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From International Socialism (1st series), No.89, June 1976, p.27.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Social Analysis: A Marxist Critique and Alternative
V.L. Allen
Longman, £4.95 (paperback)
This book has been ten years in the writing, and a lot of it might have been more interesting in 1965 than it is now. The burden of the argument is that all conventional sociology shares a common world view in which reality is essentially unchanging. The ‘static’ world view of this sociology is contrasted with the ‘dynamic’ standpoint of dialectical materialism, which the author considers to be a superior method of analysis all round. A great deal of the book is taken up with detailed, and frankly tedious, criticisms of the theory of ‘organisations’ in the works of some of the main sociologists. As Allen himself says at one point: ‘I go over much of the ground in subsequent chapters, and in any case it is all so obvious.’ Any socialists at all confused about the way organisations work can be assured that conventional sociology offers little guidance; but Allen’s critique doesn’t offer much enlightenment.
It is a little sad, indeed, to have to record that we can agree, formally, with much that Allen says – his arguments are frequently identical with those I put forward in my recent book – and yet find the work as a whole very unsatisfactory. Allen wants a ‘social scientific revolution’, he regards a ‘synthesis between qualitatively different conceptual approaches as a travesty’, and he sees radical sociology as no alternative to the more conservative versions. But too much is made to hinge on the simple ‘static’/‘dynamic’ dichotomy; there is no historical understanding of the social sciences or of marxism; the dialectic is reduced to a tool for empirical analysis, and the relationship between theory and practice (i.e. working class activity) is not expressed at all. Allen has, moreover, an irritating tendency to go on about personal experiences, many of which are of very marginal interest. Altogether, this is a book for the devotee of organisational theory; anyone with an interest in living organisations will find better uses for their fivers.
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Last updated on 16.3.2008