The New Puritanism

Social Control of the Welfare State By Morris Janowitz Elsevier, 170 pp., $10.95

This book by Morris Janowitz, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, is a macro-sociological attempt to diagnose the current ills of the welfare state in the Western world and especially in the United States. In making his case, Janowitz employs the concept of “social control,” by which he means the opposite of coercive control—namely, the self-regulative capacity of a society to “pursue a set of higher moral values.” It is his basic contention that the contemporary welfare state, by straining this system of “social control,” has contributed to the current crisis of political legitimacy, in which the political elites have lost their ability to set public priorities decisively. Janowitz fears that this crisis could produce an authoritarian regime of right-wing, populist character.

DV

About the Author

Dale Vree

Featured Tags

Social Control of the Welfare State By Morris Janowitz Elsevier, 170 pp., $10.95

This book by Morris Janowitz, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, is a macro-sociological attempt to diagnose the current ills of the welfare state in the Western world and especially in the United States. In making his case, Janowitz employs the concept of “social control,” by which he means the opposite of coercive control—namely, the self-regulative capacity of a society to “pursue a set of higher moral values.” It is his basic contention that the contemporary welfare state, by straining this system of “social control,” has contributed to the current crisis of political legitimacy, in which the political elites have lost their ability to set public priorities decisively. Janowitz fears that this crisis could produce an authoritarian regime of right-wing, populist character.