Critical analysis of Robert Michels' Political Parties in the context of social pedagogy

Abstract

Robert Michels is being considered disappointed socialist who, under the influence of elitism, rejected de-mocracy and moved to a fascist camp (Roth, 1963). In the Polish scientific discourse quite stereotypically Michels has been regarded only as one of continuators of Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca, unambig-uously associated as “the one from the Iron Law of Oligarchy”. Little-known is a fact, that in United States Michels’ contribution to sociology of organisation was appreciated. By American scholars Michels is re-garded as the discoverer of goals-displacement phenomenon, an excellent researcher (“sociologist by vir-tue of his temperament”) endowed with cognitive passion and sociological imagination. The aim of the article is to show Michels as a social pedagogue, who all the time consequently was coming back in his different works to the goals-displacement phenomenon in social movements, following its degeneration. This phe-nomenon consists among the others in metamorphosis of the socialist leaders emancipating themselves from the masses. With reference to the title of this article it is worth mentioning that even in Michels’ opus magnum – Political Parties – there are passages correspondent with his educational aspirations towards political leaders and the masses.