The conquest of society; by Snell Putney

He also maintains that revolutionary change is never consciously produced. He explains this entire process as largely functioning through the production of false consciousness so that people who manage the system are made to believe that the interest of the system is congruent with their own personal interest and those managed by the system are overwhelmed into apathy and resignation or convinced with the rhetoric of fear and patriotism. Putney thus suggests that the most important thing to be done is to loosen the social systems and restrain them so that they are subordinated to the needs of the masses instead of having the masses subordinated by the desires of the system.

This process eventually produces a structure that exists and proliferates at the expense of human needs rather than serving them. Thus, the military system or the political system begins to become an end in itself leading to increased bureaucracy and ossification. The basic argument of the book, however, is that the problems that we face in society are largely the product of the systems we have produced overtaking the individuals it contains. The book is very accessible and covers a wide range of topics ranging from the university system structure to the productive use of indolence in social planning. Another astute sociological analysis from Snell Putney.

The conquest of society; by Snell Putney