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The purpose of this paper is to explore the usefulness of Weber's city typology in relation to the Russian urban experience and to attempt to locate the Russian city within Weber's celebrated Oriental-Occidental dichotomy. The failure of various intellectual and revolutionary groups before and in 1917 to liberalize a traditionalistic societal system is correlated to the absence of a middle class in the Russian cultural context. Kiev, Novgorod, and Pskov existed long before the Mongol conquest of Russia in the thirteenth century and were exposed to certain Western influences due to the political connections with the neighboring Western countries. Unknown before the Mongols arrived, Moskva "still in the nineteenth century before the liberation of the peasants from slavery retained all the characteristics of a great Oriental city of about the time of Diocletian of the second century A.D." In addition to being the seat of the patrimonial ruler, Moskva was a "locality where rents from possessions in land and slaves as well as income from office holding were spent." Elsewhere Weber said that the cities in Russia "never arrived at freedom in the Western sense. Everywhere the military, judicial, and industrial authority was taken from the cities." This act of taking away autonomous-autocephalous authority is probably Weber's reference to the total destruction of Novgorod and Pskov by the Russian rulers as soon as they emerged from the shadow of Mongol dependence as well as to the Russian colonial conquest of the non-Russian cities and countries in the more recent centuries including the twentieth. Seven major characteristics basic to Weber's Oriental vs. Occidental typology of urban behavior, as tentatively modified in view of the needs and the contribution of recent research, will be utilized in examining the Russian experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the factors that contribute to the concept of privilege and poverty in developed and underdeveloped countries. The increasing rate of population, income comparisons, broadening of the welfare gap, people's attitudes and their behavior were considered elemental basis that accounted for the country's development. Moreover, income, race, culture and geography were also observed as components that determine the poor class of the society and underdeveloped countries from the middle class and developed countries.

The article attempts to analyze one particular aspect of the Marxian analysis of the liberal democratic state and to explain the main reasons why Karl Marx and Frederick Engels adopted a positive attitude toward this form of government. It defines the term petty bourgeoisie and democracy, and locates democracy's place on the historical continuum. Finally, it surveys the interpretations of the Marxist conception of the role of the petty bourgeoisie.

Marxism is still the main ideological issue nowadays. The past few decades witnessed a growing interest for scientific research in the Social Sciences and its institutionalization as a legitimate field of academic inquiry in several Western countries. These very decades also witnessed the transformation of Marxism from a sociological and economic theory into the official ideology in several countries and into the prevalent socioeconomic doctrine in certain academic subcultures in Western countries as well. As a result of circumstances over which social scientists have limited or no control, the controversy about Marxism went from theoretical and academic grounds to political and ideological ones. Ironically, this transition took place when the Social Sciences first began to develop instruments and coherent theoretical frameworks capable of settling the dispute on academic terms. Many Western social scientists unconsciously played an important ideological role by taking Marxism as a scientific theory. The scientific analysis of Marxism had negative consequences for Marxism itself. Several specific Marxist predictions, as the ones dealing with increasing misery, the proletarization of the middle classes, the end of social mobility and the growing revolutionary activities as consequences of industrialization under capitalism, all were mercilessly turned down by subsequent historical events and modern Social Science.

This article presents a study to examine different attitudes toward learning and education between grammar school pupils who come from middle-class, and those who come from working-class homes. The results of the investigation indicate that working-class boys do not have educational aspirations quite so high and do not take their schoolwork quite so seriously as do middle-class boys, even if both groups of boys have equally high intelligence and an equally good school background. These differences are, however, rather small, with the exception of the one which has to do with the age at which the boys want to leave school. There seem to be greater differences between the social class groups regarding matters of education which are not directly related to school. The data indicate that boys who come from working-class homes did not so frequently develop a taste for books and good music, as did boys who come from middle-class homes. The results confirm that working-class children are not as interested in reading as are middle-class children. They also confirm that working-class children are not as willing as are middle-class children to spend the years of their youth in school in order to gain higher prestige and more social rewards as adults.

Menaced by a reactionary nationalism on the one hand and an inverted despotism of the masses on the other, the historic liberal temper seems today almost a thing of the past. Yet the scientific spirit is, like the liberal spirit, rational, curious, tolerant, adaptable, and loyal to truth, and if the newer social sciences, which have turned from things to man himself, could join forces with the older political tradition, they might bring about a striking revival of orderly progress. The elective system, with its specialization, has had certain bad effects on scientists, men of affairs, students, and teachers. High and unbalanced living standards are as deadly, though not so painful, to the human race as famines. Population tends to decrease as the scale of living rises. The plight of the genteel in the course of a quiet social revolution which is threatening the very existence of the middle classes has been the theme of several recent laments. Authority is of two sorts, expert and traditional, both of which mediate between the truth and the people. Today both kinds, assumed to be incompatible with democracy or freedom, have sadly fallen from their old estate.