The Politics of Crowds AnAlternativeHistoryof Sociology Whensociologyemergedasadisciplineinthelatenineteenthcentury, the problem of crowds constituted one of its key concerns. It was arguedthatcrowdsshookthefoundationsofsocietyandledindividuals intoallsortsofirrationalbehaviour.Yetcrowdswerenotjustsomething to be fought in the street; they also formed a battleground over how sociologyshouldbedemarcatedfromrelateddisciplines,mostnotably psychology.InThePoliticsofCrowds,ChristianBorchtracessociological debatesoncrowdsandmassesfromthebirthofsociologyuntiltoday, with a particular focus on the developments in France, Germany and theUSA.Thebookisarefreshingalternativehistoryofsociologyand modern society, observed through society’s other, the crowd. Borch showsthattheproblemofcrowdsisnotjustofhistoricalinterest:even todaythepoliticsofsociologyisintertwinedwiththepoliticsofcrowds. christian borch is Associate Professor at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.HisPh.D.wasonthehistoryofmoderncrimesemantics,in which he studied how notions of crime and criminals evolved in the twentiethcenturyandwhatresponseswereadoptedtodealwithcrime. InhismorerecentresearchBorchhasfocusedoncrowds,architecture and urban theory. He has published widely on these issues as well as on key social theorists such as Gabriel Tarde, Niklas Luhmann and Peter Sloterdijk. He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Distinktion: ScandinavianJournalofSocialTheory. The Politics of Crowds An Alternative History of Sociology Christian Borch cambridge university press Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown, Singapore,Sa˜oPaulo,Delhi,MexicoCity CambridgeUniversityPress TheEdinburghBuilding,CambridgeCB28RU,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaby CambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107009738 #ChristianBorch2012 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2012 PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Borch,Christian. Thepoliticsofcrowds:analternativehistoryofsociology/ChristianBorch. p. cm. ISBN978-1-107-00973-8(Hardback) 1. Crowds. 2. Crowds–History. I. Title. 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Contents Acknowledgements pagevi Introduction: the crowd problem 1 1 Setting the stage: crowdsand modern French society 23 2 Disciplinarystruggles:the crowdin early French sociology 48 3 Weimar developments: towardsadistinctivelysociological theoryof crowds 79 4 Liberalattitudes: crowdsemantics in the USA 124 5 From crowdto mass: problematizing classlesssociety 165 6 Reactions to totalitarianism:new fusions of sociological and psychological thinking 192 7 The culmination anddissolution of crowdsemantics 234 8 Postmodernconditions: the riseof the post-political masses 269 Epilogue: the politicsof crowds 298 References 304 Index 332 v Acknowledgements Just as the behaviourof crowdscannot be reduced tothe act of asingle person, so this book would not have come about without the generous helpandsupportofanumberofpeopleandinstitutions.Firstofall,the research behind the book was made possible by a four-year grant from the Carlsberg Foundation, one of the central bastionswhen it comes to ensuringbasicresearchinDenmark.ItrulyappreciatetheFoundation’s interestinandcommitmenttotheprojectwhichallowedmetoexcavate the more or less forgotten sociologicaltradition of crowdsandmasses. During the process of writing the book I have benefited from discus- sions with colleagues first at the Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, and subsequently at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Friends and colleagues from these and other departments who have followedandencouragedtheresearchincludeHenningBech,Margareta Bertilsson,OleHammerslev,UffeLind,FrederikThuesenandSe´bastien Tutenges. I am particularly grateful to Bjørn Schiermer Andersen and Marius Gudmand-Høyer for several stimulating reflections on the pro- ject.IalsooweaspecialthanksforongoingdiscussionsoncrowdstoUrs Sta¨heliwhointroducedmetothefieldofcrowdswhenIwasanexchange student at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, quite some years ago. Urs’originalworkcontinuestobearichsourceofinspiration. Someoftheideaspresentedinthisbookhavepreviouslybeenvented atlecturesandseminarsattheEuropean UniversityViadrinaFrankfurt (Oder), Goldsmiths, Oxford University, Stockholm University, the Technical University of Darmstadt, University of Basel, University of Copenhagen, University of Hamburg, University of Westminster and YaleUniversity.Iamgratefultothevariousaudiencesfor their valuable comments. IamhighlyindebtedtoTiinaArppeandCarl-Go¨ranHeidegrenwho read and commented on select chapters. Their thoughtful suggestions generated significant improvements of the argument. The same applies to two anonymous Cambridge University Press readers who offered vi Acknowledgements vii constructivecriticismandseveralextremelyvaluablesuggestions.Itgoes withoutsayingthatnoneofthesescholarsaretoblameforanyremaining shortcomings. I would also like to express my gratitude to Martin Barr for careful copy-editing. Last but certainly not least I owe the greatest thanks possible to my wifeSusanne forher persistentencouragementandincrediblepatience, year after year after year.The book is dedicated to her. The book draws on some of my previous articles on the history and analytical potentials of crowd theory. These articles include: ‘Urban Imitations: Tarde’s Sociology Revisited’, Theory, Culture & Society 22(3) (2005), 81–100; ‘The Exclusion of the Crowd: The Destiny of a Sociological Figure of the Irrational’, European Journal of Social Theory 9(1)(2006),83–102;‘CrowdsandPathos:TheodorGeigeronRevolu- tionaryAction’,ActaSociologica49(1)(2006),5–18;‘CrowdsandTotal Democracy: Hermann Broch’s Political Theory’, Distinktion: Scandi- navian Journal of Social Theory 13 (2006), 99–120; ‘Crowds and Economic Life: Bringing an Old Figure Back in’, Economy and Society 36(4)(2007),549–73;‘MarketCrowdsbetweenImitationandControl’, Theory, Culture & Society 24(7–8) (2007), 164–80 (co-authored with Jakob Arnoldi); ‘Modern Mass Aberration: Hermann Broch and the Problem of Irrationality’, History of the Human Sciences 21(2) (2008), 63–83;‘BodytoBody:OnthePoliticalAnatomyofCrowds’,Sociological Theory 27(3) (2009), 271–90; and ‘Between Destructiveness and Vitalism: Simmel’s Sociology of Crowds’, Conserveries me´morielles 8 (2010). While none of these articles reappear here in the form of separatebookchapters,someoftheideastheypresenthavebeenincorp- orated in discussions throughout the book. Since the present book also addssubstantialamountsofnewmaterial,thewholeismuchmorethan the sum of the above-mentioned parts. Introduction: the crowd problem Theapogee and disappearanceof a problem The famous German sociologist Georg Simmel is often counted as one ofthefoundingfathersofthesociologicaldiscipline.Hehasearnedthis honournotleastasaresultofhisoriginalconceptionofsociety,centred on notions such as sociation and reciprocal effects. But he has also achievedthenameofafoundingfatherbecausehepursuedhisdistinct- ive sociological programme in stimulating analyses of virtually every social phenomenon one might think of (money, fashion, cities, art, individualism,meals,pictureframes,etc.).Inthelightoftheextraordin- ary variety of topics he analysed, it is interesting to observe that, in his seminal 1917 essay entitled ‘Grundfragen der Soziologie’ [‘Fundamen- talProblemsofSociology’],Simmelassertedthat‘[i]tisoneofthemost revealing, purely sociological phenomena that the individual feels him- selfcarriedbythe“mood”ofthemass,asifbyanexternalforce’(1950a: 35, 1999e: 97–8). This observation echoed a widespread belief in the earlytwentiethcentury.Atthattimecrowdsandmassesformedacentral concern for a great number of sociologists, and this had been the case sincetheinceptionofcrowdpsychologyinthe1890s.Indeed,countless workinghourswerepouredintotheattempttounderstandthephenom- enon of crowds and to arrive at still more refined conceptualizations of these collective eruptions. The importance attributed to the phenomenon of crowds by Simmel and his contemporary colleagues is striking when compared to the neglect which has surrounded the crowd in sociological thinking since the1970s.Togivearoughideaoftherathermarginalroleplayedbythe crowd today, one might look to the work of grand sociologists such as PierreBourdieu,Ju¨rgenHabermasorNiklasLuhmann,threesignificant figuresinthesociologicallandscapesincethelate1960s.Despitethefact that each of these prominent scholars was born around 1930, and therefore experienced the Second World War and its mass hysterias as adolescents, and even if each of these social scientists has scrutinized 1