Witness of drowning elites

With Richard Lahman, an American sociologist, a specialist in the field of comparative historical sociology, a professor at the University of New York in Olbani , was talked by Evgeny Matyash, a graduateist historian of the University of Nanjing (China).

- Dear Professor Lahman, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.

In Russia this year, the translation of your new book “What is historical sociology?” Was published, but here (yes, however, in America, as far as I know), you are still unknown as a scientist of the general public. Of course, you can repeat the words of the great Russian poet Valery Bryusov and say: “If you do not talk about the“ novels ”of my life, my biography merges with the bibliography of my books,” but we are not looking for simple paths and would like to familiarize readers with both.

Tell us a little about yourself: where and when you were born, what did your parents do, do you have brothers and sisters?

-I was born on May 17, 1956 in New York. My father and mother were German Jews who emigrated from Nazi Germany. Each of them was killed by the Nazis, so I grew up with the understanding of what Nazism is, and highly appreciated American democracy. My father Karl Eduard Lahman was an employee of the United Nations, mother, Lotta Bekker-Lamman, taught French in college. I have a brother who worked in the American Congress (now he is retired), and her sister, she was an architect, is now seriously ill.

- Tell us a little about your education.

-I attended the UN International School in New York, becoming one of the first graduates in the world who received the degree of international undergraduate. Later he received a master's degree at Princeton University and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard, in both universities I studied historical sociology.

Richard Lahman is a university professor in Albani, a specialist in comparative historical sociology. The author of works on the history of the rise and decline of elites in medieval Europe and modern USA. In 2003, his book “Capitalists involuntarily” received a reward for an outstanding scientific research from the American sociological association. In 2010, the book "Capitalists involuntarily" was translated into Russian. In 2016, the Russian edition of the book "What is historical sociology?"

- From your biography [added to the Russian translation of the book "What is historical sociology?" As a preface] we know that you decided to study sociology in Princeton to understand what is happening in the world, and answer the question: “Where are the guillotics?” After receipt, you yourself took part in various political actions. Do not you think that American foreign policy has not changed much since your youth, but student activity is not comparable with the level of the 1960-1970s?

- American foreign policy has not undergone changes from the very end of the Second World War. America is the world hegemon, and all its actions in the world arena are subordinated to one goal - to strengthen their economic and political force. During the years of the Vietnamese War, students actively opposed American imperialism, but in the future the Americans ceased to be interested in what their government around the world creates there. The activity of students flowed into a different direction, they began to worry completely different problems - the rights of women, homosexual marriages, emigrant rights, etc. Recently, more and more speak of inequality in the United States. The whole war in Iraq was brought to the question of how to reduce American losses. Almost no one spoke, and what, in fact, is doing the American government with Iraqis and Afghans.

- Let's talk about scientists whose work had influenced you, including Marx and Weber, of course. Your article “Class Formation without a Class Wrestling” was published in 1990 in the magazine American Sociological Review, which shortly before this was published on the theory of Elite Michael Burton, John Hilly and Paul Cammack. Was the theory of elites popular at that time and can it be said that this scientific mainstream determined the direction of your search?

-In the 1970s, the influence of Marxism in American universities was very limited, but it had a certain influence on me. Actually, the very problem of the genesis of capitalism was asked by the work of scientists-marxists. Interest in the theory of elites appeared thanks to Weber. It seemed to me extremely important for understanding the essence of feudal conflicts that his assertion was that several elites existed in the feudal society (although he did not use this term): the clergy, magnates and the king. I highlight them in my work after Weber. What I fundamentally disagree with Weber was that he considered feudalism as a “chronic state”, from which Europe could not have come out without ideologically psychological shock, which the Reformation became. I completely disagree with this approach. Like most historians, I believe that this theory is not confirmed by empirical material. The Reformation was important for a different reason: it launched a chain of events, as a result of which two of the above elites were replaced by two: Crown and Gentry, and the latter completely changed production relations towards capitalism, but not in order to increase income, but to protect Genti from the claims of the crown.

Another scientist who had a great influence on me was Charles Wright Mills. So he everywhere used the term "elite". Mills wrote about how the number of elites and their relationship at different times influenced the course of American history. I read the works of Hilliel and Cammek after I developed my own theory. Actually, for the first time I learned about Cammeck after I saw his article in the same issue with his own.

- When reading the “capitalists”, I did not leave the feeling that Lawrence Stone’s work on the history of the elevation of Gentry also had a considerable influence on you. He held the post of professor of history in Princeton since 1963. Have you happened to be a friend with him personally?

- Yes, he taught in Princeton when I was a student, and advised me when writing a thesis. His work “The decline of the aristocracy” greatly helped me, although I much more often turned to the works of Christopher Hill and Eric Hobsbaum.

- In her review of the “capitalists”, Rosemary L. Hopcroft wrote: “Lahman does not fully explain why the British gentlemen did not, following the example of the Florentine and Dutch merchants, who insured their privileges with the help of the state, after the consolidation of their positions. Instead, they continued to produce a surplus product, which resulted in a industrial revolution. ” After reading the book, I wanted to ask the same question: why did Gentry become the capitalists, not the Rantier?

- The reason was political. The English gentlemen could not become a Rantier, because this would allow the displaced elites, in particular the clergy, after some time to make claims to the possession of the lands that were previously church ones. I say, in particular, in the sixth chapter of the “capitalists are involuntarily,” that Gentry became the capitalists not because they thought it was profitable than receiving rent. In fact, they believed that, managing commercial farms, they would lose income (this happened at first), they just realized that it was necessary to protect themselves politically. I think that Hopcroft misinterpreted my book, perhaps because it considers this period from its position, and it is a supporter of environmental and demographic determinism.

- Colin Mounds in his book “Creation of Bourgeois Europe” claims that the political regimes formed as a result of revolutions in France and Germany, in essence, retained the pre -capitalist nature (“old regimes” with the extraction of rents, the sale of official posts, etc.). Provided to themselves, these state structures would continue to reproduce themselves endlessly. But in England, Gentry, young capitalists, managed to get places in parliament and limit the king’s power. Thus, only the revolution in England can rightfully be considered bourgeois. What is your opinion on this?

- Different classes were involved in all these revolutions. Of course, the bourgeoisie played a more important role in England than in France, not to mention Germany. Nevertheless, those classes that performed the revolution did not at all determine the changes after the revolution. Most likely, the final result was the result of a chain of random events and structural changes. I believe that the elites and relations between them played a much more important role in this chain than classes.

-You begin your book “Capitalists” in the words: “Something happened in Western Europe in the XV-XVIII centuries.” Can we paraphrase and say: “Something happened in the United States in the 1970s”? Is it possible to find the starting point of the decline of America, like the one that the reformation has become for the decline of feudalism in the Middle Ages?

-I do not think that the decline of the United States was caused by one event, like the reformation violated the stable system of relations between elites in the Middle Ages. The defeat of the United States in Vietnam, the oil shocks of the 1970s, the financial collapse of 2008-all this accelerated the fall, but the main reason, in my opinion, was the long-term consolidation of elites within the United States. Having united among themselves, the elites gained unprecedented control over state bodies and state and private resources. They use this force to prevent any encroachment on their position, along with this, blocking the initiatives and actions that the US could allow the steps necessary to maintain its hegemony. So, for example, they achieved for themselves taxes by restricting investment in infrastructure, education and scientific research, while the military spend a huge part of the budget on expensive weapons, which is useless with the form of wars that the United States wages. Oil companies block the steps necessary to limit global warming, etc.

- In recent years, scientists are increasingly talking about the “fragmentation of knowledge” - a situation where there is a deepening of each individual branch of knowledge, but at the same time they practically do not intersect. Thus, when studying history, scientists of Canada and China or Russia and the USA do not have common topics for discussion. I think that your last book is extremely valuable in this regard: it not only gives an excellent review of historiography, but also indicates those issues that can be of the same interest for historians and sociologists from different countries. Do you have similar sensations? What do you think about the current situation in history and sociology?

- In the USA there is a real gap between historians and sociologists. They represent their tasks in different ways, and historians do not use theories that sociologists develop. They only argue with each other. This is very depressing, because the vast majority of sociologists in the United States are limited to studying the present and is unable to attract material from other countries to study, with the exception of US satellites. If we want to completely comprehend current changes, then we need to consider problems in the historical perspective, analyze similar processes in other countries of the world.

- Can historical sociology predict the future? Do you think the story is repeated?

- No, it does not predict the future, but it gives us an understanding of the factors with which we can predict the future. In the last chapter of the book “State and Power”, I try to predict the future of states, in my other article I try to show how global warming will affect the states. The future, predicted by me, is extremely different from everything that took place in the past. History is not repeated, but, relying on my own studies of elites, I consider it possible to predict a possible scenario.

- What projects are you currently working on?

- I work on two projects. I am writing a book called “VIP passengers of the drowning liner: the privileges of elites and the decline of the great powers, 1492-2015”, in which I consider the decline of the military and economic hegemones on the material of Europe of the New Age and modern United States. In another book, I will explore the lighting of the media of the death of the military in the United States and Israel from the 1960s to the present.

- Thanks for the interview.