Premium
Structural‐Functional Dynamics in the Analysis of Socio‐economic Systems: Development of the Approach to Understanding the Processes of Systemic Change
Author(s) -
Chase Richard
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1979.tb02830.x
Subject(s) - analogy , teleology , context (archaeology) , complex system , process (computing) , function (biology) , simple (philosophy) , epistemology , management science , economics , ecology , cognitive science , computer science , psychology , artificial intelligence , evolutionary biology , biology , philosophy , paleontology , operating system
A bstractTheory can be equated with analogy. Both attempt to convey the unfamiliar and/or the complex through use of more familiar and/or simple constructs. The theoretical analogies of “modern” economics have been by and large patterned after a prestigious and powerful Newtonian model, i.e. they have been of the mechanical genre. It has been argued, however, that models of a biological, or evolutionary , nature would be more appropriate to analyzing economic processes and systems. This article is the first of two aimed at suggesting a form for such an evolutionary model. In this article, the analytical concepts of structure and function and their interrelationships are discussed as they apply to non‐human biological systems. Resulting feedback effects which produce dynamic change are placed within the context of the evolutionary model of stratified stability. This model explains developmental change as always tending toward more complex but more stable levels of structure, and thus unidirectional. However, the process of societal change is non‐teleological in that the particular path of change is not deterministic.