Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt

Moore argues that obedience and revolt are governed by an implicit 'social contract' between rulers and ruled—a moral code defining obligations regarding authority, the division of labor, and distributive justice. Injustice occurs when those in power violate this code. But violation alone does not produce revolt. Moral outrage must be articulated, group formation must occur, and individuals must possess some degree of moral autonomy—what one reviewer calls 'iron in the soul'—to resist conformity pressures . The causal chain runs from social conditions through moral outrage to resistance, with each link necessary but not sufficient .

Moore uses these three cases to explore the limits of human endurance and the psychological mechanisms of obedience. Indian Untouchables often internalized caste hierarchies rather than rejecting them. Concentration camp inmates sometimes identified with their captors. Most subjects in Milgram's experiments administered severe punishments on command. Together these cases demonstrate that moral conceptions adapt extensively to existing power relations, and that rebellion requires more than the mere perception of injustice—it demands the capacity to articulate grievance and resist conformity .

Moore devotes roughly one-third of the book to German workers from 1848 to 1920 because their history offers a sustained test of his theoretical framework. He shows that class consciousness among German proletarians was sectional rather than universal, oriented toward the past rather than the future, and conservative rather than revolutionary . Workers' vision of a good society was the existing order with its worst features softened—not a radical alternative. Minor reforms and trade union activity sustained this conservatism even after World War I discredited the monarchy and big business .

Social Origins (1966) is systematic and culminates in clear conclusions about agrarian class structures and political outcomes. Injustice (1978) is more heterogeneous, drawing on sociology, anthropology, psychology, and history, and it resists tidy conclusions. One retrospective notes that Injustice 'is rommeliger, heterogener, mondt niet uit in een heldere conclusie'—messier, more heterogeneous, without a clear conclusion—which partly explains why it never achieved its predecessor's fame . Both share Moore's ambition to ask large comparative questions, but Injustice trades theoretical closure for exploratory breadth.

In his provocative final discussion, Moore distinguishes contemporary societies by how they generate moral outrage. Market societies produce outrage through visible inequalities and perceived violations of fair exchange. Planned societies generate it through bureaucratic arbitrariness and unmet promises of equality. Both types of society, Moore suggests, have developed new elements that hinder revolt—consumerism, surveillance, or ideological saturation—making organized resistance harder even when injustice persists . This framework links his historical cases to the dilemmas of late twentieth-century politics.

Reviews were mixed. Kirkus called it 'bound to stir up serious debate both within the academy and without' while noting 'occasional lapses in rigor' compared to Social Origins . Foreign Affairs described it as 'an impressive historical study of the nature and limits of authority and the flashpoints of protest and revolt' . The book was reviewed in major journals including the British Journal of Sociology, Political Studies, and Political Science Quarterly, but never achieved the canonical status of Moore's earlier work .