ABSTRACT
The literature produced by the human relations school of industrial sociology can be treated largely as a tissue of 'higher justifications' for the established pattern of power and authority relations in industry, and for a programme of applying social science to foster harmonic cooperation. Sociological diagnosis can imply several relatively distinct activities. Diagnostic service can be rendered by deliberately choosing to examine whatever problems have become of interest to some 'client', in preference to others that are of greater scientific interest. To establish the reality of any widespread diagnostic service it is indispensable to show that the treatment of issues as well as their selection has widely proceeded in a way that would be of value to powerful groups. In radical sociology and vulgar marxism, the notion of ideology is defined largely in terms of the kind of justifications which are offered for particular social practices or power relations.
