Sociology ETDs

Publication Date

12-5-1973

Abstract

The advance of industrialization and the process of modernization in all countries produced significant shifts in the distribution of wealth and massively affected existing relations of power. The transition from the pre-industrial to the modern world is examined in Germany in an effort, to explore the causal factors which facilitated the rise of a fascist political system in Germany, while democratic and communistic political systems resulted in other countries. Barrington Moore's theory of the coalition of economic interests that forms as a result of the inherited social structure remaining from feudal organizations is utilized to explain the rise of the fascist coalition--the coalition of landed aristocratic and big industrialist interests. Alexander Gerschenkron's analysis of the differences that the timing of the industrialization process had for the developing economy is utilized to examine the relatively narrow boundaries set by the process of late industrialization for the political organization that evolves. Of special interest is the analysis of the National Socialist regime as Germany's social revolution comparable in certain respects to the French Revolution in 1789. By dissolving the traditional bonds that hindered his totalitarianism, Hitler at once removed the barriers that had obstructed the development of an effective liberal movement.

Degree Name

Sociology

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Sociology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Gilbert Wilson Merkx

Second Committee Member

Charles E. Woodhouse

Third Committee Member

Harold Charles Meier

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

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