Page 244 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 11: Theories of Social Change

Various theoretical schools emphasize different aspects of change. Marxist theory suggests that changes Notes
in modes of production can lead to changes in class systems, which can prompt other new forms of
change or incite class conflict. A different view is conflict theory, which operates on a broad base that
includes all institutions. The focus is not only on the purely divisive aspects of conflict, because
conflict, while inevitable, also brings about changes that promote social integration. Taking yet another
approach, structural-functional theory emphasizes the integrating forces in society that ultimately
minimize instability.
Social change can evolve from a number of different sources, including contact with other societies
(diffusion), changes in the ecosystem (which can cause the loss of natural resources or widespread
disease), technological change (epitomized by the Industrial Revolution, which created a new social
group, the urban proletariat), and population growth and other demographic variables. Social change
is also spurred by ideological, economic, and political movements.

The changing social order

Social change in the broadest sense is any change in social relations. Viewed this way, social change
is an ever-present phenomenon in any society. A distinction is sometimes made then between processes
of change within the social structure, which serve in part to maintain the structure, and processes
that modify the structure (societal change).
The specific meaning of social change depends first on the social entity considered. Changes in a
small group may be important on the level of that group itself but negligible on the level of the larger
society. Similarly, the observation of social change depends on the time span studied; most short-
term changes are negligible when examined in the long run. Small-scale and short-term changes are
characteristic of human societies, because customs and norms change, new techniques and technologies
are invented, environmental changes spur new adaptations, and conflicts result in redistributions of
power.
This universal human potential for social change has a biological basis. It is rooted in the flexibility
and adaptability of the human species—the near absence of biologically fixed action patterns (instincts)
on the one hand and the enormous capacity for learning, symbolizing, and creating on the other
hand. The human constitution makes possible changes that are not biologically (that is to say,
genetically) determined. Social change, in other words, is possible only by virtue of biological
characteristics of the human species, but the nature of the actual changes cannot be reduced to these
species traits.
11.1 Evolutionary Theories

Evolutionary theories of social change are conglomeration of many but interrelated theories of change.
The main notion of the evolutionary theory of change is that there is a consistent direction of social
change of all societies in a similar sequence of stages from the original to the final stage of development,
or from a simple and ‘primitive’ to the more complex and advanced state. Evolutionary theory also
implies that evolutionary change will culminate at reaching the final stage of development.
Evolutionary theorists consider change as progress and growth. The theory can be classified into two
main categories- (a) Classical evolutionary theories (b) Neo-evolutionary theories.
1. Classical Evolutionary Theories
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The classical evolutionary theories have been developed by the 19 century anthropologists and
sociologists. Although, approaches differ among them, there is an underlying principle of
convergence of ideas that evolutionary change takes place in a unilinear and similar direction.
They largely draw an analogy of the progress of animal life from the simple uni-celled organisms
to the most complex animal— the human being. They believe that as societies evolve and grow,
the functions of its members would also become more specialized just as the development of
millions of body cells to perform specific functions within an interrelated system. The main
proponents of the classical theories of evolutionary change include August Comte. We shall
consider some of the frameworks of classification of human evolution developed by these classical
evolutionists.

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