Social Justice 14 (need it ASAP!!)

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY:

AGENDAS FOR THE

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

JOE R, FEAGIN

University of Florida

The world's peoples face daunting challenges in the twenty-first century. While apologists herald the globaliza- tion of capitalism, many people on our planet experience recurring economic exploitation, immiseration, and envi- ronmental crises linked to capitalism's spread. Across the globe social movements continue to raise the issues of social justice and democracy. Given the new century's serious challenges, sociologists need to rediscover their

roots in a sociology committed to social justice, to cultivate and extend the long- standing "countersystem" approach to research, to encourage greater self-reflection in sociological analysis, and to re-emphasize the importance ofthe teaching of soci- ology. Finally, more sociologists should examine the big social questions of this century, including the issues of economic exploitation, social oppression, and the looming environmental crises. And, clearly, more sociologists should engage in the study of alternative social futures, including those of more just and egalitarian soci- eties. Sociologists need to think deeply and imaginatively about sustainable social futures and to aid in building better human societies.

WE STAND today at the beginning ofa challenging new century. Like ASA Presidents before me, I am conscious of the honor and the responsibility that this address carries with it, and I feel a special obligation to speak about the role of sociol- ogy and sociologists in the twenty-first cen- tury. As we look forward, let me quote W. E. B. Du Bois, a pathbreaking U.S. sociologist. In his last autobiographical statement, Du Bois (1968) wrote:

Direct correspondence to Joe R. Feagin, De- partment of Sociology, Box 117330, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, (feagin® ufl.edu). I would like to thank the numerous col- leagues who made helpful comments on various drafts of this presidential address. Among these were Hernan Vera, Sidney Willhelm, Bernice McNair Barnett, Gideon Sjoherg, Anne Rawls, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill, Patricia Lengermann, Jill Niebrugge-Brantley, Tony Orum, William A. Smith, Ben Agger, Karen Pyke, and Leslie Houts.

[TJoday the contradictions of American civi- lization are tremendous. Freedom of politi- cal discussion is difficult; elections are not free and fair. . . . The greatest power in the land is not thought or ethics, but wealth. . . . Present profit is valued higher than future need. . . . I know the United States. It is my country and the land of my fathers. It is still a land of magnificent possibilities. It is still the home of noble souls and generous people. But it is selling its birthright. It is betraying its mighty destiny. (Pp. 418-19)

Today the social contradictions of Ameri- can and global civilizations are still im- mense. Many prominent voices tell us that it is the best of times; other voices insist that it is the worst of times. Consider how the apologists for modem capitalism now cel- ebrate the '*free market" and the global capi- talistic economy. Some of these analysts even see modem capitalism as the last and best economic system, as the "end of his- tory" (Fukuyama 1992). In contrast, from

AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 2001, VOL. 66 (FEBRUARY: 1 —20) 1

AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

the late 1930s to the 1950s many influential economists and public leaders were commit- ted to government intervention (Keynesian- ism) as the way to counter the negative ef- fects of capitalist markets in the United States and other countries—effects clearly seen in the Great Depression of the 1930s. The view that a capitalistic market alone should be allowed to make major social and economic decisions would then have been met with incredulity or derision (George 1999; also see Block 1990). Half a century ago, Karl Polanyi ([1944] 1957), a prescient economic historian, critically reviewed the history of the free-market idea: 'To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment, indeed, even of the amount and use of purchasing power, would result in the demolition of society" (p. 73).

Since the 1960s, conservative business groups have pressed upon the world's politi- cal leaders, and upon the public generally, the idea of a self-regulating market mecha- nism, thereby organizing a successful counter-attack against Keynesian ideas (Steinfels 1979). These new apologists for capitalism have heralded the beneficial as- pects of a globalizing capitalism and have exported the free-market model in an eco- nomic proselytizing project of grand scope. Free marketeers have persuaded many people across the globe that class conflict is in de- cline and that capitalism and its new tech- nologies will bring prosperity to all coun- tries. Similarly, other influential supporters of the status quo have argued optimistically that major forms of social oppression, such as racial and gender oppression, are also in sharp decline in Western societies.

THE DOWNSIDE OF A CAPITALISTIC WORLD

Nonetheless, many people in the United States and across the globe insist that this is not the best of times. Karl Marx long ago underscored the point that modern capital- ism creates bad economic times that encom- pass both social injustice and inequality. Looking at the present day, I will briefly de- scribe a few examples of the troubling con- ditions currently being created or aggravated by modem capitalism:

MANY OF THE WORLD 'S PEOPLE STILL

LIVE IN MISERY

First, while it may be the best of times for those at the top of the global economy, it is not so for the majority of the world's peoples. The pro-capitalist polices of many national governments and intemational orga- nizations have fostered a substantial transfer of wealth from the world's poor and work- ing classes to the world's rich and affluent social classes. Social injustice in the form of major, and sometimes increasing, inequali- ties in income and wealth can be observed across the globe. Thus, in the United States income inequality has reached a record level for the period during which such data have been collected: The top one-fifth of house- holds now has nearly half the income; the bottom one-fifth has less than 4 percent. Moreover, the top 1 percent of U.S. house- holds holds more in wealth than the bottom 95 percent, and the wealthy have doubled their share since 1970. Moreover, more Americans live in poverty than a decade ago. As of the late 1980s, 31.5 million people lived at or below the officially defmed pov- erty level, while in 1999 the figure had in- creased to 34.5 million (Collins, Hartman, and Sklar 1999; Oxfam 1999). In recent de- cades the number of millionaires and billion- aires has grown dramatically. Yet many or- dinary workers have seen their real wages decline—even while the costs of housing, transportation, and medical care have in- creased significantly in real terms.

Of the 6 billion people on earth, a large proportion live in or near poverty and desti- tution, with 1.2 billion living on less than one dollar a day. The numbers living in poverty are increasing in areas of South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Today one-fifth of the world's people, those in the developed coun- tries, gamer 86 percent of the world's gross domestic product, with the bottom fifth gar- nering just one percent. In recent years the world's richest 200 people, as a group, have doubled their wealth, to more than 1 trillion dollars for the year 2000 (Oxfam 1999). While there has been much boasting about economic growth among those pushing glo- bal capitalism, between 1980 and the late 1990s most of the world's countries saw sus- tained annual growth rates of less than 3 per-

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY

cent per capita, and 59 countries actually ex- perienced economic declines (Toward Free- dom 1999). Moreover, in most countries great income and wealth inequalities create major related injustices, including sharp dif- ferentials in hunger, housing, life satisfac- tion, life expectancy, and political power.

Viewed from a long-term perspective, the high levels of wealth and income inequality, and the increase in that inequality, signal yet another critical point in human history where there is a major foregrounding of social jus- tice issues.

WORKING FAMILIES ARE EXPLOITED AND

MARGINALIZED

Second, global capitalism may bring the best of times for corporate executives and the well-off, yet for many of the world's people it brings recurring economic disruption, ex- ploitation, marginalization, and immis- eration. The international scene is increas- ingly dominated by highly bureaucratized multinational corporations, which often op- erate independently of nation states. Work- ing for their own economic interests, these transnational corporations routinely "de- velop" their markets—and destroy and dis- card regions, countries, peoples, cultures, and natural environments. For example, transnational corporations now control much of the world's agricultural system. In devel- oping countries small farmers are shoved aside by large agribusiness corporations or are pressured to produce crops for an inter- national market controlled by big trans- national corporations—thereby reducing the production of essential foodstuffs for local populations (Sjoberg 1996:287).

Today there are an estimated 1 billion un- employed or underemployed workers around the world, with 50 million unemployed in the European countries alone. Hundreds of millions, including many millions of chil- dren, work in onerous or dangerous work- places. Some 30 million people die from hunger annually in a world whose large ag- ricultural enterprises produce more than enough food for every person (Ramonet 1999). The real effects of expanding capital- ism for a large proportion of the planet's in- habitants are not only greater inequality but also job restructuring, unsafe working con-

ditions, low wages, underemployment or un- employment, loss of land, and forced migra- tion. Ordinary working people and their families—in most nationality, racial, and ethnic groups across the globe—face signifi- cant negative social impacts from an encir- cling capitalism.

CAPITALISM IMPOSES HUGE

ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS

Third, the global capitalistic economy gen- erates profits at the huge cost of increasing environmental degradation. Since the 1970s, the levels of some greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide) in the earth's atmosphere have grown significantly because of the in- creasing use of fossil fuels, widespread de- forestation, and industrial pollution. Global warming, which results from this increase in greenhouse gases, is melting polar ice packs, increasing coastal flooding, generating se- vere weather, creating droughts and reshap- ing agriculture, and facilitating the spread of disease. In addition, as a result of human ac- tions, the earth's ozone layer is severely de- pleted in some areas. This alone results in a range of negative effects, including in- creases in skin cancer incidence and major threats to essential species, such as phy- toplankton in the oceans (M. Bell 1998; Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins 1999).

A lack of sufficient water and poor water quality are large-scale problems in many countries. Half the world's wetlands and nearly half the forests have been destroyed in just the last century. The destruction of forests is killing off many plant species, in- cluding some supplying the oxygen we breathe. The consequences of these environ- mental changes will be the greatest for the world's poorest countries, many of which are in areas where the increasing heat of glo- bal warming is already having a serious im- pact on water availability, soil erosion, de- struction of forests, agriculture, and the spread of disease (Sachs 1999).

Today, some environmental experts are se- riously discussing the possibility that most of the planet's plant and animal species will be gone by the twenty-second century. Jared Diamond, a leading physical scientist, has reviewed the evidence and concludes that movement toward an environmental catas-

AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

trophe is accelerating. The only question, in his view, is whether it is likely to "strike our children or our grandchildren, and whether we choose to adopt now the many obvious countermeasures" (Diamond 1992:362). And there are yet other related problems facing humanity, such as those arising out of the new technologies associated with world- wide, capitalist-led economic development.

GLOBAL CAPITALISM REINFORCES

OTHER INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY

Fourth, in addition to the economic and en- vironmental inequalities generated or aggra- vated by contemporary capitalism, other forms of social injustice and inequality re- main central to the United States and other societies. I only have space here to note briefly such major societal realities as racial and ethnic oppression, patriarchy, homopho- bia, bureaucratic authoritarianism, violence against children, and discrimination against the aged and the disabled. These persisting forms of discrimination and oppression gen- erally have their own independent social dy- namics, yet they too are often reinforced or exacerbated by the processes of modern capitalism.

WHAT KIND OF A WORLD DO WE WANT?

The world's majority now lives, or soon will live, in difficult economic and environmen- tal times. By the end of the twenty-first cen- tury, it is likely that there will be sustained and inexorable pressures to replace the so- cial institutions associated with corporate capitalism and its supporting governments. Why? Because the latter will not have pro- vided humanity with just and sustainable so- cieties. Such pressures are already building in the form of grassroots social movements in many countries.

A few of the world's premier capitalists already see the handwriting on the wall. The billionaire investor George Soros (1998), for instance, has come to the con- clusion that free markets do not lead to healthy societies:

Markets reduce everything, including human beings (labor) and nature (land), to com-

modities. We can have a market economy, but we cannot have a market society. In ad- dition to markets, society needs institutions to serve such social goals as political free- dom and social justice. (P. 24)

As Soros sees it, without a more egalitarian global society, capitalism cannot survive.

In a recent interview, Paul Hawken (Haw- ken and Korten 1999), an environmentally oriented critic of modem capitalism, has re- counted the story of a business consultant who conducted a workshop with middle managers in a large corporation that makes, among other things, toxic chemicals such as pesticides. Early in the workshop the execu- tives discussed and rejected the idea that cre- ating social justice and resource equity is es- sential to the long-term sustainability of a society such as the United States. Later, these managers broke into five groups and sought to design a self-contained spaceship that would leave earth and retum a century later with its occupants being "alive, happy, and healthy" (Hawken and Korten 1999). The executives then voted on which group's hypothetical spaceship design would best meet these objectives.

The winning design was comprehensive: It included insects so no toxic pesticides were allowed on board. Recognizing the im- portance of photosynthesis, the winning group decided that weeds were necessary for a healthy ecosystem, so conventional herbi- cides were not allowed. The food system was also to be free of toxic chemicals. These managers "also decided that as a crew, they needed lots of singers, dancers, artists, and storytellers, because the CDs and videos would get old and boring fast, and engineers alone did not a village make." In addition, when the managers were asked if it was rea- sonable to allow just one-fifth of those on board to control four-fifths of the ship's es- sential resources, they vigorously rejected the idea "as unworkable, unjust, and unfair" (Hawken and Korten 1999).

Note that this example spotlights the criti- cally important ideas of human and environ- mental interdependence and of social justice. Even these corporate managers, when hypo- thetically placing themselves in the closed system of a spaceship, rejected environmen- tal degradation, a boring monoculture, and major resource inequalities.

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY

As I see it, social justice requires re- source equity, faimess, and respect for di- versity, as well as the eradication of exist- ing forms of social oppression. Social jus- tice entails a redistribution of resources from those who have unjustly gained them to those who justly deserve them, and it also means creating and ensuring the pro- cesses of truly democratic participation in decision-making. A common view in West- ern political theory is that, while "the people" have a right to self-rule, they del- egate this right to their representatives—to the govemment leaders who supposedly act in the public interest and under the guid- ance of impartial laws (Young 1990:91-92). However, there is no impartial legal and po- litical system in countries like the United States, for in such hierarchically arranged societies those at the top create and main- tain over time a socio-legal framework and political stmcture that strongly support their group interests. It seems clear that only a decisive redistribution of resources and de- cision making power can ensure social jus- tice and authentic democracy.

The spaceship example explicitly recog- nizes the interdependence of human beings and other living species. For some decades now central ideas in physics and biology have stressed the interconnectedness of what were once thought to be discrete phenomena. Thus, the "gaia theory" in biology suggests, according to Lovelock (1987), that

. . . the entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, and from oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living entity, capable of manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and pow- ers far beyond those of its constituent parts. (P. 9)

This is more than a metaphorical descrip- tion, for in fact we live on a planet that, we are increasingly realizing, is truly interwo- ven. All of earth's aspects—from biosphere, to soils and oceans, to atmosphere—are seen as parts of one interconnected living system with important cybernetic features. Thus, environmental irresponsibility in one place, such as the excessive buming of fossil fuels in the United States, contributes to negative effects elsewhere, such as to global warm- ing in Australia.

Perhaps there are clues in the gaia theory for a broader sociological framework for viewing the development of human societ- ies. We human beings are not just part of an interconnected biosphere, but are also linked in an increasingly integrated and global web of structured social relationships. This com- plex "sociosphere" consists of some 6 billion people living in many families and commu- nities in numerous nation states. Nation states and their intemal organizations are linked across an intemational web. Indeed, we human beings have long been more in- terconnected than we might think. Accord- ing to current archaeological assessments, we all descended from ancestors who mi- grated out of Africa some millennia in the past. Today, most human beings speak re- lated languages; about half the world's people speak an Indo-European language. In recent decades the expansion of telecommu- nication technologies has placed more people in potential or actual contact with one another than ever before. For the first time in human history, these technologies are rap- idly creating one integrated body of human- ity (Sahtouris 1996).

Yet, this increasingly interconnected sociosphere remains highly stratified: Great benefits accrue to those classes dominant in intemational capitalism. Today most of the globe's political and business leaders, as well as many of its academic experts, have come to accept capitalism as the more or less inevitable economic system for all countries. However, at the same time, grow- ing numbers of people are recognizing that, because of globalizing capitalism, the earth is facing a massive environmental crisis, one that has the potential to destroy the ba- sic conditions for human societies within a century or two. Issues of ecological de- struction—as well as broader issues of so- cial inequality and injustice—are being forced to the forefront not by corporate ex- ecutives but by some 30,000 people's groups and movements around the globe. These include environmental groups, indig- enous movements, labor movements, health-policy groups, feminist groups, anti- racist organizations, and anti-corporate groups (Klein 2000). Such groups agree on many critical environmental and political- economic goals.

6 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

Indeed, many people in other regions of the world seem to be ahead of us in the United States in their understanding of the damage done by the unbridled operations of multinational corporations. These groups are pressing for meaningful intemational decla- rations and treaties, such as the various United Nations declarations on the environ- ment and human rights. In the United States awareness of the negative impact of global- izing capitalism is now substantial and may be growing. A 1999 U.S. poll found that just over half the respondents said they were sympathetic with the concerns of activists who had aggressively protested a recent World Trade Organization summit in Seattle (Business Week 1999). In many places in the United States today there is growing opposi- tion to the economic and environmental de- cisions of those executives heading trans- national corporations.

Unquestionably, social justice appears as a recurring concern around the globe. For that reason alone, we sociologists must vig- orously engage issues of social justice or be- come largely irrelevant to the present and future course of human history.

A LONG TRADITION: SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Given impending national and intemational crises, sociology appears to be the right dis- cipline for the time. Sociology is a broad in- terdisciplinary field that draws on ideas from other social sciences, the humanities, and the physical sciences. Our intellectual and meth- odological pluralism, as well as our diver- sity of practitioners, are major virtues. Such richness gives sociology a particularly good position as a science to examine the com- plexities and crises of a socially intercon- nected world. Those sciences with diverse viewpoints and constructive conflicts over ideas and issues have often been the most intellectually healthy. As P. H. Collins (1998) has put it, "Sociology's unique social location as a contested space of knowledge construction allows us to think through new ways of doing science" (p. 10; also see Burawoy 1998).

Views of sociology's goals have long re- flected a dialectical tension between a com- mitment to remedy social injustice and the

desire to be accepted as a fully legitimate discipline in the larger society, especially by powerful elites. The lead article in the July 1895 issue of the American Journal of Soci- ology, written by Albion Small, founder of the first graduate sociology department (at the University of Chicago), listed among the major interests of the journal editors the analysis of "plans for social amelioration" (Small 1895:14). A decade later. Small pre- sented a paper at the American Sociological Society's first meeting in which he argued vigorously that social research was not an end in itself but should serve to improve so- ciety (Friedrichs 1970:73). Small was not alone in this commitment. In the first decade or two of U.S. sociology, leading scholars advocated the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and the assessment of that knowl- edge in relation to its current usefulness to society.

Moreover, from the beginning there has been a robust "countersystem" tradition within U.S. sociology—a tradition whose participants have intentionally undertaken research aimed at significantly reducing or eliminating societal injustice. The counter- system approach is one in which social sci- entists step outside mainstream thought pat- terns to critique existing society (Sjoberg and Cain 1971). From the perspective of this research tradition, social scientists have all too often accepted the status quo as their standard. It is noteworthy too that much countersystem analysis develops ideas about alternative social systems. Eor instance, any serious exploration of the countersystem tra- dition must acknowledge the past and cur- rent influence of Marx's critical analysis of capitalism, which included ideas about an alternative social system. Marx's counter- system analysis has, directly or indirectly, influenced many social scientists, including several of the sociologists to whom I now turn.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of white women, black men, and black women sociologists—as well as a few white male sociologists—did much innovative sociological research and at the same time took strong informed positions in regard to ending the oppression of women, black Americans, the poor, and immigrants. Among the now forgotten women and black

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY

male sociologists were Jane Addams, Flo- rence Kelley, Emily Greene Balch, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and W. E. B. Du Bois. All were practicing sociologists, and all developed important so- ciological ideas and research projects. Most were members of the American Sociological Society (Deegan 1987).

Jane Addams was a key founder of U.S. sociology. Head resident of Chicago's pio- neering Hull-House complex, she was an ac- tive sociologist and charter member of the American Sociological Society. She inter- acted professionally with other leading soci- ologists and intellectuals. During the 1890s and later, there was great intellectual fer- ment at Hull-House. Not only were union leaders, socialists, and other social reform- ers welcomed there, but a few major male social theorists, such as John Dewey and George Herbert Mead, regularly interacted with the women sociologists there (Deegan 1988:5). Addams was one of the first U.S. sociologists to deal conceptually and empiri- cally with the problems of the burgeoning cities, and she was advanced in her socio- logical analysis of justice and democracy. She viewed democracy as entailing more than faimess and legal equality:

We are brought to a conception of Democ- racy not merely as a sentiment which desires the well-being of all men, nor yet as a creed which believes in the essential dignity and equality of all men, but as that which affords a rule of living as well as a test of faith. (Addams 1902:6)

In her view ordinary Americans had to par- ticipate actively in major decisions affecting their lives for there to be real democracy.

Addams and the numerous women (and a few men) sociologists working at Hull- House not only accented a cooperative and democratic model of society but also used their sociological research and analysis to ground their efforts for tenement reform, child-labor legislation, public health pro- grams, feminism, and anti-war goals (Dee- gan 1988). They worked in immigrant and other poor urban communities and sought to build a grassroots base for social change. Moreover, working in collaboration, they did the first empirical field research in U.S. so- ciology. Like Harriet Martineau earlier in the nineteenth century (see below), Addams and

her colleagues accented a new sociological tradition that developed empirical data in or- der to better deal with issues of both social theory and public policy. Their 1895 book, Hull-House Maps and Papers (Residents of Hull-House [1895] (1970), reported on the sociodemographic mapping of Chicago's ur- ban areas well before that statistical ap- proach became important for the University of Chicago's male sociologists. Interestingly, these sociodemographic data were used to help local residents understand their commu- nity patterns, not just to provide data for publications in academic journals. More- over, one indication of the disciplinary im- pact of these early women sociologists is that between 1895 and 1935 they published more than 50 articles in what was then the leading sociology journal, the American Journal of Sociology (Deegan 1988:47).

In 1896 W. E. B. Du Bois became an as- sistant in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Du Bois was hired to do a study of black Philadelphians using, as he noted, the "best available methods of socio- logical research" (Du Bois [1899] 1973:2). His book. The Philadelphia Negro ([1899] 1973), was the first empirical study of a black community to be reported in sociologi- cal depth and at book length. Therein Du Bois not only analyzed sociological data on patterns of life in the black community (in- cluding racial discrimination) but also as- sessed what he viewed as the immorality of discrimination. The last part of this path- breaking book includes a study of domestic workers by Du Bois's white colleague Isabel Eaton, a former Hull-House sociologist. The research collaboration of these early black and white sociologists is also part of the now forgotten history of sociology. Moreover, in spite of Du Bois's stellar qualifications— major sociological research, a Harvard Ph.D., and work with leading European so- cial scientists—no white-run sociology de- partment offered him a regular position. Over time, Du Bois would make very impor- tant contributions to the sociological study of community, family, social problems, and class relations, as well as to the historical study of slavery and Reconstruction.

We should recognize too that in this early period there were important black women sociologists, such as Ida B. Wells-Bamett

8 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

and Anna Julia Cooper, whose work has re- cently been rediscovered (Lemert and Bhan 1998; Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998). Though neither was affiliated with academic sociology, both were practicing sociologists and theorists of society. In their work they were among the earliest social sci- entists to analyze data on the conditions of African Americans and of women in U.S. society in terms of social "subordination" and "repression" (Cooper 1892; Wells- Barnett 1895).

By the 1920s and 1930s leading white male sociologists were downplaying or ig- noring the pioneering sociological work of the early countersystem sociologists. For ex- ample, the dominant introductory textbook of the interwar decades. Park and Burgess's (1921) lengthy Introduction to the Science of Sociology, views sociology as an academic and abstract science. This text contains in its 1,040 pages only a few bibliographical ref- erences to the work of Du Bois, but no dis- cussion of his research work, and only one terse sentence on, and two bibliographical references to, the work of Addams.

Park and other prominent sociologists were increasingly critical of an activist soci- ology and were moving away from a con- cem with progressive applications of social research toward a more "detached" sociol- ogy. Their work was increasingly linked to the interests of certain corporate-capitalist elites, such as those represented by the Rockefeller family foundations. While they frequently researched various types of urban "disorganization," usually in qualitative field studies, they rarely analyzed deeply the harsher realities of social oppression—espe- cially gender, class, and racial oppression— in the development of cities. Park and sev- eral of his colleagues played a major role in shifting the emphasis from a sociology con- cemed with studying and eliminating serious societal problems to a more detached and academic sociology concerned with "natu- ral" social forces—without the humanitarian attitude or interpretation of what Park some- times called the "damned do-gooders" (Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998: 15-18; Raushenbush 1979:96).

Moreover, during the 1920s and 1930s support for a detached and instrumental- positivist sociology increased at major U.S.

universities. This approach is "instrumental" in that it limits social research mainly to those questions that certain research tech- niques will allow; it is "positivist" in that it commits sociologists to "rigorous" research approaches thought to be like those used in the physical sciences (Bryant 1985:133). A pioneer in this approach was Franklin H. Giddings at Columbia University. In an early 1900s' American Journal of Sociology dis- cussion, Giddings (1909) argued, in strongly gendered language.

We need men not afraid to work; who will get busy with the adding machine and the logarithms, and give us exact studies, such as we get in the psychological laboratories, not to speak of the biological and physical laboratories. Sociology can be made an ex- act, quantitative science, if we can get in- dustrious men interested in it. (P. 196, ital- ics in original)

By the 1920s the influential William F. Ogbum, who trained at Columbia University under Giddings and was later hired at the University of Chicago, aggressively argued for such a detached and quantitative research approach. In his 1929 presidential address to the American Sociological Society he called for a sociology emphasizing statistical meth- ods and argued that sociologists should not be involved as sociologists in improving so- ciety; instead they should focus on effi- ciently discovering knowledge about society. Whoever is in power, "some sterling execu- tive," might then apply this objective socio- logical research (Bannister 1992:188-90). Survey methods and statistical analyses were gradually becoming the emphasized and pre- ferred research strategies in mainstream so- ciology.

Over the next few decades, most main- stream sociologists, including those in lead- ing departments, did not research major public events and issues, especially from a critical perspective. One study of 2,559 ar- ticles appearing in the American Sociologi- cal Review from 1936 to 1984 examined major social and political events for five pe- riods within this time frame—events such as the Great Depression and McCarthyism— and found that overall only 1 in 20 articles dealt with the major events examined for these periods (Wilner 1985). Moreover, from the 1920s to the 1940s remarkably few of the

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY 9

leading U.S. sociologists researched, or spoke publicly and critically of, the growing fascist movements in the United States and Europe, some of which would soon help generate a catastrophic war. Ap- parently, one reason for this neglect was the increasing emphasis on a "value-free," "pure-science" approach to sociology (Ban- nister 1992:175-89).

Still, some important critics emerged. Writing in the early 1940s in an appendix to his An American Dilemma, Guhnar Myrdal ([1944] 1964) specifically criticized the move by Park and Ogbum toward a more detached sociology:

The specific logical error is that of inferring from the facts that men can and should make no effort to change the "natural" outcome of the specific forces observed. This is the old do-nothing (laissez-faire) bias of "reahstic" social science. (P. 1052)

Anticipating later discussions and debates, Myrdal developed a critique of the new ac- cent on a "value-free" social science:

Scientific facts do not exist per se, waiting for scientists to discover them. A scientific fact is a construction abstracted out of a complex and interwoven reality by means of arbitrary definitions and classifications. The processes of selecting a problem and a basic hypothesis, of limiting the scope of study, and of defining and classifying data relevant to such a setting of the problem, involve a choice on the part of the investigator. ([1944] 1964:1057)

As Myrdal viewed the matter, value neu- trality in social science is impossible, for in making choices about how to assess and re- search society there is always something of value at stake. While scientific conventions provide guidelines for choices, they neces- sarily involve value judgements, and no one can avoid value judgments simply by focus- ing on just social "facts."

By the 1930s and 1940s the critical, coun- tersystem approaches of sociologists like Addams and Du Bois were losing out to a politically safe, academic, and distancing sociology. Sociology was increasingly be- coming a discipline whose college and uni- versity departments were dominated by white male sociologists and often linked to elite interests—including ties such as grants

from corporate foundations and government agencies. As Deegan (1988) has noted re- garding the dominant sociologists at the Uni- versity of Chicago,

These later men therefore condemned politi- cal action for sociologists, while the ideas of the elite, in fact, permeated their work. . . . Rather than condemn the exploi- tation and oppression of daily life, the later Chicago men described it. They justified it through their acceptance of it. (P. 304)

In the decades after World War II, many mainstream sociologists continued the move toward the pure-science ideal and away from the concerns for social justice and the mak- ing of a better society. There was a great ex- pansion of federally funded research in the physical sciences, and leading sociologists worked aggressively to grasp a share of the new federal money, often by stressing an in- strumental-positivist sociology that at- tempted to imitate those physical sciences. In the late 1950s some 15 prominent social scientists, including leading sociologists, signed onto a statement, "National Support for Behavioral Science," which pressed the U.S. government for funds for social sci- ence:

We assume the probability of a break- through in the control of the attitudes and beliefs of human beings. . . . This could be a weapon of great power in Communist hands, unless comparable advances in the West produce effective counter-measures. (Quoted in Friedrichs 1970:88)

Contrary to their statements elsewhere about value neutrality, the political orientation of these and other influential social scientists of the time made transparent the centrality of values that were then shaping social science research.

Also evident is the strong interest of lead- ing social scientists in state-funded research. These researchers were largely successful in their efforts, and substantial bureaucracies have developed to fund social science re- search under the auspices of the federal gov- emment and private foundations. This gov- emment and corporate underwriting of much mainstream sociological research has fed the emphasis on a quantitatively oriented or in- strumental-positivist sociology and on soci-

1 0 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

ologists as research entrepreneurs. Not sur- prisingly, social scientists who have secured major funding from federal government agencies and large corporate foundations have rarely done research that draws on the countersystem tradition and is strongly criti- cal of established institutions in the corpo- rate or governmental realms. From the 1930s to the present, the accent on academic grant- getting, the heavy emphasis on certain types of quantitatively-oriented research, and the movement away from the social justice con- cerns of earlier sociologists have been asso- ciated trends (see Cancian 1995).

A detached-science perspective has been influential in many areas of sociology for some decades now, but not without strong countering perspectives (e.g., see Vaughan 1993). Since the late 1960s there has been a periodic resurgence of interest in an activist sociology, including an increased concern with research on (and the eradication of) in- stitutional discrimination and other forms of social oppression (e.g., see Omi and Winant 1994). Significantly, the recent history of sociology has been dialectical, with support- ers of the detached-science perspective of- ten being central, yet regularly challenged by those advocating a sociology committed to both excellent sociological research and social justice.

AGENDAS FOR SOCIOLOGY: THE NEW CENTURY

Looking toward the next few decades, I see important conceptual, empirical, policy, and activist tasks for which the rich diversity of contemporary sociology can help prepare us. These tasks often relate to questions of so- cial justice. Indeed, one major reason that some subfields of sociology are periodically attacked by conservative, and often ill-in- formed, journalists and media commentators is that analyses of discrimination, domina- tion, and social justice are generally threat- ening to those who desire to maintain the sta- tus quo. Moreover, we should keep in mind that sociologists have already had a broad impact. Sociological ideas and research are frequently used in public discourse by those grappling with societal problems, and soci- ology books are more widely reviewed (and perhaps even read) outside the discipline

than any other social science books except history books (Bressler 1999:718).

Let us now consider a few of the socially- relevant agendas for the twenty-first century that can be inaugurated or accelerated by so- ciologists with many different research per- spectives and methods.

BRING SOCIAL JUSTICE BACK

TO THE CENTER

First, it is time for the discipline to fully re- cover and celebrate its historical roots in a sociology committed to social justice in ide- als and practice. In recent decades no soci- ologist has published even one substantial article in a major sociology journal (e.g., the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and Sociological Theory) on the sociological ideas of the women sociologists in the founding genera- tion (Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 2001). It is time for us sociologists to rem- edy this neglect and help to reclaim the im- portant ideas of those women sociologists and sociologists of color who are among the founders of our discipline.

A strong case can be made that the British social scientist Harriet Martineau (1802- 1876) is the founder of empirical sociology in the West. She was apparently the first so- cial scientist both to use the term sociology and to do systematic sociological research in the field (Hoecker-Drysdale 1992). She helped to invent a new sociological ap- proach that brought empirical data to bear on questions of social theory and public policy. She wrote the first book on socio- logical research methods (Hill 1989), in which she argued—preceding Emile Durk- heim by half a century—that research on so- cial life is centrally about studying social "things" accurately and should involve re- search on "institutions and records, in which the action of a nation is embodied and per- petuated" (Martineau [1838] 1989:73). She was a contemporary of Auguste Comte and translated his major work on positive philosophy (sociology) into English. Martineau's first major sociological analysis was based on observations from a field trip across the United States—a multi-volume set titled Society in America (1837). In that work she developed sociological insights as

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY 1 1

penetrating and original as those of her more celebrated male counterpart, Alexis de Tocqueville. Martineau was also a feminist theorist and anti-slavery activist, and wrote extensively and sociologically on social is- sues for the general public.

Contemporary sociologists should also recognize the importance of, and draw more from, the ideas of early U.S. sociologists like Jane Addams and W. E. B. Du Bois. As I noted previously, these pioneering U.S. sociologists offer solid role models in their dual commitments to social-scientific knowledge and to social justice, equality, and democracy. They gave central attention to the theoretical, empirical, and policy di- mensions of sociological research. The work of the early women and African American sociologists, as well as that of progressive white men, may well point us toward a new conceptual paradigm for soci- ology. Such a paradigm would accent the centrality of differences, oppressions, and inequalities—as well as recurring move- ments for social justice—within societies like the United States.

It is also time that we recognize these so- cial justice themes in the writings of some of the classical "founding fathers" of sociol- ogy. For example, Emile Durkheim has of- ten been portrayed in relatively conservative terms, as being principally concemed with social order and stability. Yet Durkheim wrote eloquently about the impetus for so- cial justice in societies. He argued that a forced division of labor, like that found in a class-riven society, was pathological and made organic solidarity impossible. Social inequality, created by such social mecha- nisms as routine inheritance across genera- tions, compromises organic solidarity. For Durkheim ([1893] 1933:384-88) organic solidarity and social justice require the elimination of inequalities not generated by variations in personal merit:

If one class of society is obliged, in order to live, to take any price for its services, while another can abstain from such action thanks to the resources at its disposal which, how- ever, are not necessarily due to any social superiority, the second has an unjust advan- tage over the first at law. . . . [The] task of the most advanced societies is, then, a work of justice. . . . [O]ur ideal is to make social

relations always more equitable, so as to as- sure the free development of all our socially useful forces. (P. 387)

A successful movement to complex organic societies requires ever more social justice,

. . . and we can be sure that this need will become ever more exacting if, as every fact presages, the conditions dominating social evolution remain the same. (P. 388)

NURTURE THE COUNTERSYSTEM

APPROACH

Second, contemporary sociologists need to enlarge and cultivate the long-standing countersystem approach, not only in regard to investigating social inequality and injus- tice but also in regard to assessing altema- tive social systems that may be more just.

Today, the sociology handbooks and ency- clopedias on my bookshelves have little to say about the concept of social justice. One significant task for social scientists is to document empirically, and ever more thor- oughly, the character of major social injus- tices, both nationally and internationally. We also need more conceptual work that devel- ops and enriches the concepts of social jus- tice and equality. In my view, social justice is not only a fundamental human right but is also essential for a society to be sustainable in the long term. Even the corporate execu- tives in the aforementioned spaceship ex- ample developed some understanding that justice and equity are essential to the long- term sustainability of a social system.

As I have suggested above, social injus- tice can be examined not only in terms of the maldistribution of goods and services, but also in regard to the social relations re- sponsible for that maldistribution. These so- cial relations, which can range from cen- trally oppressive power relations to less cen- tral mechanisms of discrimination, deter- mine whether individuals, families, and other groups are excluded from society's im- portant resources and decision making pro- cesses. They shape the development of group and individual identities and the sense of personal dignity. In the end, social justice entails a restructuring of the larger frame- works of social relations generally (Feagin and Vera forthcoming).

1 2 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

We sociologists have made a good start toward understanding certain types of social injustice and inequality. Some of us have done considerable work to document the character and impact of class, racial, and gender subordination. In the United States and in Latin America some sociologists us- ing participatory-action-research strategies have honed countersystem ideas and meth- ods and worked interactively with people at the grassroots level seeking assessments of, and altematives to, an onerous status quo (e.g., Fals-Borda 1960). The commitment here is to get out of the ivory tower and to help build a resource and power base for the disenfranchised in their communities. The legitimacy of this type of sociological research must be enhanced. As one group of participatory-action researchers has put it, "To map and analyze the dimensions of so- cial problems . . . is seen as scientific re- search. To discuss and describe altemative practices and develop solutions is seen as moving toward politics and advocacy—ar- eas that are perceived as a threat to the ob- jectivity of research" (Nyden et al. 1997; also see Stoecker 1996). Collaborative re- search between sociologists and community groups seeking solutions to serious local problems of housing, work, education, pov- erty, discrimination, and environmental pol- lution should not be shoved aside, as it sometimes is, with cavalier comments about sociological "do-goodism," but should be placed in the respected core of sociological research—where it was at the birth of U.S. sociology.^

In everyday practice all sociology is a moral activity, whether this is recognized or not. In a society deeply pervaded and struc- tured by social oppressions, most sociologi- cal research will reflect these realities to some degree, and attempts to deny these re- alities or their impact on research are mis- guided at best. All social science perspec- tives have an underlying view of what the world ought to be. As Moore (1971) noted.

' Interestingly, one 1990s survey of 12,000 Ph.D. sociologists revealed that over half spent at least 10 hours a week doing what they view as "applied" research (Dotzler and Koppel 1999:79).

[Questions] that arouse human passions, es- pecially in a time of change, have had to do with the forms of authority and justice, and the purposes of human life. . . . It is impos- sible therefore to avoid taking some kind of a moral position, not only in writing about politics but also in not writing about them. (P. 3)

A countersystem approach attempts to assess the status quo from a viewpoint at least somewhat outside the frame of the existing society and/or nation state. In practice, so- cial scientists can accept the prevailing na- tion-state or bureaucratic-capitalistic moral- ity or they can resist this morality by mak- ing a commitment to social justice and hu- man rights. Contemporary countersystem approaches often accent a broad human rights framework in which each person is entitled to fair treatment and justice simply because they are human beings, not because they are members of a particular nation- state. Moreover, some social scientists (e.g., Sjoberg 1996) have suggested that the Uni- ted Nation's Universal Declaration of Hu- man Rights—with its strong array of social, political, and economic rights—may be a good starting place for developing a robust human rights framework for social science research.

We should seek a sociology that is grounded in empirical and theoretical re- search and that hones a critical perspective less restricted by established institutions. Careful data collection, reasoned argument, and critical moral judgments are not incom- patible. The great sociologist of race and class, Oliver C. Cox, underscored this point:

Clearly, the social scientist should be accu- rate and objective but not neutral; he [or she] should be passionately partisan in favor of the welfare of the people and against the in- terests of the few when they seem to sub- merge that welfare. (Cox 1948:xv/)

Numerous sociologists, from Jane Addams and W. E. B. Du Bois, to Robert and Helen Lynd and Gunnar Myrdal, to more contem- porary scholars as diverse as Alfred McClung Lee, Jessie Bernard, James Black- well, Robert Bellah, and Orlando Fals-Borda have accented the importance of bringing moral discourse and research on "what is the good society" into the center of sociological

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY 1 3

debate and analysis. Even more, today we need to look beyond the borders of the na- tion-state to address the possibility of a world moral community.

BE MORE SELF-CRITICAL

Third, as part of an ongoing self-renewal process, I see the need for accelerated self- reflection in sociology. This is a task closely related to my last point. The communities, colleges, universities, agencies, companies, and other settings in which we practice soci- ology are shaped in part by the oppressive social relations of the larger society. We need a liberating and emancipating sociol- ogy that takes risks to counter these oppres- sive social relations in our own bailiwicks.

As social scientists, we should regularly examine our research environments, includ- ing our metascientific underpinnings and commitments. Critical social perspectives, such as those of feminists, gay/lesbian schol- ars, critical theorists, anti-racist scholars, and Marxist researchers, among others, have been resurgent since the 1960s. Scholars re- searching from these perspectives, as well as symbolic interactionists and ethnometh- odologists, have called for more intemal re- flection in the social sciences. In one such disciplinary reflection, feminist sociologists Stacey and Thorne (1996:1-3) argue that, while anthropology and history have incor- porated feminist ideas better than sociology, the questioning of androcentric concepts and structures is finally beginning to have a broader impact in sociology. In an earlier critical reflection, Dorothy Smith (1987) ar- gues that mainstream sociology has histori- cally been part of the dominant ideological apparatus, which focuses on issues primarily of concem to men. Mainstream sociology's central themes are "organized by and articu- late the perspectives of men—not as indi- viduals . . . but as persons playing determi- nate parts in the social relations of this form of society . . ." (p. 56). Feminist sociologists have pressured the discipline to view and re- search the social world from the perspective of women and thereby greatly expand its fund of knowledge.

African American, Latino, Native Ameri- can, Asian American, gay/lesbian, and other formerly excluded sociologists also have

pressed the discipline of sociology to view and research society from their standpoints and thus to broaden sociological knowledge. For instance, in an introduction to the reprint of her pioneering book. The Death of White Sociology ([1973] 1998), Ladner notes nu- merous ways in which the presence of schol- ars of color, as well as women and gay/les- bian scholars, has forced issues of social subjugation to be considered seriously in both the academy and the larger society. Similarly, racial-ethnic feminists have forced the academy to consider seriously multiple statuses and the intersectionality of oppressions (Baca Zinn and Dill 1994). The goal of all these scholars is not just to de- velop altemative funds of knowledge, but also to push this knowledge in from the mar- gins, where it too often resides, toward the central trends and debates in sociology. In- side and outside the discipline, this accumu- lating knowledge can then become part of the process of eroding the historical relations of social oppression.

Hopefully, more self-reflection among so- ciologists can also lead us and other social scientists to destroy the insidious boundaries we often draw around ourselves, such as the artificial dichotomy of quantitative versus qualitative research, the ranking of basic over applied research, and the valuing of re- search over teaching.

RECOGNIZE AND STRESS THE

IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING SOCIOLOGY

Fourth, we need to recognize and accent the importance of teaching sociology—espe- cially the kind of quality teaching that will prepare present and future generations for the coming social, economic, technological, and environmental challenges. Indeed, many of us were recruited into sociology by first- rate teachers. Our graduate programs need to recognize that most people who secure Ph.D. degrees in sociology do not become profes- sors in research universities, but rather be- come applied sociologists or faculty mem- bers with heavy teaching loads in a diverse array of public and private educational insti- tutions (see Eitzen, Baca Zinn, and Gold 1999:57-60).

The majority of undergraduate and gradu- ate students in sociology are looking for

1 4 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

meaningful ways to contribute to making a better society. Thus, it is disturbing to hear reports from some of these students at vari- ous colleges and universities that their pro- fessors are asserting that there is no room in sociology for idealism and activism. Social scientists who attempt to avoid social better- ment issues often defend themselves with phrases like, "We are not out to save the world." C. Wright Mills (1958) once sug- gested.

Sometimes this is the disclaimer of a mod- est scholar; sometimes it is the cynical con- tempt of a specialist for all issues of larger concern; sometimes it is the disillusionment of youthful expectations; often it is the pos- ture of men who seek to borrow the prestige of The Scientist, imagined as a pure and dis- embodied intellect. (P. 133)

As teachers of sociology, we should make clear to the coming generations of sociolo- gists not only that there is plenty of room for idealism and activism in the field but that these qualities might be required for hu- manity to survive the next century or so. We need to communicate the excitement and importance of doing sociology. Alfred McClung Lee (1978) was eloquent in this regard:

The wonder and mysteries of human creativ- ity, love, and venturesomeness and the threatening problems of human oppression and of sheer persistence beckon and involve those with the curiosity and courage to be called sociologists. Only those who choose to serve humanity rather than to get caught up in the scramble for all the immediate re- wards of finance and status can know the pleasures and lasting rewards of such a pur- suit. (Pp. 16-17)

In my view, sociology students should be shown how the diversity of theories, meth- ods, debates, and practitioners in sociology is generally healthy for the field and for so- ciety. We also should strive to help our stu- dents think critically about their social lives and about building a better society. Wendell Bell (1998) has underscored the importance of showing social science students how to engage in debates about important issues, critically assess necessary moral judgments, and explore possible social futures for them- selves and their societies.

STUDY THE BIG SOCIAL QUESTIONS

Finally, contemporary sociologists need to spend much more effort studying the big so- cial questions of the twenty-first century. In- terestingly, Kai Erikson (1984:306; also see Wilner 1985) once suggested that a review of leading sociology journals over several decades would likely find that many decisive events had been ignored there by sociolo- gists. When social scientists become too professionalized and too narrowly commit- ted to a discipline or area of study, research issues tend to be defined from within their dominant professional paradigm. They rely heavily on a narrow range of theories and methods. Only those research topics and in- terpretations are accepted that do not threaten the basis of the profession and its established intellectual capital. However, technological and other knowledge develop- ments are now moving so fast that a social scientist who is too narrowly trained or fo- cused may be incapable of making sense out of the ongoing currents of change.

In many U.S. colleges and universities the administratively sanctioned goal of generat- ing grant money—often for its own sake— still distorts too much social science re- search in the direction of relatively minor social issues. This heavy focus on grant money reduces the amount of research on key public issues and diminishes the poten- tial for colleges and universities to be arenas for critical debate and discussion of those is- sues (Black 1999).

C. Wright Mills (1958) called for social scientists to challenge dominant ideas:

If truly independent ideas are not even for- mulated, if we do not set forth alternatives, then we are foolishly trapped by the diffi- culties those now at the top have gotten us into. (P. 137)

Sociologists need to formulate more original and independent ideas, and to illuminate and directly and critically address recurring na- tional and global crises. We need to imple- ment Gans's (1989) call for more sociolo- gists to become public intellectuals who will speak critically, and from data, about major societal issues. Especially in our joumals, many social scientists need to break from the conventional style of research presentation

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY 1 5

and jargonistic writing that targets a special- ized audience and move to a style accessible to broad audiences and to an approach that addresses the big social questions and the implications of research for society. At the same time, we should recognize that there are numerous sociologists who write well and accessibly, yet often face the censorship of ideas that are seen as too critical—an ex- perience still common in this society. Thus, we also should insist that the relevant pub- lishing outlets consider and publish impor- tant critical analyses of momentous social issues, and not rule them out as "too contro- versial" or as "only thought pieces" (Agger 1989:220).

Yes, some sociologists do work on the big and tough questions; yet we need many more to ask major questions about such societal trends as the huge and ongoing wealth trans- fers from the working classes to the rich, the social impact of environmental crises, the impact of globalizing capitalism on local communities, and the human costs of racism, sexism, and other social oppressions.

One major research question requiring much attention relates to the intemational impact of multinational capitalism and its "free markets." We hear much today about the global capitalistic economy, but all too little social science research is examining its deep structure and broad range of human consequences. Half a century ago, in a fore- word to Polanyi's book. The Great Transfor- mation, sociologist Robert M. Maclver ([1944] 1957) noted that some research on capitalistic markets already indicated that formulas like "world peace through world trade" were dangerous simplifications:

Neither a national nor an international sys- tem can depend on the automatic regulants. Balanced budgets and free enterprise and wodd commerce and international clearing- houses . . . will not guarantee an interna- tional order. Society alone can guarantee it; international society must also be discov- ered. (P. xi)

Other major research questions deserving more attention from sociologists center on the character, costs, and future of contempo- rary racism. While some sociologists have pressed forward in researching the white- generated oppression targeting Americans of color, more researchers should address the

ways in which racial oppression becomes disguised or subtle in its character and prac- tice, the ideological defense of that oppres- sion, and the social costs for its targets and the larger society.

We should also encourage similar socio- logical research on other major forms of so- cial oppression that pervade this and other contemporary societies. In recent years so- ciologists and other social scientists have undertaken significant empirical and theo- retical work on sexism, homophobia, age- ism, and discrimination against the disabled, yet today these areas cry out for much more research and analysis.

In addition, more sociologists should study societal futures, including the altema- tive social futures of just and egalitarian so- cieties. The United States spends several million dollars annually on the scientific search for extraterrestrial life, yet very little on examining the possible or likely social futures for terrestrial societies. Today, we should encourage more sociologists and other social scientists to investigate societal probabilities and possibilities, and assess them for the general public. Social scientists can extrapolate critically from understand- ings of the trends and possibilities already apparent in various societal arenas, as well as probe an array of societal alternatives with imaginative research approaches.

Major societal transformations loom ahead of us. There are, for example, the de- mographic changes well described by some sociologists, such as the graying of societ- ies. Such trends will likely be associated with other societal changes: Aging societies, for example, may have less interest in war, experience less street crime, and focus them- selves more on issues of health care, social services, and euthanasia. Another demo- graphic shift already underway is an increas- ing racial and ethnic diversity in some na- tional populations. According to some U.S. Census Bureau projections, in the year 2050 the U.S. population will reach about 383 million; just under half will be Americans of color (Murdock 1995:33-47). And by the 2050s, it is estimated, Americans of Euro- pean descent will become a statistical minor- ity. For the most part, in-depth analysis of the social significance of this demographic trend has been left to journalists or popular

1 6 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

commentators, most of whom have limited sociological knowledge. There is ample op- portunity right now for sociological research into the possible or likely societal futures associated with trends such as these, particu- larly assessments from a countersystem framework accenting the goals of social jus- tice and multiracial democracy.

In addition, more sociologists should be doing research on, and showing the public the social consequences of, the likely tech- nological advances in biomedicine, artificial intelligence, genetics, and telecommunica- tions. A central aspect of human societies is the ability to collect, amass, and analyze in- formation. Today new developments in in- formation generation, storage, and applica- tion are emerging at an explosive rate. For instance, technological optimists predict that over the next few decades the biomedical revolution will greatly extend the human life span and augment our mental and physical capacities dramatically. What are the social consequences of such striking biomedical developments for the world's many peoples? A leading medical expert on immunology, Jerome Groopman (1999), has speculated on the inequalities likely to emerge:

I don't see the wealthy western nations ral- lying to make major inroads into the devel- oping world, where infant mortality is still high and life expectancy is much lower. Will you have this very lopsided set of popula- tions, where people in America and Western Europe are playing tennis and taking Viagra at 115, while in Zaire people are still dying at 15 from HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and Ebola?(1999:n.p.)

Moreover, in a provocative article, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us?" Sun Micro- systems' co-founder and chief scientist Bill Joy (2000) has warned of a major techno- logical threat to human beings—the new technologies of robots and other human-en- gineered organisms. In Joy's informed pre- diction, uncontrolled self-replication by ro- bots with artificial intelligence could pose a serious threat to human beings in the com- ing decades. A number of computer scien- tists have predicted that by the 2030s com- puters will be ever more human, "con- scious," and intelligent (Kurzweil 1999). They predict that computers will have ca- pacities a million times greater in the future

than at present, and that computerized robots will be much "smarter" than human beings. A generally cautious computer scientist, Joy (2000) does not see himself as writing sci- ence fiction, but as one who asks tough questions about social futures: "Given the incredible power of these new technologies, shouldn't we be asking how we can best co- exist with them? . . . [S]houldn't we proceed with caution?" (n.p.).

Reviewing policy options, Joy (2000) sug- gests the almost unthinkable solution of hu- mans giving up entirely the development of this robotic technology because of its likely negative consequences for human societies. Physical scientists like Joy are questioning the modem faith in the benign character of new technologies. They are asking tough questions about the failure of physical and social scientists, policymakers, and ordinary citizens to be centrally concemed with the social consequences of technologies. Criti- cal assessments of possible or probable so- cial futures for technologically "advanced" civilizations are natural research and analyti- cal tasks for contemporary sociologists.

CONCLUSION

In an 1843 letter, the young Karl Marx sug- gested that critical social analysis should lay bare the hidden societal realities. The goal must be the "reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether . . . in religious or political form" (Marx [1843] 1975:209). Marx added that the task for in- volved social scientists, as for other citizens of the world, was the clarification of the "struggles and wishes of the age" (p. 209).

For many millennia human beings have been tool-makers, yet in just a few decades we have created economies and technolo- gies—such as polluting industries, fossil- fuel consuming engines, and nuclear weap- ons—that may well threaten the survival of our species and of our living planet itself. It seems likely that the fate of our planet and its many species will be decided within the next few generations by just one of its spe- cies. As moral beings, we need to ask insis- tently: What would altematives to our self- destructive societies look like? And how do we get there?

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY 1 7

Much of humanity might agree on a new global social system that reduces injustice, is democratically accountable to all people, offers a decent standard of living for all, and operates in a sustainable relation to earth's other living systems (e.g., see Korten 1999; Sahtouris 1996). Determining whether this is the case and how such a just global society might be developed are enormous questions that sociologists—and other citizens of the world—should be tackling.^ In a pioneering book. The Image of the Future (1973), Fred Polak argued that we need a new generation of visionaries who can think clearly and deeply about sustainable social futures:

Social scientist, intellectual, artist, leader, middleman of any breed, and the Common Man (and Woman) to whom, after all, this century belongs—each must ask himself [or herself], what is my vision of the future? And what am I going to do about it? (P. 305)

While social science analysis can help us to understand our ailing societal dreams and decide what dreams to accept or reject, such analysis is beneficial only if it frees us to decide on a better future. Let me conclude by closely paraphrasing Polak (1973:305): Human beings have the ability to dream bet- ter futures than we have yet succeeded in dreaming. We have the ability to create much better societies than we have yet suc- ceeded in creating.

Joe R. Feagin is Professor of Sociology at the University of Florida. His research interests con- cern the development and structure of institution- alized discrimination, oppression, and exploita- tion in contemporary societies, as well as related resistance struggles and movements. He is cur- rently working on research examining the racial views of white elites, the individual and social costs of racism, racial barriers in business sec-

^ For example, visualizing the path to a better future for the world's poor is not difficult. The 1997 Human Development Report of the United Nations indicated that for about 15 percent of the U.S. defense budget, or about $40 billion a year, the basic needs for health, nutrition, education, reproductive health, safe water, and sanitation could be met for the entire population of the planet. Another $40 billion would be enough to bring the poorest residents of the planet out of extreme poverty (Williamson 2000).

tors, and the character of the discrimination faced by women in U.S. society. His recent and forthcoming books include Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations (Routledge 2001); White Racism: The Basics (with Herndn Vera and Pinar Batur, 2d ed., Routledge 2001); and The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism (with Debra Van Ausdale, Rowman and Littlefield 2001}, anii Lib- eration Sociology (with Herndn Vera, Westview. forthcoming).

REFERENCES

Addams, Jane. 1902. Democracy and Social Eth- ics. New York: Macmillan.

Agger, Ben. 1989. Reading Science: A Literary, Political, and Sociological Analysis. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall.

Baca Zinn, Maxine and Bonnie Thornton Dill, eds. 1994. Women of Color in U.S. Society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Bannister, Roger C. 1992. "Principle, Politics, Profession: American Sociologists and Fas- cism." Pp. 172-213 in Sociology Responds to Fascism, edited by S. P. Turner and D. Kasler. London, England: Routledge.

Bell, Michael M. 1998. An Invitation to Environ- mental Sociology. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge.

Bell, Wendell. 1998. "Making People Respon- sible: The Possible, the Probable, and the Pref- erable." American Behavioral Scientist 42: 323-39.

Black. Timothy. 1999. "Going Public: How So- ciology Might Matter Again." Sociological In- quiry 69:251-15.

Block, Fred. 1990. Postindustrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Discourse. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Bressler, Marvin. 1999. ''Contemporary Sociol- ogy: A Quarter Century of Book Reviews." Sociological Forum 14:707-20.

Bryant, Christopher G. A. 1985. Positivism in Social Theory and Research. New York: St. Martin's.

Burawoy, Michael. 1998. "Critical Sociology: A Dialogue between Two Sciences." Contempo- rary Sociology 27:12-20.

Business Week. 1999. "Economic Growth: Hey, What About Us?" Business Week, December 27. Retrieved December 22, 1999 (http:// www.businessweek.com).

Cancian, Francesca M. 1995. "Truth and Good- ness: Does the Sociology of Inequality Pro- mote Social Betterment." Sociological Per- spectives 3%:2>39-56.

Collins, Chuck, Chris Hartman, and Holly Sklar. 1999. Divided Decade; Economic Disparity at the Century's Turn. Boston, MA: United for a

1 8 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

Fair Economy. Retrieved December 1999 (http://www.stw.org/my_html/Divided.html).

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. "On Book Exhibits and New Complexities: Reflections on Sociol- ogy as Science." Contemporary Sociology 27:7-11.

Cooper, Anna Julia. 1892. A Voice from the South by a Black Woman from the South. Xe- nia, OH: Aldine.

Cox, Oliver C. 1948. Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Deegan, Mary Jo. 1987. "An American Dream: The Historical Connections between Women, Humanism, and Sociology, 1890-1920," Hu- manity and Society 11:353-65.

—̂ . 1988. Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School 1892-1918. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Diamond, Jared. 1992. The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Ani- mal. New York: HarperCollins.

Dotzler, Robert J. and Ross Koppel. 1999. "What Sociologists Do and Where They Do It—The NSF Survey on Sociologists's Work Activities and Workplaces." Sociological Practice 1:71- 83.

Du Bois, W. E. B. 1968. The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century. New York: International Publishers.

. [1899] 1973. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Together with a Special Report on Domestic Service by Isabel Eaton. Reprint, Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson.

Durkheim, Emile. [1893] 1933. The Division of Labor in Society. Translated by G. Simpson. New York: Free Press.

Eitzen,D. Stanley, Maxine Baca Zinn, and Steven J. Gold. 1999. "Integrating Professional Social- ization and Training for Sociology Graduate Students." The American Sociologist 30:56-63.

Erikson, Kai. 1984. "Sociology and Contempo- rary Events." Pp. 303-10 in Conflict and Con- sensus: A Festscrift in Honor of Lewis A. Coser, edited by W. W. Powell and R. Robbins. New York: Free Press.

Fals-Borda, Orlando. 1960. Accion Comunal en Una Vereda Colombiana: Su Applicacion, Sus Resultados y Su Interpretacion (Communal Action in a Columbian Area: Its Application, Its Results, and Its Interpretation). Bogota, Co- lombia: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Departamento de Sociologia.

Feagin, Joe R. and Hernan Vera. Forthcoming. Liberation Sociology. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Friedrichs, Robert W. 1970. A Sociology of Soci- ology. New York: Free Press.

Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press.

Gans, Herbert J. 1989. "Sociology in America: The Discipline and the Public." American So- ciological Review 54:1-16.

George, Susan. 1999. "A Short History of Neo- Liberalism." Paper presented at the Confer- ence on Economic Sovereignty in a Globaliz- ing World, March 24, Bangkok, Thailand. Re- trieved December 21, 1999 (http://www. zmag.org).

Giddings, Franklin H. 1909. In discussion after L. L. Bernard's "The Teaching of Sociology in the United States." American Journal of So- ciology 15:195-211.

Groopman, Jerome. 1999. "Is There Life on Mars?" Boston Magazine. Retrieved December 12, 1999 (http://www.altemet.org/PublicArchive/ Groopman 1217.html).

Hawken, Paul and David Korten. 1999. "Corpo- rate Futures." Interview published in Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, Summer 1999. Retrieved December 12, 1999 (http://www. f u t u r e n e t . o r g / l O c i t i e s o f e x u b e r a n c e / corporatefutures).

Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. 1999. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Hill, Michael R. 1989. "Empiricism and Reason in Harriet Martineau's Sociology." Pp. xv-lx. Introduction to reprinted edition of How to Ob- serve Morals and Manners, by H. Martineau. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Hoecker-Drysdale, Susan. 1992. Harriet Martineau: First Woman Sociologist. Oxford, England: Berg.

Joy, Bill. 2000. "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us?" Wired, April. Retrieved April 2000 (http://www. wired.com:80/wired/archive/8.04/ joy.html).

Klein, Naomi 2000. No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bul- lies. New York: Picador.

Korten, David. 1999. The Post-Corporate World: Life after Capitalism. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers and Kumarian Press.

Kurzweil, Ray. 1999. Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. New York: Viking.

Ladner, Joyce A. [1973] 1998. "Introduction to the Black Classic Press Edition." In The Death of White Sociology: Essays on Race and Cul- ture, by J. A. Ladner. Reprint, Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press.

Lee, Alfred McClung. 1978. Sociology for Whom? New York: Oxford University Press.

Lemert, Charles and Esme Bhan, eds. 1998. The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Lengermann, Patricia Madoo and Jill Niebrugge-

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIOLOGY 1 9

Brantley. 1998. The Women Founders: Sociol- ogy and Social Theory, 1830-1930. New York: McGraw-Hill.

-. 2001. "The Meaning of ^Things': Theory and Method in Harriet Martineau's How to Observe Morals and Manners and Emile Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method.'' Pp. 212-37 in Harriet Martineau: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives, edited by M. R. Hill and S. Hoecker-Drysdale. New York: Garland.

Lovelock, James E. 1987. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth Oxford, England: Oxford Uni- versity Press.

Maclver, Robert M. [1944] 1957. "Foreword." Pp. ix-xxi in The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, by K. Polanyi. Boston, MA: Beacon.

Martineau, Harriet. 1837. Society in America. 3 vols. New York: Saunders and Otley.

Martineau, Harriet. [1838] 1989. How to Observe Morals and Manners. Reprint, New Bruns- wick, NJ: Transaction.

Marx, Karl. [1843] 1975. "Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks.''' 1843 letter to A. Ruge, pp. 206-209 in Early Writings [ofl Marx, introduced by L. Colletti, translated by R. Livingstone and G. Benton. London: Pen- guin Books.

Mills, C. Wright. 1958. The Causes of World War III. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Moore, Barrington. 1971. Reflections on the Causes of Human Misery, and upon Certain Proposals to Eliminate Them. Boston, MA: Beacon.

Murdock, Steve H. 1995. An America Chal- lenged: Population Change and the Future of the United States. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Myrdal, Gunnar. [1944] 1964. An American Di- lemma. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Nyden, Philip, Anne Figert, Mark Shibley, and Darryl Burrows. 1997. "Conclusion: Collabo- ration Gives Hope and Voice in an Age of Dis- illusionment." Pp. 2 4 0 ^ 2 in Building Commu- nity: Social Science in Action, edited by P. Nyden, A. Figert, M. Shibley, and D. Burrows. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.

Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. 2d ed. New York: Routledge.

Oxfam. 1999. "New Millennium—Two Futures." Oxfam Policy Papers. Retrieved December 30, 1999 (http://ww.oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers).

Park, Robert E. and Emest W. Burgess. 1921. In- troduction to the Science of Sociology. Chi- cago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Polak, Fred. 1973. The Image of the Future. Translated and abridged by E. Boulding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Polanyi, Karl. [1944] 1957. The Great Transfor- mation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon.

Ramonet, Ignacio. 1999. "The Year 2000." La Monte Diplomatique, December 15. Retrieved D e c e m b e r 1999 ( h t t p : / / w w w . m o n d e - diplomatique.fr/en/1999/12?c=0neader).

Raushenbush, Winifred. 1979. Robert E. Park: Biography of a Sociologist. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Residents of Hull-House. [1895] 1970. Hull- House Maps and Papers, by Residents of Hull- House, a Social Settlement. Reprint, New York: Amo.

Sachs, Jeffrey. 1999. "Apocalypse Soon." Bos- ton Magazine. Retrieved December 21, 1999 (http://www.alternet.org/PublicArchive/ Sachsl217.html).

Sahtouris, Elisabet. 1996. Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution. Alameda, CA: Metalog Books.

Sjoberg, Gideon. 1996. "The Human Rights Challenge to Communitarianism: Formal Or- ganizations and Race and Ethnicity." Pp. 273- 93 in Macro Socio-Economics: From Theory to Activism, edited by D. Sciulli. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Sjoberg, Gideon and Leonard D. Cain. 1971. "Negative Values, Countersystem Models, and the Analysis of Social Systems." Pp. 212-29 in Institutions and Social Exchange: The So- ciologies of Talcott Parsons and George C. Homans, edited by H. Turk and R. L. Simpson. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

Small, Albion. 1895. "The Era of Sociology." American Journal of Sociology 1:1-27.

Smith, Dorothy E. 1987. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.

Soros, George. 1998. "Toward a Global Open Society." Atlantic Monthly, January, pp. 20- 24, 32.

Stacey, Judith and Barrie Thome. 1996. "Is So- ciology Still Missing Its Feminist Revolu- tion?" Perspectives: The ASA Theory Section Newsletter 18:1-3.

Steinfels, Peter. The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics. New York: Touchstone.

Stoecker, Randy. 1996. "Sociology and Social Action: Introduction." Sociological Imagina- tion 33: 3-17.

Toward Freedom. 1999. "What a World! Ten Troubling Faces from the 1999 UN Develop- ment Report." Toward Freedom. Retrieved March 2, 2000 (http://www.undp.org/hdro/ 99.htm).

United Nations. 1997. Human Development Re- port. New York: Oxford University Press, for the United Nations Development Programme.

2 0 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

Vaughan, Ted R. 1993. "The Crisis in Contem- porary American Sociology: A Critique of the Discipline's Dominant Paradigm." Pp. 10-53 in A Critique of Contemporary American So- ciology, edited by T. R. Vaughan, G. Sjoberg, and L. T. Reynolds. New York: General Hall.

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 1895. A Red Record. Chi- cago, IL: Donohue and Henneberry.

Williamson, Thad. 2000. "Global Economic In-

equality." Dollars and Sense, January-Febru- ary 2000. Retrieved March 2000 (atwww.igc.org/ dollars/2000/0100econin.html).

Wilner, Patricia. 1985. "The Main Drift of Soci- ology between 1936 and 1984." Journal of the History of Sociology 5:1-20.

Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Poli- tics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

PAST PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

Lester F. Ward William G. Sumner

Franklin H. Giddings Albion W. Small Edward A. Ross

George E. Vincent George E. Howard Charles H. Cooley Frank W. Blackmar

James Q. Dealey Edward C. Hayes

James P. Lichtenberg Ulysses G. Weatherly Charles A. Ellwood

Robert E. Park John L. Gillin

William I. Thomas John M. Gillette

William F. Ogburn Howard W. Odum

Emory S. Bogardus Luther L. Bernard

Edward B. Reuter Ernest W. Burgess F. Stuart Chapin

Henry P. Fairchild Ellsworth Fans

Frank H. Hankins Edwin H. Sutherland Robert M. Maclver

Stuart A. Queen Dwight Sanderson

George A. Lundberg Rupert B. Vance Kimbal! Young Carl C. Taylor Louis Wirth

E. Franklin Frazier Talcott Parsons

Leonard S. Cottrell Jr. Robert C. Angell

Dorothy Swaine Thomas Samuel A. Stouffer Horian Znaniecki

Donald Young

Herbert Blumer Robert K. Merton

Robin M. Williams Jr. Kingsley Davis Howard Becker

Robert E. L. Faris Paul F. Lazarsfeld Everett C. Hughes George C. Homans

Pitirim Sorokin Wilbert E. Moore Charles P. Loomis Philip M. Hauser Arnold M. Rose Ralph H. Turner Reinhard Bendix

William H. Sewell William J. Goode

Mirra Komarovsky Peter M. Blau

Lewis A. Coser Alfred McClung Lee

J. Milton Yinger Amos H. Hawley

Hubert M. Blalock Jr. Peter H. Rossi

William Foote Whyte Erving Goffnnan Alice S. Rossi

James F. Short Jr. Kai T. Erikson

Matilda White Riley Melvin L. Kohn Herbert J. Gans

Joan Huber William Julius Wilson

Stanley Lieberson James S. Coleman

Seymour Martin Lipset William A. Garrison

Amitai Etzioni Maureen Hallinan

Neil J. Smelser Jill Quadagno

Alejandro Portes Joe R. Feagin