The Socialization of Desire.

WARD, Lester Frank, 1841-1913; SOCIAL scientists; BIOGRAPHIES; SOCIOLOGISTS; WELFARE state

This article presents the biography of Lester Frank Ward, a U.S. pioneer of systematic social research and a promoter of the authority of secular science. Given Ward's status as an early advocate for the welfare state, it takes on added significance from a present-day perspective, when a similar gap between plausible conceptions of individual motivation and the structural requirements of systemic reform seems to lie at the heart of what is most troubling, and most frequently criticized, about the modern welfare state. Ward distinguished between those elements of sociology that were passive, dealing with objective social-structural characteristics, and those that were active, taking into their purview directives conceived and initiated by the creative mental capabilities of the human being as subject. Ward thereby established a distinction between two sources of social change, or social dynamics.