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Power in Middletown: Fact and Value in Community Research*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Nelson W. Polsby
Nelson W. Polsby*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

The recent reissue of the classic study of Middletown by Robert S. Lynd and Helen M. Lynd should serve as a suitable occasion for a partial re-examination of a great landmark in community research. It is not necessary to elaborate on the significance of the Middletown studies. Although more than twenty years have elapsed since they were completed, they are still widely cited in contemporary writing. Moreover, a closer examination of the Lynds' treatment of power distributions in Middletown discloses striking similarities between this early study and the most recent work in the field. Modern writers might disclaim the openly Marxist position espoused by the Lynds, but in fact many of them continue to be strongly influenced by the scheme of analysis employed in the Middletown books. In this paper I propose to examine the Lynds' discussion of community power in both its normative and descriptive aspects, not simply because it seems valuable from time to time to return for curiosity's sake to the wellsprings of modern social science, but also because many of the issues discussed by the Lynds, and many of their findings, have contemporary relevance to the study of community power.

Scattered through two large and meaty books, one can find at least two approaches to this subject. One approach suggests in unmistakable terms what the Lynds believe ought to be true of power in the community; the other describes what they believe is true. I refer to these incorrectly, but for convenience, as “theories” of community power.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , November 1960 , pp. 592 - 603
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1960

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Footnotes

*

The research connected with this article was undertaken as a part of the New Haven Community Leadership Study at Yale University. Robert A. Dahl and Raymond E. Wolfinger of that project were extremely stimulating co-workers whose contributions are mirrored in the merits, if any, of the present essay. I am also grateful to the Brookings Institution for the leisure and freedom which enabled me to put some of these thoughts on paper. I am, of course, solely responsible for the opinions expressed here.

References

1 Lynd, Robert S. and Lynd, Helen M., Middletown (New York, 1929, 1959)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as M. Page references are to either edition. See also their Middletown in Transition (New York, 1937), hereafter cited as MIT.Google Scholar

2 See, e.g. Gordon, Milton M., Social Class in American Sociology (Durham, N.C., 1958), chap, III, esp. 71–5Google Scholar; Mayer, Kurt B., Class and Society (Garden City, N.Y., 1955), chap, VIGoogle Scholar; Miller, Delbert C., “Industry and Community Power Structure: A Comparative Analysis of an American and an English City,” American Sociological Review, XXIII, 02, 1958, 9–15 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schulze, Robert O. and Blumberg, Leonard U., “The Determination of Local Power Elites,” American Journal of Sociology, LXIII, 11, 1957, 290–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stein, Maurice R., The Eclipse of Community (Princeton, 1960) esp. 57–9.Google Scholar

3 See M, chap, XXIV, and MIT, chap, IX, esp. 322.

4 E.g. M, 421–2.

5 M, 414.

6 See M, chap, XXIV, and MIT, chap. IX passim.

7 See, for examples: M, 423–5, 452, 455–6; MIT, chaps. III, IX, X, passim.

8 MIT, 426–7, 490–4, xvi.

9 MIT, 12, 13, 46, 366–9, 489.

10 MIT, 19–20, 38–9, 74–101, 321, and passim.

11 M, sec. I, esp. chap. IV.

12 M, chap. IV.

13 MIT, 22, 26.

14 MIT, 89, 99, 117, 321.

15 MIT, 459, and passim.

16 MIT, 38–9.

17 MIT, 93.

18 MIT, 97, 99.

19 MIT, 86.

20 MIT, 79.

21 MIT, 83–4.

22 MIT, 87, 91–3.

23 MIT, 91, 93.

24 MIT, e.g. 43, 72, 366–7, 455.

25 MIT, 28–33.

26 MIT, 33.

27 MIT, 41, 453–5.

28 MIT, 359.

29 MIT, 498.

30 MIT, 359. Of course there was on the whole very little third-party voting anywhere.

31 Cf. the similar observation made about the work of C. Wright Mills by Parsons, Talcott in Parsons, , “The Distribution of Power in American Society,” World Politics, X, 10 1957, 123–43.Google Scholar

32 For a sympathetic discussion of the phenomenon of “false class-consciousness” in community research, see Mills, C. Wright, “The Middle Classes in Middle-Sized Cities,” American Sociological Review, XI, 10., 1946, 520–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 MIT, 216–17, M, 80, 422 n.

34 See, e.g., M, 423 ff., MIT, chap, IX passim.

35 M, 422, MIT, 332–9; M, 428–9 , 433, MIT, 113–15, 123–4.

36 M, 429.

37 M, 455–7.

38 MIT, 104, 113 ff.

39 M, 421, 434, MIT, 89.

40 M, 422.

41 M, 422, MIT, 123–4.

42 M, 423–5, MIT, 124.

43 M, 420.

44 MIT, 319.

45 MIT, 320.

46 MIT, 319, 320.

47 M, 450, 488, MIT, 164, 180, 320–1.

48 M, 427.

49 M, 426.

50 MIT, 322.

51 MIT, 79, 139, 140.

52 M, 427, MIT, 320.

53 M, 424, MIT, 93, 121–2, 340 f. (e.g.). See also MIT, 38, 110, and passim.

54 M, 424, 425.

55 MIT, 84; but see 433, 464.

56 M, 429, MIT, 320, 113–14.

57 M, 479, MIT, 305, 464.

58 MIT, 93, 121–2, 340 f.

59 MIT, 37 f.

60 M, 425.

61 M, 481–2.

62 M, 488. See also M, 492.

63 MIT, 97.

64 For a discussion of this point in the context of the literature of public administration, see Kaufman, Herbert, “Emerging Conflicts in the Doctrines of Public Administration,” American Political Science Review, L, 12., 1956, 1057–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 MIT, 89, emphasis supplied.

66 See, e.g.: Hunter, Floyd, Community Power Structure (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1953)Google Scholar; Pellegrin, Roland J. and Coates, Charles H., “Absentee-Owned Corporations and Community Power Structure,” American Journal of Sociology, LXI, 03, 1956, 413–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schulze, Robert O., “The Role of Economic Dominants in Community Power Structure,” American Sociological Review, XXIII, 02 1958, 3–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 Barth, Ernest A. T. and Abu-Laban, Baha, “Power Structure and the Negro Sub-community,” American Sociological Review, XXIV, 02., 1959, 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Pellegrin, and Coates, , “Absentee-Owned Corporations and Community Power Structure,” 414.Google Scholar

69 See, e.g.: Warner, William Lloyd et. al., Democracy in Jonesville (New York, 1949), passim, and esp. 100, 101, 103Google Scholar; Hollingshead, August B., Elmtown's Youth (New York, 1949), passim, and esp. 91Google Scholar; Mills, “The Middle Classes in Middle-Sized Cities”; Hunter, Community Power Structure, passim, and esp. 24, 60–114, 174.

70 Pellegrin, and Coates, , “Absentee-Owned Corporations and Community Power Structure,” 414 n.Google Scholar

71 For further criticisms of the current literature, including elaboration of points made here, see Polsby, Nelson W., “The Sociology of Community Power: A Reassessment,” Social Forces, XXXVII, 03, 1959, 232–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Polsby, , “Three Problems in the Analysis of Community Power,” American Sociological Review, XXIV, 12, 1959, 796–803.CrossRefGoogle Scholar