At the start of his carrier American sociologist Alvin Gouldner (1920-1980) adopted the neo-functionalist approach of his mentor at Columbia University, Robert Merton, which emphasized medium-scale theories and empirically studying functionalist hypotheses. Gouldner applied a neofunctionalist approach in his research on strikes, bureaucracy, and power relations in industry.

In the early 1960s, Gouldner stopped studying industrial sociology and focused on social critique and the development of reflexive sociology. Reflexive sociology is based on the view that it is impossible to have value-neutral sociology, and that sociology should become self-aware of the impact it has on society. He presented his vision of reflexive sociology in the books Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of Value-Free Sociology (1964), The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (1970), For Sociology: Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today (1973), and The Two Marxisms (1980).

Gouldner pays a lot of attention to the shortcomings of other sociological directions, thus presenting a negative critique of functionalism and its approach toward social stratification. He believes that the functionalist approach toward stratification is based on the conservative view of society, which emphasizes order and stability and rejects the possibility of radical change in society. The functionalist approach refuses to accept that the social order, and the value consensus that sustains it, serve to preserve the dominant position of the ruling minority.

Gouldner criticizes both critical theory and Marxist sociology because they are not self-reflexive enough. These approaches advocate the view that social consciousness derives from class affiliation, and is placed in the position of oppressed classes, while, on the other hand, Marxist and critical sociologists generally have a privileged family and social background. In that sense, these theories do not provide an answer to the question of why the theorists themselves have accepted the social consciousness of the classes from which they do not come. He believes that Marxism and critical theory should be more reflexive in relation to their ontology, epistemology, and axiology.

Gouldner also criticizes the interactionist approach, and above all the labeling theory and deviance theory, because it provides an overly passive image of the deviant personality, as a person incapable of resisting the process of labeling. He believes that the interactionists are acting from liberal ideological positions and that they only want to introduce less repressive measures of social control while neglecting the study and reform of the fundamental features of social structure, which are the real cause of deviant behavior. Gouldner criticizes ethnomethodology for dealing with trivial things and for failing to see the existence of different definitions of reality that opposing groups in society have.

Author: Gouldner, Alvin.

Books:

Gouldner. Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of Value-Free Sociology (1964);

     -     Enter Plato (1967);

     -     The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (1970);

     -     For Sociology: Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today (1973);

     -     The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology (1976);

     -     The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class (1979)

     -     The Two Marxisms (1980).