TITLE: Left-Weberian Critical Sociology as Ideology

~·1 uch of contemporary Ang10-I\meri:can radical social criticism, although paying intellectual homage to the work of Karl Marx, is firmly rooted in the modern liberal ideological tradition- corporate liberalism-that began to evolve with the development of mo nopoly capitalism. Left-Weberian critical sociology, represented in this thesis by the work of C. Wright Mills, Alvin \11. Gou1dner and Thomas B. Bottomore, is one form of Anglo-American social criticism, and is the focus of study for this work. It is contended that 1eft-We berian social criticism is a corporate liberal mo ral reaction to the absurdities and excesses of monopoly capi-talism. Theorists of this school of radical thought ack nowledge that liberal democracy is more or less a sham, that individuals lack the power of decision-making because their lives are dom inated by huge rationalized social structures. They, as intellectuals who believe that ideas matter and should be instrumental in creating a rational, democratic society, are outraged to find thems1eves "on the outside looking in"; they are ineffec-tual and politically impotent. Howeve~mora1 outrage is not sufficient to transcend the limitations of their epistemological and social bases. They firmly reject the apparent reality of corporate capitalism, yet, can-not go beyond it in thought because their radicalism depends not only on an actual adherence to corporate liberalism, but also on the social posi-tion of the intell ectual within corporate capitalist society. That is to say, their radicalism depends on an ulti mate acceptance of bourgeois soci-ety. It is in this sense that 1eft-\-Jeberian critical sociology is a form of bourgeois ideology, even though not sanctioning the power of the ruling c.lass per se. ii