Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Mon, 27 May 96 06:53:36 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: The Golden Years of American Sociology To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Graduate students find the search for jobs much different from most of their professors. Most senior faculty came of age in the golden years of American Capitalism. Now, many grad students send out 50, 100, 500 letters; they get 5, 3, 1 or sometimes no invitations. It is not strange that American education in general and American The years from 1943 to 1975 were the Golden Years of American Capitalism. It is not extraordinary that American education in general and Sociology in particular should fall of hard time. Here is the long term process. 1. The center of world capitalism moved, over the centuries, from Venice to Brussels to London and, in the 19th century, to New York and the USA. Investment capital follows open markets, cheap labor and natural resources...has done and is doing so. 2. The US emerged from the WWII at the top of the industrial world and had world markets, willing workers and access to 'strategic' raw materials around the world. Those today proud in power came of age between 1950 and 1975; they benefited greatly from the Golden years. White Anglo Males did very well indeed; hundreds of thousands made use of the GI Bill, low interest loans and a widening market. In such an economy, there is room and room enough for liberal politics in race, class and gender stratifications. The Civil Rights Movements and the Women's Movements in the USA floated on the prosperity of US hegemony in world markets. Previous Struggles against racism and sexism fell on more difficult times. The Occupation Structure of the USA changed dramatically through those years in terms of racial, class and gender access to education, jobs and political capital. 3. Other capitalist nations, feuled by the Marshall Plan and lead by France made a sustained effort to open up world markets to their own capitalists and workers...by 1972, Europe was back in the running for markets and resources. 4. The USSR and its socialist allies made something of a contest of it until the late 80's at which time internal problems effectively reduced its challenge to globalized capitalism. That chapter is not yet finished; ever new developments emerge from the old Soviet Bloc...but right now, the fate of American Capital, and by inevitable embrace, American labor including sociologists is in the hands of the third world with no where to go except into capitalism markets with the advantage of much cheaper labor and much more docile political parties. 5. American Sociology rose to global hegemony in the same years. With over 12,000 members and an armlock on most sociology journals and research grants, those years were good for new Ph.D's and for graduate students seeking grants and places in sociology. Being closely tied to American Capital and the US state for both funds and jobs, American sociologists bought and sold a very liberal analysis; stratification was good and necessary; mobility was based on merit; progress was entrained; the state played a beneficent role; social problems were tractable and sociology would help the State manage them. 6. Newly Industrialized States sucked capital, jobs and markets from the old, entrenched capitalist states...with cheaper labor, easy access to markets, disregard for environment and 'friendly' governments [many on the payroll of the CIA], US capital, German capital, Arabian capital and Canadian capital deserted Europe and North America. Japan got infusions of billions of dollars when the US entered the Korean War. Korean and Taiwan recieved economic benefits from the Vietnamese War and put it to use to enter world markets previously controlled by and benefitting American and European workers. The great programs of social justice which grew out of the 60's became a fiscal burden for American Capitalist in the the 1980s...conservative politicians took state power; liberalism became a dirty word. 7. American Sociology suffered and suffers the effects of this move- ment of jobs and capital toward lower costs and higher profits. a. Grants and research funds dried up as the tax base failed to match the demands of higher education. Fewer grad students could be supported by departments; more had to find private funds or drop out. b. Women and Afro-Americans, few but ambitious, began to compete with ever more success with we White, Anglo Males...much to our displeasure, the Old Boy Network was duplicated by a Feminist Network which was and is successful in placing students and in gaining office in professional associations around the country and in the national offices at 1700 N. St., NW, 20036. c. In the good years of American Capitalism, liberal, left- liberal and marxist faculty gained tenure positions and, too often, Chair of Departments and Committees. d. This mildly radical strain in American Sociology became an ideological problem in a faltering political economy; conflict theories and feminist theories provided home truths about the State, the Economy, the various Stratification schemes, the fragmented nature of progress as well as some dangerous data about linkages between state and corporate life. Sociology departments became early sacrifices to the fiscal crisis of a liberal but capitalist state. Positions were left vacant; CPH were maintained by ever larger classes and by recruiting cheap labor from the sociology surplus population. 7. American Sociology is still greatly privilege and greatly appreciated in its more accomodating dimensions; Structural- Functionalism knows no enemies and incurs no wrath from those at the top of these pyramids of wealth and power. And, since the children of the working classes and the children of Afro- Americans do not constitute the natural client of the Capitalist State, their critiques are not voiced nor heeded if voiced. 8. Finally, the USA as well as American Sociology are far better off now than in the 1930's, 40's and well into the 50's. But compared to what we had and what we expect, we are poor indeed. Now we are reduced to internal discord as we scramble for support from a mean-spirited Congress and from ever more elitist state govern- ments. The USA will survive; American Sociology will survive; most grad students will find jobs if only low paid adjunct positions in which they must drive from place to place to teach lower division course while White, Male, Female, Afro-Americans who do have tenure do very well. In the third world, newly industrialized countries will use some of the surplus value to build schools, hospitals, roads and homes for third world peoples...and build sociology departments with indigeneous scholars and more global theories to teach ever more students about the social life worlds in which they live and the global economy in which they strive for pride of place. It is no great tragedy that American Sociology has fallen on hard times if it means that the authentic self knowledge of both rich and poor capitalist countries is thereby improved; if it means that social research is much more comparative; if if means that sociological theories are much less celebratory of the nations in which they are created and used to reproduce privilege and power. This is no great solace to grad student in American Sociology looking for jobs and tenure under very different conditions from their mentors...but it is a comfort and a solace to the young people in Africa, Asia and South America who had to listen, learn from and institute theories learned from arrogant American Professors in Politics, Economics, Anthro- pology and Sociology which treated their countries and their cultures as primitive, under-developed, emerging or backward. TR Young