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SOCIAL THEORY OF THE 1950s

Anxious Society

While it might not have been apparent to many people at the time, American society in the 1950s was less stable than it seemed. The Depression, World War II, and the unprecedented growth and prosperity of the postwar period had wrought fundamental changes in American life. Economists, psychologists, and sociologists wrote bestselling books during the decade charging that these changes were not altogether for the better. The titles of these books—The Affluent Society (1958), The Lonely Crowd (1950), The Organization Man (1956)—became catchphrases which described the pressures and anxieties of contemporary life. A running theme throughout these works was that America was growing and changing more quickly than its citizens could comprehend.

Inner or Other

The first of these books to appear during the decade was The Lonely Crowd (1950) by David Riesman, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, and a colleague, Nathan Glazer. The authors' thesis was that Americans had become "other-directed"—pressed to conform to social values dictated by institutions and mass media—rather than "inner-directed"—holding to a personal set of ambitions and beliefs. The . highest goal of such conformists was to be a valued member of the community. To a certain degree "other-directedness" is responsible for cooperation and tolerance in society, but it can also lead to alienation when a group is held together not by personal convictions but by its members' desire to belong. Other-directed Americans were at once in a crowd and lonely.

End of Individualism?

William Whyte's The Organization Man made a point similar to Riesman's. Whyte claimed that big business, bureaucracy, and suburban living had smothered the puritan ethic, which championed hard work and self-motivation. The work ethic of the organization man dictated only that he contribute to the success of the organization. The phenomenon was most closely associated with the business world; but academia, government, religion—all increasingly structured—likewise subtly discouraged individual initiative. Again, as with Riesman and Glazer's idea of "other-directedness," there was a tension: cooperation among its members is necessary to the success of an organization, but creativity and innovation are as well.

Dynamics of Power

Also published in 1956 was The Power Elite by the maverick scholar C. Wright Mills. Mills was a brilliant professor of sociology at Columbia University who rode a motorcycle and dressed in flannel shirts and combat boots. He first came to national attention with the publication of his White Collar (1951), a stinging depiction of a class of workers with middle-class pretensions who are likely paid less than their blue-collar counterparts. In The Power Elite Mills turned from the pretenders to those actually in control. He described the developing close relationship among heads of industry and heads of state and the military, what President Dwight D. Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" in 1961. Some critics charged (as they had with White Collar) that Mills's analysis of social dynamics was too simplistic; but others believed that he rescued 1950s liberals from stagnation by making adversaries of the rich and powerful.

Conventional Wisdom

The Affluent Society was the work that made economist John Kenneth Galbraith a household name. Galbraith, a Canadian, was active in American politics, campaigning for Adlai Stevenson during his 1952 presidential bid and for John F. Kennedy in 1960. He was also chairman of the Democratic Advisory Committee during the Eisenhower presidency. Although an avowed liberal, Galbraith took both liberals and conservatives to task for relying too much on what he called "conventional wisdom": outdated beliefs that obscure social issues rather than explain them. Specifically, in The Affluent Society he attacked the conventional wisdom that prosperity was based on the increased production of consumer goods. Consumerism, Galbraith argued, led to "social imbalance," in which citizens were rich in material goods but real social progress—better schools, highways, and medical care—was considered an unwanted burden.

Social Position

Several other key works of social criticism influenced people's thinking during the time. Vance Packard's The Status Seekers (1959) made the case that Americans obsessively strove for higher social position through the purchase of status symbols such as expensive cars, houses, clothing, and appliances. This social climbing was, of course, encouraged by producers and advertisers of such items. With its broad generalizations, The Status Seekers was not really considered a work of serious scholarship, but it was widely read and discussed. Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman was published in 1960 but developed from magazine articles the author had written in the latter half of the 1950s. Goodman placed the blame for the growing youth rebellion squarely on the society that provided them with no clear system of values. Another book of the 1960s that had its genesis in the previous decade was by Betty Friedan, who found that no magazine wanted to print an article she had written on the stifled aspirations of American women. Taking a cue from Packard, she expanded her article to book length and saw it published as the early bible of American feminism, The Feminine Mystique, in 1963.