First published 1979 by M.E. Sharpe
A paperback edition of this book is published by Penguin Books
Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright Zsuzsa Ferge, 1979
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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 80080116
ISBN 13: 978-0-14-080375-4 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-315-17214-9 (ebk)
This important book is the product of a remarkable experience. A sociologist domiciled in Hungary, Zsuzsa Ferge has intermittently taught and studied in France, Britain and the United States. Few social scientists of the post-Second World War generation have had this range of experience. And, as we know from the history of theoretical physics, psychoanalysis, economic and other fields, Hungary is the incubator of great talents.
A Society in the Making can be read on three levels: as a study of Hungarian social structure, as a case-study in comparative social policy, or as a contribution to the theory of social policy.
As a study of Hungary, Dr Ferge's book is one of the small but growing number of analyses of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union which avoid denunciamentos and apologetics. It is a sympathetically critical account (as she says 'In social science, there is no neutral act') from which much can be learned. The book builds on Ferge's researches into Hungarian social structure (only pieces of which have appeared in English) which are outstanding studies in their own right.
Her mode of analysis is influenced by Lukcs, the Hungarian Marxist, who invented the young Marx before the pre-1848 philosophically humanist manuscripts were discovered. The Marxism of Lukcs and his interpreters is about the shaping of consciousness, the search for wholeness, the activity or the praxis of people in their self-development. It seeks to connect historically based social structures to the emergence of varied consciousness. The goal is the emancipation and extension of potentiality that Hegel wrote about. The coming of socialism does not deliver these conditions; it provides the rudiments of the framework for their possible emergence. This orientation is what some have termed an 'open Marxism', recognizing the impact of economic forces but not ignoring the importance and variability of subjectivity. It offers questions, ways of framing issues, rather than prefixed conclusions about the state of capitalism or socialism. Zsuzsa Ferge writes as a Marxist within and about the political and social history of Hungary.
Dr Ferge has also been influenced by some strands of French Marxism, particularly the 'social reproduction' analysis of Pierre Bourdieu and his associates, who write within the broad tradition with which at least Lukcs's early writing is associated. 'Social reproduction' stresses the importance of ideological and cultural factors in the functioning and legitimation of a social structure. Some use 'social reproduction' in a simplified, mechanical way, underplaying the degree of tension, antagonism and contradiction that can exist among the components of culture and between culture and economic forces. But used wisely and empirically as it is by Bourdieu and his associates in some studies the theme of social reproduction makes the re-examination of the familiar and the accepted an exercise in the search for the processes of domination in major social institutions and in cultural attitudes. This perspective leads Ferge to stress the importance of knowledge as an aspect of social structure and an element in one's class position. Social stratification is not only about the distribution of tasks and resources, but it is also about knowledge, the capacity to deal with cultural, social and political institutions and to interpret experience. In all this, Ferge writes without the abstracted prose which mystifies much recent Marxist writings.
As a case-study, A Society in the Making has the advantage of a broad acquaintance with social policy in other nations. Further it is one of the few useful books for comparative purposes which is truly a study of social structure and social policy. It is not a simple recitation of legislation and coverage of numbers and risks. It imbeds legislation and statistics in economic, social and political pressures. It is one of the very few broad, informed and tough-minded accounts of social policy in a socialist country, stressing consequences rather than intentions.
The long-term contribution of this book of many virtues will, however, be at the third level of the theory of social policy. Social policy has suffered from inadequate theory. The debate about theory occurs largely in the somewhat disguised form of argument about what should be the objectives of social policy. At times, it seems more anxiety-provoking to present a theoretical perspective than an ideological one.
Richard Titmuss made the field of social policy analysis. It is now time to build on his rich legacy, and this Dr Ferge does very handsomely. She recognizes the virtues of his approach, his attention to detail, process, ideology, and consequence, but is also sensitive to limitations in the Titmuss corpus.
Titmuss believed, as Martin Rein has observed, that moral commitment could override economic exigencies. Will was all that was needed. This vision led him to underestimate the imprint of economic structures and policies and to believe that non-market actions could offset market results. As Ferge demonstrates, economic policy is the basic social policy, determining the division of income and tasks, the security of one group or another. Social policy can alleviate some of the difficulties caused by economic policy, but alleviation is not prevention nor the absence of harm.
Like Lukcs, Titmuss was concerned with subjectivity, the way people looked on themselves, how they were influenced by the outlook of others. He sought the moral community of Durkheim and, like Durkheim, tended to sweep the questions of personal autonomy and power into a less than major place. The important issue was to improve the conditions of the poor through the orderly processes of research and electoral politics. One of Ferge's contributions is to see the role of power and participation in social policy.
