Social origins of dictatorship and democracy : lord and peasant in the making of the modern world
- Boston : Beacon Press, 1993
- xxv, 559 p. ; 21 cm.
- Beacon paperback ; no. 268. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy is a comparative survey of some of what Moore considers the major/most indicative world economies as they evolved out of pre-modern political systems into industrialism. As the title suggests, Moore is not ultimately concerned with explaining economic development so much as exploring why modes of development produced different political forms that managed the transition to industrialism and modernization. Why did one society modernize into a "relatively free," democratic society (by which Moore means England) while others metamorphosed into fascist or communist states? His core thesis is that in each country, the relationship between the landlord class and the peasants was a primary influence on the ultimate form of government the society arrived at upon arrival in its modern age.
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Absolutism Social history Anticapitalism Economic history Politics and government Dictatorship Bourgeoisie Bureaucracy Capitalism Caste system Classes Conservatism Democracy,Parliamentary England, Germany Feudalism, modernization Germany Marker Radicalism Slavery, American Plantation Zamindar Imperial China Fascism