Page 247 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes factors conditioned on the society. These factors could be both within and without the society and/or
planned and unplanned. Many theorists do believe that changes in societies are not necessarily good
or bad. They opine that although a stable society is usually better than a chaotic and conflict-ridden
society, stability would sometimes imply exploitation, oppression and injustice.
11.5 Linear Theory

Change is cumulative, nonrepetitive, developmental, usually permanent (Tonnies theory of change
from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft); 2 or more stages; view broad historical pattern of change in human
societies as involving transition from small, undifferentiated societies with homogeneous culture to
large societies with high degree of structural differentiation an heterogeneous culture.
• Lenski’s macro stage theory or historical development of human societies: caused by innovations
in the technology of economic production that produced ever larger surplus of material resources
• hunting and gathering
• pastoral and horticultural
• agricultural
• industrial
• Urbanization: involves ancient process of interaction between cities and surrounding
countryside; cities have 3 distinct characteristics of a marketplace (economic production), of a
centre of political and administrative authority (political power) and of urban community
(community conflict);
• ancient and medieval cities: community conflict dealt with peasant tax and rent revolts in
countryside, competing elite groups and dynasties
• commercial cities: community conflict dealt with import-export taxes on trade, competition
between merchant families, wages & working conditions for craft workers and seamen,
• industrial cities: community conflict from disadvantaged US farmers, urban factory workers
and industrialists
• corporate cities: decentralized industrial production and more service-based economy, postwar
1950’s; community conflict and popular protest was about the urban community itself, about
issues to do with urban decline, i.e. slums, poverty, jobs, housing, crime and racial discrimination
• world cities: global economy, international banking & trade, recent decades; community conflict
deals with old residents and newer immigrant communities, disparities in taxes and municipal
services between political jurisdictions, foreign investment and capital flight.
11.6 Mechanisms of Social Change

Causal explanations of social change are limited in scope, especially when the subject of study involves
initial conditions or basic processes. A more general and theoretical way of explaining social change
is to construct a model of recurring mechanisms of social change. Such mechanisms, incorporated in
different theoretical models, include the following.
Mechanisms of one-directional change: accumulation, selection, and
differentiation

Some evolutionary theories stress the essentially cumulative nature of human knowledge. Because
human beings are innovative, they add to existing knowledge, replacing less adequate ideas and
practices with better ones. As they learn from mistakes, they select new ideas and practices through
a trial-and-error process (sometimes compared to the process of natural selection). According to this
theory, the expansion of collective knowledge and capabilities beyond a certain limit is possible only
by specialization and differentiation. Growth of technical knowledge stimulates capital accumulation,
which leads to rising production levels. Population growth also may be incorporated in this model of
cumulative evolution: it is by the accumulation of collective technical knowledge and means of

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