ألڤن وارد گولدنر

ألڤن وارد گولدنر Alvin Ward Gouldner (عاش 29 يوليو1920 – 15 ديسمبر 1980) عالم اجتماع أمريكي، درّس فهم الاجتماع في كلية أنتيوك (1952-1954) وكان أستاذاً لفهم الاجتماع في جامعة واشنطن في سانت لويس (1957–1967^[])، وفي الجامعة في بفلو(1967–1972)، ورئيس جمعية دراسة المشاكل الاجتماعية (1962)، وأستاذ فهم الاجتماع في جامعة أمستردام (1972–1976) وأستاذ كرسي ماكس ڤبر لفهم الاجتماع في جامعة واشنطن (منذ 1967). وقد وُلِد في مدينة نيويورك.

أعماله المبكرة مثل Patterns in Industrial Bureaucracy يمكن النظر إليها كأعمال هامة إذ أنها تدور ضمن المجالات الموجودة بالعمل في فهم الاجتماع ولكنها استخدمت مبادئ فكرية نقدية. ويمكن رؤية ذلك بشكل أوضح في عمله الصادر عام 1964 بعنوان Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of Value Free Sociology، حيث زعم حتى فهم الاجتماع لا يمكن حتىقد يكون موضوعياً وأن ماكس ڤبر لم يقصد أبداً حتى يزعم ذلك.

ولعل أكثر ما يُذكر به هوكتابه الصادر في 1970 بعنوان الأزمة المقبلة لفهم الاجتماع الغربي The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. This work argued that sociology must turn away from producing objective truths and understand the subjective nature of sociology and knowledge in general and how it is bound up with the context of the times. This book was used by many schools of sociology as analysis of their own theory and methods. إلا حتى گولدنر لم يكن أوعالم اجتماع ينتقد الفهم الموضوعية للمجتمع؛ انظر، على سبيل المثال، الجدلية السلبية لأدورنو.

Subsequently, much of Gouldner's work was concerned with critiquing modern sociology and the nature of the intellectual. He argued that ideology often produced false premises and was used as a tool by a ruling elite and that, therefore, critical subjective thought is much more important than objective thought.

أهم أعماله

1954 Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy
1954 Wildcat Strike: A Study in Worker-Management Relationships
1964 Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of Value-Free Sociology
1967 Enter Plato
1970 The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology
- صدرت ترجمة عربية له من المشروع القومي للترجمة (مصر)، بعنوان الأزمة القادمة لفهم الاجتماع الغربي، ترجمة: علي ليلة، رقم الكتاب: 668
1976 The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology
1979 The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class
1980 The Two Marxisms [1]
1984 Against Fragmentation

أنماط البيروقراطية الصناعية (1954)

Gouldner lead an ethnographic study in a mine and identified there various patterns of bureaucracy and bureaucratization. He analyzed how, after the appointment of a new manager the bureaucratization process emerged. Gouldner identified three types of bureaucracy in his studies, with very specific patterns:

Mock bureaucracy: this type comes from outside agency and is implemented officially, but not in daily behaviors. Both management and workers agree in this case to act the same way. The rules are not enforced in this case, neither by management, nor by the workers. No conflict seem to emerge in this case. “Smoking” is in this case seen as inevitable. The no-smoking rule is an example of mock-bureaucracy.
Representative bureaucracy: both management and workers enforced this rule and it generated very few tensions. In this context, the focus was on the education of workers as management considered them as ignorant and careless regarding security rules. The safety program is an example of representative. Meetings happened regularly to implement this program and it was as well the occasion to voice some concerns for workers. For the management, this program was a way to tighten the control over workers.
Punishment-centered bureaucracy: this type of program was initiated by management and generated many tensions. Management viewed workers as deliberately willing to be absent. Therefore, punishment was installed in order to force the workers not to be absent. For example, the “no-absenteism” rule is an example of the punishment-centered bureaucracy.

افتراضات كخلفية

Referencing Gouldner, Michael Parenti said, "Our tendency to accept a datum or argument as true or not depends less on the content and substance of it, than it does on how congruent it is with the background assumptions we already have. But those background assumptions are of course established by the whole climate of opinion, the whole universe of communication that we are immersed in constantly here, which is why dissidents learn the discipline of fighting and developing their arguments from evidence, while those who work within the safe mainstream work a whole lifetime with unexamined assumptions and presumptions."