A victim of the Nazis, then the communists. Twice a refugee, yet always remaining a committed socialist. In countless ways, Zygmunt Bauman lived the political upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He was an actor within them. Bauman’s own lived history informed his politics, which found expression in varying degrees in his sociology, as he wrote extensively on socialism, democracy, bureaucracy, morality, Europe and the Jewish experience.
This volume brings together hitherto unknown or rare pieces by Bauman on the themes of history and politics by drawing upon previously unpublished material from the Bauman Archive at the University of Leeds. A substantial introduction by the editors provides readers with a lucid guide through this material and develops connections to Bauman’s other works.
The second volume in a series of books that will make available the lesser-known writings of one of the most influential social thinkers of our time, History and Politics will be of interest to students and scholars across the arts, humanities and social sciences, and to a wider readership.
Author(s): Zygmunt Bauman, Mark Davis, Jack Palmer, Dariusz Brzezinski, Thomas P. Campbell
Publisher: Polity
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 285
City: Bristol
Cover
Title page
Copyright
Contents
Series Introduction
Translator’s Note
Editors’ Introduction: History and Politics in the Sociological Imagination of Zygmunt Bauman
Notes
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 Tractate on Bureaucracy (1957)
WHENCE BUREAUCRACY?
GIVING ORDERS OR TAKING THEM?
THE WILL OF BUREAUCRACY
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BUREAUCRACY
PRO DOMO SUA
ENEMY OR ALLY?
2 On the Political Mechanisms of Bourgeois Democracy (1961)
THE FUNCTIONING OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL MECHANISMS
GOVERNMENT BY OPINION, OR THE PRODUCTION OF OPINIONS?
‘BOURGEOIS-NESS’ OF DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALIST SOCIAL RELATIONS
3 The Limitations of ‘Perfect Planning’ (1966)
A. FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES OF ‘PERFECT PLANNING’
1. Resource self-sufficiency
2. Perfect information
3. Perfect rationality by planners
4. Social homogeneity
5. Perfect hierarchic control
B. INITIAL LIMITATIONS OF SOCIALIST PLANNING
1. Foreign trade
2. The household frame of reference
C. HETEROGENEITY OF INTERESTS IN GOAL FORMULATION
1. Investment vs consumption
2. Collective vs individual consumption
3. Income levelling vs income differentiation
4. Goal formulation vs goal attainment
D. THE PROCESS OF GOAL ATTAINMENT
3. The qualitative heterogeneity of human needs
3. The special problem of the present4
E. SUMMARY: INHERENT CONTRADICTIONS AS LIMITATIONS
1. Institutional
2. Political
3. Instrumental
4. Technical
4 The End of Polish Jewry: A Sociological Review (1969)
I FINAL SOLUTION 1968
II SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE JEWS IN COMMUNIST POLAND
III WHO WILL LEAVE AND WHO WILL STAY?
5 At the Crossroads in a World at the Crossroads (c.1970)
6 Between State and Society (1973)
7 On the Maturation of Socialism (1981)
8 Exit Visas and Entry Tickets: Paradoxes of Jewish Assimilation (1988)
THE PENT-UP REVOLUTION
ANTINOMIES OF EMANCIPATION
THE ALLUREMENTS AND TRAPS OF ASSIMILATION
ASSIMILATION’S INNER DEMONS
EMANCIPATORY LIMITS OF ASSIMILATION
ASSIMILATION THROUGH REVOLUTION
JEWISH ROADS TO REVOLUTION
9 The Holocaust: Fifty Years Later (1994)
10 Names of Suffering, Names of Shame (2001)
AFTER ONE CRIME, ANOTHER
WILL IT BE DIFFERENT?
GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
THREE SYMBOLS
AMERICA AND EGOISM
FOR SUFFICIENT STRENGTH
11 Britain after Blair, or Thatcherism Consolidated (2007)
ERODED HUMAN BONDS, WILTED SOLIDARITY
DISMANTLING THE SOCIAL STATE
RETREAT OF AND FROM POLITICS
DEMOCRACY IN TROUBLE
FROM SOCIAL STATE TO PERSONAL SAFETY STATE?
AFTER ALL THAT – WHERE TO START?
12 Panic among the Parasites, or For Whom the Bell Tolls (2010)
13 The Haunting Spectre of ‘Westphalian Sovereignty’ (2012)
14 Europe’s Adventure: Still Unfinished? (2016)
Notes
1 Tractate on Bureaucracy
2 On the Political Mechanisms of Bourgeois Democracy
3 The Limitations of ‘Perfect Planning’
4 The End of Polish Jewry
5 At the Crossroads in a World at the Crossroads
6 Between State and Society
7 On the Maturation of Socialism
8 Exit Visas and Entry Tickets
9 The Holocaust: Fifty Years Later
10 Names of Suffering, Names of Shame
11 Britain after Blair, or Thatcherism Consolidated
12 Panic among the Parasites, or For Whom the Bell Tolls
13 The Haunting Spectre of ‘Westphalian Sovereignty’
14 Europe’s Adventure: Still Unfinished?
Acknowledgements
Index
EULA
