris,TheRiseof Anthropological Theory London: Routledge,1968),

608-11.13. E.g., Soviet Politics,298; Social Origins,8; Injustice,85, 128, 135.

14.J. Habermas, Theoryand Practice(London: Heinemann, 1974),44.15. Ibid.16. E. P. Thompson, Anopenletter o LeslekKolakowski n ThePovertyof Theory London:

MerlinPress, 1980),232, 156.17. Poverty., 148.18. Poverty., 148, 150, 156.19. Habermas,Knowledgeand Human Interests Boston: Beacon Press, 1971),310.20. Cf. T. A. McCarthy, A theory of communicativecompetence, Philosophy of the Social

Sciences,3 (1973), 135-56.21. Habermas, Theoryand Practice,32-37. 22. Reflections,xvi.23. P. Gay, The Enlightenment:An Interpretation.Vol. II - The Science of Freedom(New

York:Alfred A. Knopf, 1969),84.24. J. Bentham, The Principlesof Moralsand Legislation(West Drayton: Hafner, 1965), 1.

25. Sumner, Folkwa s, 45. 26. Political Power,39, 188.27. Political Power, 146ff;Social Origins,521. 28. Reflections, 1-13.29. Injustice,376-81; Social Origins, 103-4. It is worth noting that E. P. Thompson is also

preparedto engage in the history-game n which we suppose that A did not happenand B(which did not happen)did. He also occasionally explores alternativepossible futures interms of a similarlogic. Poverty, 46, 71-2.

30. See, for example, B. Moore, Therelation betweensocial stratificationand social control,Sociometrv,5 (1942), 230-50.

31. B. Moore, The new scholasticism and the study of politics, World Politics, 1 (1953),122-38.

32. C. W. Mills, The Sociological Imagination(London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1959).33. Political Power, 186-8.34. H. Marcuse,Erosand Civilization(London: Sphere Books, 1969).

35. Political Power, 180.It is fascinatingto contrast Moore'sapproachin theseessayswiththecritical remarks on Marcuse's work made by Habermas. See, especially, J. Habermas,Towardsa Rational Society (London: Heinemann, 1971),81-90.

36. Political Power, 107-8. 37. Political Power, 108. 38. Political Power, 196.39. On chartermyths see Notes on the processof acquiringpower n Political Power,2ff.

See also B. Moore, The influence of ideas on policies as shown in the collectivization ofagriculture n Russia, AmericanPolitical Science Review,41 (1947), 733-43.

40. In some of his recent work, John Dunn is attempting to apply a corrective to distortedperceptions of communist regimes in the early 1980s. Discussing the rangeof politicalpossibilities which makeup the Marxisttradition,he sees theprocessof determinationofwhich possibilitiesare in fact actualisedin the future(and which possibilitieshave alreadybeenactualised inthepast)as historicaland mediatedbythe beliefsandjudgmentsof humanagents, severallyand in groups, and not as theoreticallypre-guaranteedand controlled by

eitherpurelymaterial actors or thestrictlogical or political implicationsof a systemof falsebelief. This approachcoincides in some respectswiththat adopted by Moore in the 1950swith respect to the Soviet Union. J. Dunn, Totalitariandemocracy and the legacy ofmodern revolution: explanation or indictment?, paper delivered to the Fifth AnnualMilleniumConference,London School of Economics, November 1982,7-8.

41. On tendenciestowardsbureaucracyand tradition in the Soviet Union, see D. Lane, Politicsand Society in the USSR, revised edition (Oxford: MartinRobertson, 1978),275, 279, 370,422, 507; C. Lane, The Rites of Rulers(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1981),passim.

42. Social Origins,429. 43. Social Origins,29.44. The precedingparagraph ontains a highlycondensed version of a discussionwhich is set out

at greaterlength in D. Smith, The historicalsociology of BarringtonMoore:discoveringfacts and values n T. Skocpol, ed., Visionand Method in HistoricalSociology (New York:

CambridgeUniversityPress,forthcoming).







176

45. The similarities ust noted must not disguise two differencesbetween the two books beingdiscussed. Moore makes much more creative use of the comparative method than does

Thompson. Furthermore, whereas Thompson tends to pay more attention to humanmotivations thanstructuralconstraints Mooretendsto have theopposite bias. Both writershave compensated or these biases in other works. E. P. Thompson, The Makingof theEnglish WorkingClass(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1963).

46. Onthecriticalresponseto Social Origins, eeSmith, BarringtonMoore,25-9; J. M. Wiener,Review of reviews, Historyand Theory,15(1976), 146-75.

47. T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions:A ComparativeAnalysisof France,Russia andChina New York:CambridgeUniversityPress,1979).Fora critiqueof Skocpol, see Smith,BarringtonMoore, 158-63.

48. Social Origins,102-5, 149-54. 49. Social Origins,427. 50. Reflections,5.51. Reflections,26-7, 29. 52. Reflections, 79-83, 93. 53. Reflections, 103, 151, 172.54. The essays are entitled Of predatory democracy: the USA and Some prospects for

predatorydemocracy.

55. Reflections,84.56. Reflections, 84-7. These remarks introduce a discussion by Moore of the part which

universitiesmayplayindevelopingrationalcriticism.This discussionmaybecomparedwithHabermas'scomments on the role of the universityin a democracy. Reflections,91-103;Habermas, Theuniversity n a democracy:democratizationof theuniversity, n TowardsaRational Society (London: Heinemann, 1971), 1-12.

57. Reflections,32-9, 47.58. Reflections,22;seealso B. Moore, Thesocietynobody wants:a look beyond Marxismand

Liberalism, n B. Moore and K. H. Wolff, eds., The CriticalSpirit: EssaYs n Honour ofHerbert Marcuse(Boston: Beacon Press, 1967).

59. Reflections,52-6. 60. Injustice,especially 15,461-2, 506-10. 61. Injustice,458-505.62. Injustice, 166, 190, 205, 208, 216, 224, 253, 269, 273, 285, 298, 351. See also J. M. Wiener,

Working-classconsciousness in Germany, 1848-1933, Marxist Perspectives,5 (1979),

156-69.63. Sumner, Folkways, 70. 64. Injustice,11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 35-6.65. It may be found, for example, in Moore's doctoral thesis whichjuxtaposed facts about

thirty-six societies, ranging from the Aztecs to YankeeCity, in order to discover thestatisticalrelationshipbetweenaspectsof social stratificationandsocialcontrol. Moorelater

recognisedthe inadequacyof this applicationof statisticalmaterials.Indeed,in Injusticehe

displays considerable virtuousity in integrating statistical data with data on forms ofconsciousness. See Smith, BarringtonMoore, 44-6; Injustice, 173ff, 212ff, 227ff, 257ff,276ff, 328ff, 400ff.

66. See, for example, Q. Skinner, Meaningand understanding n the historyof ideas, Historyand Theory,8 (1969), 3-53.

67. Injustice,474.68. P. Anderson, Arguments within English Marxism(London: New Left Books, 1980),33;

R. J. Bernstein,TheRestructuring f Social and PoliticalTheory London: Methuen,1979),224.

69. Injustice,376-97. 70. Soviet Politics, 196-7; Injustice,397.

Theoryand Society 13(1984) 151-176

0304-2421/84/$03.00 ? 1984ElsevierScience PublishersB.V.

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