Occupation and Ideology

The Case of the Small Businessman

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2497775
AutoresDavid Rogers (0000-0002-5187-1768, Columbia University), Eiki Berg (0000-0002-9845-892X, Columbia University), E Ivar Berg (Columbia University)
Año1961
Volumen20
Número3
Páginas103-111
Fecha de publicación1961-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHuman Organization (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-7259 • E-ISSN: 1938-3517
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.17730/humo.20.3.5126514507322540
OpenAlexW2021065098
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4

Political theorists since Aristotle have viewed the middle classes as a source of social stability. In recent times some writers have pointed to a decline in the opportunities for small businessmen, one of the core groups of the old middle classes. The argument has been that as opportunities decline, the tendency of small businessmen is to harbor fundamentalist wishes to return to a less complicated economic system and to experience a disenchantment with democratic institutions. In this paper we review and criticize several approaches to the study of the consequences of changes in the opportunities for small businessmen. We reconceptualize opportunity in such a way that satisfactions in some areas of the work experience of entrepreneurs are seen as compensating for dissatisfactions in others. The result is that some small businessmen accommodate to the status quo. Selected results of a preliminary study are reported. We then suggest some of the implications of this accommodation for the functioning of a democratic society

Accommodation · Argument (complex analysis) · Democracy · Development economics · Disenchantment · Disengagement theory · Economics · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Status quo · Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism · Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences · Law · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychology