Table Of ContentPROPERTY AND POWER IN
SOCIAL THEORY
In social and political theories of class inequality and stratification property
and power perform a key role. However, theorists have yet to clearly define
these concepts, their mutual boundaries and their scopes of application.
Moreover, a ‘primacy puzzle’ remains unsolved: is power ultimately dependent
upon property, or property upon power? Which is primary, which derivative?
Dick Pels seeks answers to the property/power puzzle by undertaking a
broad historical inquiry into its intellectual origins and present-day effects.
He re-examines the increasingly misleading terms of the debate between
property and power by placing the traditional controversy within the
framework of intellectual rivalry. He traces the intricate pattern of rivalry
between the two concepts through a series of case studies, including:
• Marxism vs. anarchism
• the fascist assertion of the primacy of the political
• social science as power theory
• the managerial revolution
• the knowledge society and the new intellectual classes
Having examined knowledge as property-and-power, Pels elaborates a radical
and reflexive theory of intellectual rivalry.
Property and Power in Social Theory unravels the dialectics of social-scientific
dichotomies and provides a novel and informative way of organizing
twentieth-century social theory. This work makes a valuable contribution to
sociological theory and to the history of thought.
Dick Pels is Professor of the Social Theory of Knowledge in the Faculty of
Philosophy at the University of Groningen. He is also scholar in residence at
the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research.
ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN SOCIAL AND
POLITICAL THOUGHT
1 HAYEK AND AFTER
Hayekian liberalism as a research programme
Jeremy Shearmur
2 CONFLICTS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
Edited by Anton van Harskamp
3 POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ANDRÉ GORZ
Adrian Little
4 CORRUPTION, CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY
John Girling
5 FREEDOM AND CULTURE IN WESTERN SOCIETY
Hans Blokland
6 FREEDOM IN ECONOMICS
New perspectives in normative analysis
Edited by Jean-François Laslier, Marc Fleurbaey, Nicolas Gravel and Alain Trannoy
7 AGAINST POLITICS
On government, and order
Anthony de Jasay
8 MAX WEBER AND MICHEL FOUCAULT
Parallel life works
Arpad Szakolczai
9 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
G.B.Madison
10 ON DURKHEIM’S ELEMENTARY FORMS
Edited by W.Pickering, W.Watts Miller and N.J.Allen
11 CLASSICAL INDIVIDUALISM
The supreme importance of each human being
Tibor R.Machan
12 THE AGE OF REASONS
Quixotism, sentimentalism and political economy in eighteenth-century Britain
Wendy Motooka
13 INDIVIDUALISM IN MODERN THOUGHT
From Adam Smith to Hayek
Lorenzo Infantino
14 PROPERTY AND POWER IN SOCIAL THEORY
A study in intellectual rivalry
Dick Pels
15 WITTGENSTEIN AND THE IDEA OF A CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY
Giddens, Habermas and Bhaskar
Nigel Pleasants
16 MARXISM AND HUMAN NATURE
Sean Sayers
PROPERTY AND
POWER IN SOCIAL
THEORY
A study in intellectual rivalry
Dick Pels
London and New York
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1998 Dick Pels
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Pels, Dick, 1948–
[Macht of eigndom?. English]
Property and power in social theory: a study in intellectual rivalry/Dick Pels.
Originally written as a dissertation at the University of Amsterdam and
published in Dutch translation in 1987, “it has been thoroughly revised, to
such an extent as to effectively become new.”
Cf. Pref.
1. Power (Social sciences) 2. Property. 3. Knowledge, Sociology of.
4. Intellectual life—History. I. Title.
HM136.P54313 1998 98–23828
306.4’2–dc21 CIP
ISBN 0-415-18780-X (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-06857-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-21638-5 (Glassbook Format)
CONTENTS
List of illustrations vii
Preface ix
Introduction: the problem of intellectual rivalry 1
1 The liberal dichotomy and its dissolution 18
2 Inside the diamond: rivalry and reduction 47
3 Marxism vs. anarchism 74
4 Fascism and the primacy of the political 101
5 Social science as power theory 126
6 Power, property, and managerialism 164
7 Intellectual closure and the New Class 192
8 Towards a theory of intellectual rivalry 225
Notes 260
Bibliography 287
Index 311
v
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES
1 The diamond pattern 4
2 The fissure 23
3 The diamond pattern: from domain to disposition 37
4 Vocabulary switches 48
5 The fissure of sovereignty and property 52
6 System closure and property regimes 183
7 Theories of the knowledge society 198
8 The spectrum of cultural resources 223
9 Rivalry within the diamond pattern 247
10 The reflexive diamond 259
TABLES
1 Static and dynamic theories of property and power 22
2 The field of the grand narratives 74
3 Positive and negative theories of property and power 267
vii
PREFACE
Rather than for truth’s sake and the world at large, books are usually written
for some people and against some others; the present author himself belongs
in both categories at once. Every book is a fight for personal identity as
much as for communicable clarity, attained by both identifying with and
counteracting the example of significant others. Certainly, it is an attempt to
persuade, but I need not persuade all others, just those whose judgement is
significant to me. Moreover, I must persuade myself as much as them, not
simply of the justice of my intellectual intuitions but also of the justice of my
existence and ambitions as an intellectual—which is somewhat different
from the impersonal and procedural work of justification which is commonly
accepted as the hallmark of scientific practice. I confess I have never been
much at home in those intellectual lifestyles which repress rather than utilize
the committed presence of the observer in the object observed, and which
easily forget about the essentially contested nature of all scientific postures
and propositions.
If scientific work answers to a logic of significant others, let me name
some of those whose judgement I especially sought and appreciated. This
book was originally written as a dissertation under Derek Phillips’ and Louis
Boon’s supervision at the University of Amsterdam. It was published in a
Dutch translation in 1987. But I could not resign myself to the prospect that
it would not reach the broader audience that it was actually written for (and
against). Over the years, I have become fully instructed about the systematic
blockages—which are inseparably linguistic, psychological, and social—
which prevent intellectuals from outside the centre from conversing (and
doing battle) with the dominant as equal partners. Hence I am grateful that,
after a decade or so, the book has finally made its appearance beyond the
flat-lands and the dykes. Meanwhile, it has been thoroughly revised, to such
an extent as to become effectively new. That it has taken this improved
shape is also due to the encouragement of a few people who backed me at
crucial points in time. I have long cherished Lolle Nauta’s friendship. Steven
Lukes, Steve Fuller, Bill Lynch, Nico Stehr, and especially Stephen Turner
have given vital support. The insightful criticism of Rokus Hofstede, Baukje
ix
