Shifting Involvements [antikvár]

PREFACEI am not sure that this book quahfies as a work of social science. It is so directly concerned with change and upheaval, both individual and social, that at times I had the feeling that I was writing the conceptual outUne of a Bildungsroman (with, as always in novels, a number of autobiographical touches mixed in here and there).This blurring of genres does not bother me, but it exacts a price. I have tried to make the various turns and transitions, which stand in the center of the essay, as compelling as possible. But they admittedly fall short of carrying the conviction and of achieving the generality which social science likes to claim for its propositions. Then again, as many of these claims have proven excessive, perhaps I need not worry.In any event, the venture does not wholly depend on the success of my overall scheme. The journey which I undertook permitted a number of elaborate side trips which yielded, among many other observations, a critique of conventional consumption theory, a better understanding of collective action, and a new interpretation of the universal suffrage. As I came upon such byproducts, my confidence grew that the whole venture was justified, if only for its apparent heuristic value.The invitation, in 1978, to give the Eliot Janeway Lectures in Historical Economics at Princeton University provided the initial impulse to write the present essay. One of the purposes of these lectures, which I gave in December 1979 under the title "Private and Public Happiness: Pursuits and Disappointments," is to honor the memory and intellectual heritage of Joseph Schumpeter. I believe that my inquiry into some of the discontents characteristic of our economic, social, and pohti-cal order can claim to be in the Schumpeterian tradition.Early, partial drafts of the essay were intensively discussed in seminars at the Institute for Advanced Study, at Stanford