Robert Michels

For the American physician, see Robert Michels (physician)

Robert Michels (9 January 1876, Cologne, Germany — 3 May 1936, Rome, Italy) was a German sociologist who wrote on the political behavior of intellectual elites. He is best known for his book Political Parties, which contains a description of the "iron law of oligarchy." He was a student of Max Weber and moved from the Socialist Party to become one of the Italian Fascists.

He moved to Italy where he became a revolutionary syndicalist.

Biography

Michels studied in England, in Paris (at the Sorbonne), and at universities in Munich, Leipzig (1897), Halle (1898), and Turin. He became a Socialist while teaching at the University of Marburg, and became active with the radical wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany; he left the party in 1907. At the University of Turin, he taught economics, political science, and sociology. In 1914, he became the professor of economics at the University of Basel; where he taught until 1926. His last years were spent in Italy teaching economics and the history of doctrines at the University of Perugia.

Writings of Michels

• Syndicalisme & socialisme ... (1908)
• Proletariato e la borghesia nel movimento socialista italiano (1908; 1975)
• Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie. Untersuchungen über die oligarchischen Tendenzen des Gruppenlebens (1911, 1925; 1970). Translated, as Sociologia del partito politico nella democrazia moderna : studi sulle tendenze oligarchiche degli aggregati politici, from the German original by Dr. Alfredo Polledro, revised and expanded (1912). Translated, from the Italian, by Eden and Cedar Paul as Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (Hearst's International Library Co., 1915; Free Press, 1949; Dover Publications, 1959); republished with an introduction by Seymour Martin Lipset (Crowell-Collier, 1962; Transaction Publishers, 1999, ISBN 0765804697)
• Grenzen der Geschlechtsmoral. Italian translation, Morale sessuale; versione dal tedesco del dott revised and expanded by Alfredo Polledro (Fratelli Bocca, 19-?). Translated as Sexual Ethics: A Study of Borderland Questions (Walter Scott, George Allen & Unwin, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914); republished with a new introduction by Terry R. Kandal (Transaction Publishers, 2001-2, ISBN 0765807432)
• Probleme der Sozialphilosophie (1914)
• Imperialismo italiano, studi politico-demografici (1914)
• Amour et chasteté; essais sociologiques (1914)
• Organizzazione del commercio estero (1925)
• Sozialismus und fascismus in Italien (1925)
• Storia critica del movimento socialista italiano : dagli inizi fino al 1911 (La Voce, 1926)
• Corso di sociologia politica (1927). Translated, and introduced by Alfred de Grazia, as First lectures in political sociology (University of Minnesota Press, 1949; Arno Press, 1974, ISBN 0405055153)
• Sittlichkeit in ziffern? Kritik der moralstatistik (1928)
• Patriotismus, prolegomena zu seiner soziologischen analyse (1929)
• Einfluss der faschistischen Arbeitsverfassung auf die Weltwirtschaft (1929)
• Italien von heute ; politische und wirtschaftliche Kulturgeschichte von 1860 bis 1930 (1930)
• Introduzione alla storia delle dottrine economiche e politiche (1932)
• Boicottaggio, saggio su un aspetto delle crisi (1934)
• Boycottage international (1936)
• Verelendungstheorie; Studien und Untersuchungen zur internationalen Dogmengeschichte der Volkswirtschaft, witha foreword by Heinz Maus (1970)
• Elite e/o democrazia (G. Volpe, 1972)
• Antologia di scritti sociologici; edited by Giordano Sivini (1980)
• Works on paper, 1918-1930 (Barbara Mathes Gallery, 1984)
• Critique du socialisme : contribution aux débats du début du XXè siècle; articles selected and presented by Pierre Cours-Salies and Jean-Marie Vincent (Editions Kimé, 1992, ISBN 2908212439)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• "Robert Michels And the "Iron Law of Oligarchy"," chapter 12 of Revolution and Counterrevolution: Change and Persistence in Social Structures by Seymour Lipset Martin
• Entwicklung zum faschistischen Führerstaat in der politischen philosophie von Robert Michels by Frank Pfetsch (1965)
• Robert Michels; vom sozialistisch-syndikalistischen zum faschistischen Credo by Wilfried Röhrich (Duncker & Humblot, 1971, ISBN 3428026101).
• Organizzazione, partito, classe, politica e legge ferrea dell'oligarchia in Roberto Michels by Giorgio Sola (1972)
• Sociology and estrangement: three sociologists of Imperial Germany by Arthur Mitzman (Knopf, 1973, ISBN 0394446046). Republished with a new introduction by the author (Transaction Books, 1987, ISBN 0887386059).
• The anti-democratic sources of elite theory : Pareto, Mosca, Michels by Robert A. Nye (SAGE, 1977, ISBN 0803998724).
• Dilemmi della democrazia moderna : Max Weber e Robert Michels by Francesco Tuccari (Laterza, 1993, ISBN 8842042439)
• Intelectuales, masas y élites : una introducción a Mosca, Pareto y Michels by María de los Angeles Yannuzzi (UNR Editora, 1993, ISBN 9506730415).
• Robert Michels : die Herausbildung der modernen politischen Soziologie im Kontext von Herausforderung und Defizit der Arbeiterbewegung by Joachim Hetscher (1993)
• Robert Michels und das eherne Gesetz der Oligarchie by Gustav Wagner in "Wer wählt, hat seine Stimme abegeben" Graswurzel Revolution pp. 28

External links

• Biography of Robert Michels at BookRags.com
• Robert Michels index, a site featuring a PDF of Political Parties.
• Robert Michels - Oligarchy taken from Oscar Grusky and George A. Miller, The Sociology of Organizations: Basic Studies (Free Press, 1970, pp. 25-43). Reprints from Political Parties.
• Books and Articles on: Robert Michels at Questia.

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