6     Talcott Parsons:  Incurable theorist of the social system

The work of Talcott Parsons dominated sociology in America in the fifties and sixties. After the international student protests of 1968, the ideological climate changed dramatically at many western universities. Critical theory, with a strong Marxist flavour, gave short shrift to his theories. They were deemed to be irrelevant for students who wanted to change the world. This view did not do justice to his work and views. He was strongly influenced by the rise of anti-democratic movements such as fascism and communism in the 1930s.

Parsons enjoyed a new interest in his work just before he died. A few important theorists have reassessed his work. Jürgen Habermas, another icon of sociology, asserted that no theoretical book on sociology can be taken seriously if it does not give due attention to Parsons’ work.[1] His work is no purely theoretical affair. He aimed at describing and explaining empirical reality. By synthesizing the theoretical work of some of the best European social scientists he hoped to produce a more solid basis for liberal-democracy.

6.1   Youth and family matters

Talcott Parsons was born on 13 December 1902 in Colorado Springs. He died in 1979, while visiting Germany. He was the youngest child of Edward Smith Parsons and Mary Augusta Ingersol. His father was a clergyman, who had dropped the strict teachings of Calvin and devoted much of his time to a social reform movement: The Social Gospel. The main objective of this movement was to rid American Capitalism of its rough bolster. Edward Parsons believed that socialism could only work for the good of the people if it was based on Christian values. Only this could guarantee the rights of individuals. Other variations of socialism or communism tended to ignore human rights for the sake of collective goals. So, Talcott Parsons was raised in a rather progressive climate, all the more so, because his mother participated in political actions for women’s rights.[2]

Talcott Parsons received his undergraduate training at Amherst College. He started as a student of biology while contemplating a career in medicine. During his studies he shifted to economics. At the time, sociology was not taught at Amherst, though he did get acquainted with some sociological theories when he attended a philosophy course on ‘The Moral Order’. Aside from the work of major moral philosophers the course paid some attention to the work of Sumner, Cooley, and Durkheim and also to the work of institutional economist Walton Hamilton. This started his lifelong interest in social influences on economic activities.[3]

Amherst College emphasized the great importance of a practical religion. It wanted to bridge the gap between traditional Christianity and a modern, liberal curriculum.[4] During his studies Parsons felt best at home with theoretical problems, though, for him, propositions, theories, and theoretical systems always had to be related to empirical facts. If they had no reference to matters of empirical fact, they could have no claim to be called scientific.[5]

Thanks to financial help of a rich uncle he could study in Europe. He spent his first graduate year at the London School of Economics, where he was influenced by the ideas of Bronislaw Malinowski, a pioneer in the development of structural-functional analysis.[6] Two other influential professors in London were Leonard T. Hobhouse. He was the first sociology professor of Great Britain and an authority on the evolution of morality. The other was Morris Ginsberg, an expert on the economic institutions of preliterate societies.[7]

The next year Parsons received a grant from a German-American exchange fellowship program. From 1925 to 1927 he studied at the university of Heidelberg, where he finished his thesis on Capitalism in recent German literature: Sombart and Weber. He had studied the works of Karl Marx too. In his first academic articles he not only pointed at the negative aspects of capitalism but also emphasized the great potential for social reform within the capitalist system.[8]

Parsons was impressed by Max Weber’s move to put religious values at the frontier of the rise of capitalism. He translated The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Though, Weber’s work on economy and society contained a negative view on the further development of modern societies, this did not shake Parsons’ typical American belief in a bright future for capitalism, though it had to be reformed first.

Age 25, Talcott Parsons married Helen Walker, who worked at the Russian Research Institute. The couple had three children: Anne, Charles, and Susan. Anne had great trouble in merging her intellectual drive and achievements with the role of an attractive, sociable girl or woman. At home there was a strong emphasis on achievement and individual privacy. Anne missed emotional warmth and complained that her mother did not socialize her into ‘feminine mystique’. Although she did well in the field of academics, she was very dissatisfied with her life and achievements. Unfortunately, psychiatric help failed. She ended her life in 1964.[9]

During the war, Parsons’ interest shifted to political issues, such as the decline in the support for democratic governments and the origin of fascist dictatorships. Meanwhile, he gained more academic prestige. In 1944, he was appointed chair of the faculty. He transformed the Department of Sociology into a Department of Social Relations, recruiting some social psychologists and anthropologists. Parsons always viewed sociology as part of a broader science of man and society. In 1949, he became president of the American Sociological Association and chief editor of The American Sociologist. He died 8 May 1979, while visiting Munich, where German sociologists had organized an academic conference dedicated to his work.  

6.1.1 A purely academic career

In 1927, Parsons became lecturer in economics at Harvard University. Four years later he shifted to sociology. Five years later he became assistant professor. In 1944, he got tenure as full professor. To his own taste, Parsons had been a lecturer and assistant professor far too long. For this he blamed Pitirim Sorokin, the chair of the department of sociology, who disliked his work.

In the beginning of his career, his main focus was on topics that could be claimed by economists as well as sociologists. He conceived the idea of making a study of the relations between economic and sociological theory. He studied the work of Alfred Marshall and Vilfredo Pareto, two prominent economists of a previous generation. Parsons also took a great interest in the work of Durkheim. This interest was triggered by the highly negative attitude towards the work of Durkheim that he encountered at the London School of Economics. But the more he studied Durkheim in the original language, the more he came to disagree with his London teachers.[10] All these activities resulted in a synthesis of European sociological thought that found his way in The Structure of Social Action, published in 1937. This book launched Parsons’ career on the path of fame.

In The Structure of Social Action, he presented his voluntaristic theory of action. As a liberal, he made ample space for individual freedom, for humans to make individual choices. He emphasized that most individual actions are social actions; actions in which individuals take notice of their fellow citizens, their interests, norms, and values. Consideration for the interests of the other reduces the scope for individual choices. In his view, only the notion of a social orchestration of individual actions can explain why society functions and why there is a large degree of consensus about societal values.

6.1.2 Three phases in Parsons’ theoretical quest

In the forties, his attention had moved from the actions of individuals towards the study of social systems. In 1951, he published The Social System. Herein, he integrated a series of ideas he had developed since 1937. Now, he also tried to fit some ideas of Sigmund Freud in his action theory. In 1953, he published, together with Robert Bales and Edward Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action. Three years later followed Economy and Society, which was the result of a close cooperation with Neil Smelser. These two books mark the start of his third theoretical phase. He now shifted his focus on essential functions of social systems. This new phase produced the famous AGIL-scheme, the analytical model of the four prerequisite functions of any sustainable system. No system can survive without sufficient adaptation to its environment (A), the realization of its goals (G), its internal structural integration (I) and the maintenance of cultural patterns or state of latency (L). By creating this model, Parsons threw an entirely new light on the coherence of social systems, on the cohesion between structure and culture and on the role that individuals play in this system.

His theoretical work rendered him the label of structural-functionalist. His functionalism was criticized in many ways and for various reasons. A frequently mentioned critique was that his perspective led to an ‘over-socialized’ conception of man.[11] To Parsons, the individual is a socialized being whose individualism was ‘institutionalized’.[12] A second major critique stated that his work was too abstract and too general to be of relevance for the study of concrete societies. Not only Robert King Merton, but also C. Wright Mills argued that the ‘Grand Theory’ that Parsons was aiming for would be unable to make concrete social problems understandable, let alone solvable.[13] In the view of Wright Mills, Parsons’ abstract theories were little more than a cover up for essentially simple and mundane ideas about society. A third form of critique was ideological. From a scientific point of view this form of critique was irrelevant, but from a social-political perspective it was devastating. It labeled Parsons as a right-wing conservative. The latter’s defense of America’s democracy triggered the accusation that he had no eye for social inequality. But this critique was uncalled for.[14]

Unperturbedly, Parsons went on with the further development of his theoretical work. He learned from his critics and from the problems he faced whenever he attempted to apply his models to empirical situations. In his view, theorists should be concerned with the systematization and explanation of aspects of the empirical world. Parsons distinguished between four levels of systematization. At the most primitive level theorists start with (1) ad hoc classificatory systems. These could evolve into more systematic (2) categorical schemes or conceptual frameworks. These can form the basis for (3) abstract theoretical systems and (4) empirically testable theoretical systems.

His starting point for the development of a theory or theoretical system is a workable typology of units composing a categorical system or set of interrelated ‘general concepts’. Any well-developed sound theory or theoretical system must fit the subject matter with sufficient complexity and articulation.[15] The body of a theory in a given field constitutes an integrated system of propositions. Any important change in our knowledge must change the statement of at least some of the propositions of the theoretical system, and by consequence, that of other propositions to a greater or lesser degree.[16]

In the last phase of his life, Parsons’ work branched out in many directions. He dived into the depth of micro-sociology through a renewed study of socialization processes. In addition, he went on exploring the macro-space of systems theory. And finally, he went far back into the history of mankind to analyze the evolutionary development of social actions.

6.2   Towards a theory of social action

In The Structure of Social Action, Parsons started with the presentation of an important social dilemma. Though, the western world had put a great trust in the integrity and rationality of the individual, precisely these two crucial tenets of its culture had been tested by the outbreak of two Great Wars, and the atrocities of Communist and Fascist regimes. For Parsons, the root of the problem lay in the theoretical weakness of the intellectual traditions of the West.[17] He thought that fascism and communism could seize power because classical social theory failed to offer the right alternative. Liberal ideology had to be revitalized and reformulated in order to safeguard human integrity and reason.[18]

Parsons opened a ferocious attack on the purely individualistic approach of the utilitarians, because they would not acknowledge any role for collective values and ignored individual emotions.[19] However, there are numerous situations in which humans act in unselfish ways, respecting social norms and values, responding to altruistic motives and showing a sincere concern for fellow citizens. A horde of pure egotists cannot survive. The rational motive can only explain part of all social actions. As Weber has made clear, there also are other motives, such as emotional, traditional, and value-rational motives to describe and explain social actions. Individual actors are continuously interacting with fellow human beings. Within the social system of which they are members, their position, status, and roles are relatively fixed. Though, Parsons was well aware that social conditions restrict individual freedom in significant ways, he energetically maintained that humans have some freedom to make all kinds of choices.

For a true liberal-democrat like Parsons it was crucial to stress this element of free will. The whole point of his voluntaristic theory of (social) action was that individuals have a limited freedom of choice, but he found it very important to stress that there are always options left open. In his view, the freedom of choice of the rational choice theorists really is no freedom at all. It appears that individuals must always put their self-interest first, they must go for the shortest route with the least effort, or the lowest price. For Parsons, people have much more options than purely economic and egotistic ones. On the other hand, traditions, customs, norms and values can oblige us to make choices that are not rational at all. They restrict our freedom in many ways. But often this restricted freedom is worth fighting for. For an incurable theorist the best way to emphasize and clarify this limited freedom is to describe its mechanism, including the scope, range and limits of the options. He found the concept of voluntaristic action indispensable for any action theory.

Another major flaw of stimulus-response behaviorism and rational choice theory is that their purely individualistic approach cannot explain social order. We need an insight in the meaning of social norms. The motives concerning socially accepted rules of behaviour, norms, and values form the necessary building blocks of society. They play a vital role. Every wish, desire, or objective is embedded in a set of normative considerations, social standards and expectations. They canalize the will of individuals. Thus, social behaviour emerges that not only is based on purely individual wishes and desires, but also takes account of the interests of others. To express this in an apt and succinct way, Parsons spoke of ‘institutionalized individualism’. Any form of social behaviour entices a certain tension between personal objectives and the restrictions created by social conditions. What has to be explained is how social order is maintained, even under conditions of social change and evolution.

6.2.1 The unit act [20]

Parsons’ synthesis united the positivistic and holistic ideas of Durkheim with the idealistic and individualistic theories of Weber. For Parsons, the nexus between the individual and the collective still needed further explanation. What does it mean that people start considering the norms and values of collectives? What does it mean that they start and remain behaving within the confinements of a social order and thus help maintain this order? According to Durkheim, the collective conscience demands respect for the moral authority of the social whole. Parsons agreed. Every social unit is regulated by a morally guided system of values that manifests itself in social norms, and simultaneously is anchored in the motives and intentions of individuals, because the latter have appropriated these objective social norms and internalized them.

Thus Parsons not only made a strong connection between the ideas of Weber and Durkheim, but he also bridged the theoretical gap between individual and society. He made clear how the institutionalization and the recurrent reproduction of norms, traditions, and customs always coincide with their internalization. Like Durkheim, Parsons preferred the internalized, subjectively acquired and consciously anchored moral constraint to the external constraint of social control. Obviously, the fear for punishment does play a role, but is of less importance for the maintenance of society than conflict theorists might think. The inner felt obligation is of much more importance.

A social system entirely based on the interlocking of personal interests is a social order based on negative sanctions. In theory, such an order could be envisioned but is extremely hard to realize. Besides, as a liberal, Parsons refused to trust in a police state. His model of social action departed from a single actor that sets his goals and chooses appropriate means to achieve these goals. Actors not only are intellectually capable of choosing objectives and instruments, but they are guided to make these choices within the confines of social norms and values. So, actors take account of the opinions, feelings, and interests of fellow humans. Without this normative element there can be no social behaviour. Without this we arrive in the camp of theorists who interpret behaviour purely as instinctive reactions to incentives.[21] But humans act out of free will, yet not purely egotistic. They act rational within a context that expects a balance between egotistic and social behavior.

Initially, Parsons did not choose the individual as unit of analysis, but the unit act. The unit act occurs as one unit in the context of a wider action system. Even for the analysis of one discrete act, an extended set of similar acts must be conceived, for example those comprising a particular role. However, this mini-system is complete and complex. It encompasses personal goals, available means, social norms, and conditions that cannot be influenced by an individual actor. Norms and conditions restrict the range of possible actions.[22] In general, only collectivities can change sets of social norms and social conditions. For Parsons, it does not make much sense to speak of social action if one does not take into account the four essential components of the unit act. When one or two components are lacking it is impossible to make a complete and meaningful description of any example of social behaviour.

Scheme 6.1 Core elements of the social act

In Toward a General Theory of Action Parsons began to view actions as processes occurring between two structural parts of a system – actor and situation. The concept ‘actor’ was extended to define not only individual personalities in social roles but also other types of acting units, such as collectivities. Thus ‘actor’ can also refer to a business firm, a political party, or a family.[23] That’s why Parsons attempts to avoid – except for purposes of analogy or illustration – psychological references, such as ‘need’, ‘motivation’ and ‘intention’, attributed to human beings.

6.3   Role models

It is possible to map the relation between individuals and their social and physical environment in a satisfactory way with the help of a few well-chosen variables, which Parsons called ‘pattern variables’.[24] The pattern variables first emerged as a conceptual scheme for classifying types of roles in social systems, starting with the distinction between professional and business roles. In this sense, the concept ‘actor’ referred to individual human beings as personalities in roles. As we know we all have to play many roles in society. From time to time, policemen have to interrogate men or women suspected of a crime. They are expected to do this in a professional way. They have learned how to do this during their initial training period, but their methods have been developed further during the early stages of their career, when new recruits were coupled to experienced cops. During this process they might have learned that it sometimes can be effective to play good cop/bad cop. Besides the roles being played during working hours, they also have to play different roles at home as a parent, or as ‘a child’ when visiting their parents, when they go shopping, when they participate in a team, or act as team leader, or referee. We all have to master many different roles. Each of us has to reckon with what is expected from us in different social positions and situations.

6.3.1 The ideal type of a patient

Even when we get sick, we have to fulfill a specific role model. Somehow, we have learned to become a model patient. Parsons was the first to describe the role of the patient in an ideal typical way. First, he defined illness as a state of disturbance in the normal functioning of the total human individual, including the biological, psychological and social dimension of his existence. Illness always has a social dimension; it will have an effect on participation in society. People might ask whether ‘being sick’ constitutes a social role at all – isn’t it simply a state of fact, a ‘physical condition’?[25] Parsons made clear that there is more to it than simply some dysfunction of the body or the personality. He pointed out that there are four culturally embedded role expectations related to the role of the sick. Despite the huge range of different types of illnesses, it is possible to describe a set of abstract and general aspects of the sick role.

• People who are sick are exempted from their normal social responsibilities. If the illness is serious we do not expect people to come to work, to participate in sport activities, or to join parties. On the other hand, we do not expect people to exaggerate their state of illness or simulate an illness when they are healthy.
• Patients are not expected to get well by an act of personal will power. Sick persons and the people around them – family, neighbours, friends, and colleagues – must accept that being ill is not someone’s fault. They should be regarded as the victim of forces beyond their control. They are not expected to ‘pull themselves together’ and to go on with life as if nothing has happened.
• Illness is generally defined as an undesirable state. Hence, we expect the sick to do all they can to get well soon.
• Patients are obliged to seek help from competent and qualified doctors and to follow this doctor’s orders. In other words, they are expected to swallow their pills, stop working, stay in bed, change their diet, or, if necessary, to go to hospital for surgery.[26]

Of course all people that are closely related to a sick person are also expected to act according to their roles. The doctor should act in a professional way, take a careful look at the patient’s body for the sake of a good diagnosis, and not look at it as a sex object.

This example shows that objects do not automatically determine the actor’s orientation of action. For instance, a chair can be seen as a thing to sit on, as a specimen of antique or modern design, as an object with specific physical properties, or even as a weapon that can be used to defend oneself. So, according to Parsons, actors have to make a few fundamental choices before any situation can have meaning to them.

In the first instance, actors distinguish between a set of orientations and a set of modalities. Orientations concern the actor’s relationship to the objects in his situation. These orientations are conceptualized by two attitudinal variables: (1) diffuseness – specificity and (2) affectivity – neutrality. Orientations refer to the psychological need for relating to the object world. Modality concerns the meaning of the object for the actor and is conceptualized by the two ‘object-categorization’ variables: (3) quality versus performance and (4) universalism versus particularism.[27]

If we relate these four pattern variables to patients and the sick role we can distinguish between patients with a negative, neutral or positive attitude to their particular disease or diseases in general, to their doctor or the whole field of medicine or alternative methods of healing. Some might start to hate their failing body and lack all trust in the possibility of regaining their health, while others accept their illness as a form of bad luck that could have happened to anybody while trusting that the doctors will help his or her recovery in the shortest possible time. The attitude towards one’s illness might remain rather specific, and aimed to quick recovery by strictly following doctor’s orders. It can also become more diffuse and lead to a general interest in theories about the causes of this illness and the different methods of healing, or to a membership of a patient’s organization or an impulse to become politically active aimed at the goal to implement policies of information about prevention, or intensified research programs to find better medical treatment. On the other hand, if patients have developed a negative attitude to official medicine because of its relation to hard sciences such as pharmaceutical chemistry, painful experiments with animals, the use of industrially fabricated ‘spare parts’ et cetera, they might turn to alternative non-scientific methods of healing with the help of herbs or rituals

6.4 Pattern variables

The example of persons confined to a sick role shows that there is a close connection with the need of humans to relate to the object world in a particularistic or a universalistic way and to evaluate the world on the basis of ascriptions or achievements. They can trust or distrust the achievements of medical science; they can trust or distrust the capabilities of a medical doctor or specialist or the entire staff of a hospital; they can trust or distrust a particular medicine or cure, and so on. Furthermore, a comparative study of medical practices in different countries or cultural areas focused on these four pattern variables would reflect striking differences between these cultures. Which goals or practices get priority, particularism or universalism, achievement or social origin?

1 Affectivity versus affective neutrality

This pattern variable refers to the degree of emotional commitment and impulsivity. Within an affective social setting the expectations of ego and alter are guided by the positive or negative feelings they have towards each other. In these situations people tend to react immediately. In a neutral social setting people try to suppress their feelings and will react rationally after considering all the options carefully. In general, a teacher will behave much less affectionate towards his pupils than towards his own children.

2 Diffuseness versus specificity

This pattern variable concerns the dilemma of the range of social connections and obligations. An employer will have a broader range of relations with his family than with his employees. The relationship with most of his employees will be strictly professional, although we can observe exceptions to this rule.

3 Particularism versus universalism

This pattern variable concerns the evaluation of specific actors or groups of individuals, for instance your next of kin, or a more general category such as your colleagues or competitors. With this pattern variable the distinction between in-group and out-group is important. Within a universalistic frame of reference actions are determined by norms that pertain to everybody in an equal way.

4 Ascription versus achievement.

This dimension speaks for itself. Do we find achievements more relevant than someone’s ascribed characteristics such as gender or race?

Parsons used his pattern variables when he studied professionals and their functioning with clients. In his study of lawyers, doctors or psychiatrists, he found that besides competence, objectivity, and affective neutrality also personal characteristics played a significant role. These characteristics can affect the objectivity and neutrality of the professional. We all know that there are too many cases in which the incumbents of these professions have engaged in sexual relationships with their clients. When professionals fail to keep sufficient distance and objectivity this will harm their clients or patients.

Of course, reality is more complex than binary models can present. There always are many shades of gray between jet black and snow white. In reality, professionals and their clients can develop a kind of relation that is not completely functional; teachers and pupils cannot help to develop some positive or negative feelings towards each other. This can interfere with the objectivity of the teacher when he or she has to mark a student’s work. At some point the shift from universalism to particularism or from affective neutrality to affective partiality can go too far and harm professional relations and effectiveness.

The examples indicate that within cultures there is a tendency to form clusters of categories. Modern societies emphasize objectivity, neutrality, universalism, and specificity, whereas traditional societies lay much more stress on subjectivity, emotionality, particularism and diffuseness.

6.5   The social system

In 1951, Parsons published two books with the word ‘system’ in its title: Values, Motives and Systems of Action and The Social System. This shows that his frame of reference wasn’t dominated by purely individual social actions, but by actions within a system. His focus was on one or more actors oriented towards a situation with other social actors. Orientation, this rather vague concept, should draw our attention to the goals of actors within a social system.

All social actions take place within a system of actions. Social actions are no direct ‘responses’ to specific stimuli. George Herbert Mead has put a reflective element of the human organism between the stimulus and the response. For Parsons social actions refer to initiatives and reactions that fit in a system of role expectations. This requires reflection. These expectations are not only based on physical and psychological needs, but also on existing action patterns within one’s culture, social group or network.

Individuals develop a relatively stable perspective on a variety of social situations. They constitute a whole set of expectations about future developments, options, and opportunities. These expectations and ideas are based on personal needs, knowledge, and the values attached to these objects of desire. Persons might have to put a lot of energy in realizing the necessary conditions. These investments are very important. In order to raise the chance of a personally favorable developments, humans can choose between doing nothing, waiting how things will develop, or participating actively.[28] If someone’s life does not render any satisfaction or gratification it will lose its meaning. Then actors will lose all motivation or commitment to participate in society. If too many members get stuck in this kind of emotional situations then the system will fall apart very. So, it is important to find the right mix of egotism and solidarity.

6.5.1 Structural functionalism

Social systems are very complex. Besides, they are continuously ‘in flux’. All the time various processes are busy to keep it alive, to keep all subsystems fulfilling their functions. All the time subprocesses are alert to attack any internal and external tendencies that could destroy the system. Any change in one part of the system entices a reaction in another; all elements are somehow related to each other, directly or indirectly. However, it is impossible to study all these elements, subsystems, functions, and processes at one time.

The best strategy to come to grips with complexity is simplification. But how can simple analytical structures (models) be linked to the variable elements of complex social systems? Parsons answered this question by focusing on a few social functions that are crucial for the maintenance and reproduction of the system as a whole, for the relations between the parts of the social system and the relations between the system and his surroundings.[29]

A logical follow up of the analysis of social systems is the analysis of their functional requisites. Systems will fall apart if their functional requisites are not met. Social systems survive as a consequence of interaction patterns between individuals. Social systems need real members of flesh and blood. They need a sufficient number of healthy individuals. Therefore, a viable biological environment is an important functional prerequisite. The people that make up the system have to satisfy their biological needs of fresh air, drink, food, and sleep.

Furthermore, each social system needs to develop a subsystem to maintain an enduring system of action patterns. Hence, there always must be a sufficient number of people that are sufficiently motivated to work for the system and its continuity.[30] This implies that systems cannot demand too much of their members, otherwise they will stop cooperating. On the other hand, individuals cannot demand too much from the system, because the fulfilling of extreme demands has to be done by other members of the system. So, once more, we see that finding the right balance is crucial for the survival of social systems. Hence, social systems need a subsystem for motivating and controlling members to stay within the system and to remain cooperative. This is another functional requisite.

For the analysis of dynamic-functional systems, such as societies, two system-problems are of the utmost importance. In order to survive, any system has to find a solution for the problem of task allocation and for the problems of integration or coordination and conflict management. For social systems it is far better to develop a more subtle mechanism of control than brute, dictatorial exertion of power. Authoritarian leadership could trigger revolutions. So, there is need for the institutionalization of a set of rules that ensures the validity of distribution procedures.

6.5.2 Davis and Moore: The functionalist view on inequality.

Not all social positions, functions and tasks are endowed with the same prestige. Prestige can vary from very low to very high. Parsons believed that important social positions would acquire a high prestige and thus succeed in attracting sufficient qualified people.[31] This is a typical functionalistic explanation. If a system has a need, and the supply is scarce, then it will see to it that the need is fulfilled by attaching very attractive rewards to these positions that are essential for fulfilling this need, and thus for the continuity of that particular system.

Davis and Moore: Solving the problem of task allocation?

In 1945, Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore published an influential article that has triggered much sociological debate.[32] They asserted that social inequality is a functional necessity. Therefore, all societies possess a structure of social stratification.

“As a functioning mechanism a society must somehow distribute its members in social positions and induce them to perform the duties of these positions. It must thus concern itself with motivation at two different levels: to instill in the right individuals the desire to fill certain positions, and, once in these positions, the desire to perform the duties attached to these positions. … If the duties associated with the various positions were all equally pleasant … all equally important to societal survival, and all equally in need of the same ability or talent, it would make no difference who gets what position. … But actually it does make a great deal of difference… Inevitably, a society must have, first, some kind of reward that it can use as incentive, and, second, some way of distributing these rewards differentially according to positions. The rewards and their distribution become a part of the social order, and thus give rise to stratification.”

According to Davis and Moore, inequality is an unconsciously evolved device by which societies insure that the most qualified persons consciously fill the most important positions. If a socially important position is easily filled, it need not be heavily rewarded. On the other hand, if it is important but hard to fill, the reward must be high enough to get the job done. Functional importance is a necessary but not a sufficient reason of high rank being assigned to a position. Scarcity of talents or motivation also plays a role. Davis & Moore gave the example of Medical doctors. In their view, a medical education is so burdensome, takes so much time, and is so expensive that virtually none would undertake it if the position of the M.D. did not carry a reward commensurate with the sacrifice, that is a high salary, high status, and ditto prestige. Besides mentioning the negative side of medical training we could also mention many negative aspects of the actual job, such as frequent contact with people, young and old, with horrible injuries, stinking wounds, or suffering from contagious diseases or even suffering from a mortal disease. In those cases all professional help will be of no avail and you will see them die.

6.6   The A-G-I-L model

6.6.1 The AGIL model introduced

Social systems are alive. Not like biological organisms. But, analytically there are striking similarities. To stay alive, even without growth but simply retaining the status quo, all kinds of processes have to go on all the time to prevent big disturbances and total collapse. Parsons divided social processes into two types: mechanisms and tendencies. Mechanisms are processes that stabilize social action systems, and tendencies are processes that disturb the state of equilibrium or lead to structural changes. Forces from outside can disturb the equilibrium. The state of equilibrium is the net result of a number of characteristics or variables from the system and influences from outside.

His great interest in biology inspired Parsons to study homeostasis in social systems. He was convinced that social systems, like biological organisms, could redress disturbances with the help of interdependent organisms or subsystems, no matter whether these disturbances are caused by forces inside or outside the system.[33] To understand this equilibrium act, Parsons searched for core functions that need to be fulfilled or carried out to keep social systems going. He assumed that all human societies, from the most primitive to the most complex, have so much in common that there must be a small set of fundamental organizing principles shared by all of them.

Elaborating these ideas further, he arrived at his most important theoretical invention: the discovery and description of four functional problems that are absolutely crucial for the internal integration and the survival of social systems.[34] This invention culminated in a very simple but elegant model, his famous AGIL-scheme.

         Scheme 6.3 Parsons’ AGIL model of the social action system

In Parsons’ view, all social systems are differentiated along two dimensions. The first axis refers to external and internal relations; the second refers to functional problems related to internal stability. By splitting these dimensions in two sides he created a fourfold model that describes four major functional problems: Adaptation, Goal attainment, Integration and Latency. Solving these four problems is crucial for the survival of any system. [35]

To discuss the four functional imperatives it might be better to start with a concrete social system, such as a nation.

Scheme 6.4 The agil model applied to a nation.

Adaptation – All social systems need resources. Humans need food and drink. Without food and drink, clothes and shelter, they cannot function and are of no use for the system. Nature has to give them the necessary energy so that society can receive energy in the form of meanings and social actions. In modern societies the economy will take care of that.

Goal realization – This refers to the mobilization of the means to achieve system goals. The social system must have a sufficient number of its members adequately motivated to act in accordance with its requirements; otherwise it will deteriorate or stop to exist.[36] Ultimately, these system goals are the means for individuals to achieve personal objectives. It is the main task of the political system to see that the right balance is found between collective and individual priorities.

Integration – Integration concerns the problem of coordinating and maintaining workable relations between all and subsystems. The stabilization of patterns of interaction must generate workable relations between the units and subsystems of social systems. This process of institutionalization must create a well-organized network of social positions and social roles. The social community or social system proper has to be well structured and organized in a system of social associations and organizations, social roles, statuses and professions.

Latency – Latency concerns two closely related problems: pattern maintenance and conflict management. Social systems must avoid “commitment to cultural patterns which either fail to define a minimum order or place impossible demands on people, thereby generating deviance and conflict.”[37] Socialization and education must entice people to learn and maintain functional patterns of behavior that befit the cultural subsystem. Conflict management encompasses the regulation, evasion or mitigation of internal tensions that may arise between units of the system.[38]

6.6.2 Analyzing subsystems with the AGIL-scheme

The same kind of analysis could be applied to all subsystems or even to subsystems of subsystems. Parsons’ analysis of political subsystem leads to the discernment of the following four subsystems, each taking care of one functional imperative: A = Administration; G = the Government; I = the Parliament, and L = the Constitutional-Legal System.

Scheme 6.4 Agil-scheme of the Political System.

This could become an endless play of going on to ever-deeper levels of subsystems of subsystems. It will be surprising to see that it can be done. Analyzing social systems, business organizations, school, sports clubs, will help us to check where thing are going wrong and have to be improved.

Looking at the agil-scheme from a second level of abstraction we see that social behaviour occurs within four contexts:

• physical-biological
• psychological
• social-structural
• cultural

A social system has to be well adjusted to all these contexts. It has to invest sufficient resources for maintaining good relations with these four conditions. Moreover, it has to solve the problem of coordinating all the necessary functions of the system. Thus, the system has to watch its priorities. Finally, it has to take care of its internal adaptation function: the socialization and disciplining of the members of the system.

The agil-scheme not only is a systematic elaboration of ideas that Parsons has launched earlier, but it also is an expression of the shift in his focus from the social act (phase 1), via his focus on the structure of social systems (phase 2) to the functioning of social systems and the interactions between subsystems (phase 3). What do they do to keep the system going?

6.6.3 Dynamics and interdependencies of AGIL subsystems.    

So, yet another way of looking at the agil-scheme will make one realize that social systems are based on four subsystems that are interdependent and are related to one of the functional imperatives. In modern societies the adaptive subsystem has evolved into the following subsystems: the economy helps individuals to get all society needs for its survival from the wider environment, including nature, humans, and other societies. The better subsystems such as education, law, science and technology are developed, the better the economy can fulfill its role. Human societies are based on adequately functioning personality systems. To motivate persons to fulfill their roles the system has to satisfy the needs of these individuals. The subsystem that takes care of that is the political system. The organizational structure of the social system consists of institutionalized  roles, that is, personally internalized and collectively shared role-expectations. The cultural system consists of the heritage of shared symbols, knowledge, beliefs, ideas, technologies, mores, customs, habits, laws, standards, norms, and values. The main function of the cultural system is to prepare new generations for their role as social beings, that is, for their role as contributors to the continuation of the system as a whole.[39] The four subsystems are closely connected. They have to cooperate to keep each other and the system as a whole alive. At the most general level, the level of the action system, Parsons sketched the following model of interchanging relations between the four subsystems.[40]

Scheme 6.5 The interchange model of the social action system

A more adequate description of the model would show several double pointed arrows between all four subsystems to show that energy, material means, information, power, influence, trust, loyalty, motivation and commitment, positive and negative sanctions, money and immaterial rewards have to be exchanged simultaneously between the respective subsystems. This multifarious circle of exchanges has to function sufficiently to create a rather stable dynamic social equilibrium.

6.7 Parsons’ theory of socialization[41]

Why is there order? Why are humans not constantly fighting with each other? This is the famous question posed by Thomas Hobbes that Parsons answered by saying that most people adhere to a common set of values to which they attune their goals. This leads us to the next question: how do these common standards come about? To explain this Parsons turned to the process of socialization. His approach offers valuable insights in the mechanism that creates the bond between individuals and society. This is a crucial topic for sociologists. His approach underlined that he really strove to be a general social scientists and not a purely disciplinary sociologist.

6.7.1 Freud’s legacy

Parsons’ brother was a physician. This opened the door for a ‘participant observation’ of social life in a hospital. Dressed in a doctor’s white coat, he made his rounds through the hospital and observed many interactions between patients and doctors. Thus he learned that the praxis of a physician encompasses much more than rational actions. Hence, his initial interest in conscious instrumental rationality shifted to the role of the unconscious. From Freud, he had learned about the early development of young children. This steered his investigative mind on the path to primary socialization. He was inspired by Freud’s concept of introjection, though he preferred the term internalization. Individuals appropriate collective norms and values through a process of internalization, in which rules, habits and customs get so deeply ingrained in the human consciousness that to them they become entirely natural.

People get so strongly accustomed to the prevalent norms and values that they no longer ponder on the idea that things just as well could have been arranged differently. This non-reflexive attitude towards the actual state of affairs is enhanced by the fact that young children are strongly inclined to identify with their parents and carers. According to Freud, it is the universal need for love and affection (cathexis) that entices children to identify with their objects of love. Through identification and imitation children start to copy their parents. Simultaneously, they internalize their norms and values.

According to Durkheim, social norms are being assimilated in our consciousness. Here, Parsons noticed some similarities with the ideas of Freud. Both put a strong emphasis on moral rules. Freud employed the notion of super-ego. On the one hand, this is our moral conscience that speaks to us whenever we are doing something that deviates from the prevailing norms and values. On the other hand, super-ego is a sort of ‘Ideal Me’, our desired level of perfection and maximal personal development.

Freud began his theorizing with a strong focus on the individual. Later on, he became aware of the huge importance of the social context. Hence, he started to analyze how the social background was ‘introjected’ in the personality of individuals. Durkheim departed from the opposite platform: the collectivity. He focused on the institutionalization of collective representations and how they get ingrained in our conscience. His main interest lay in the way in which external, objective and ‘coercive’ social phenomena influence the behaviour of individuals. But the longer he studied social facts, the more he realized the importance of individual traits and variations.

Both perspectives imply and complement each other. Similar patterns of behaviour are being copied, incorporated, and repeatedly carried out by a host of people. Thus, social behavior is reproduced and institutionalized. Durkheim conveyed that one should not see social systems as facts that completely exist outside the individual members. Societies can only exist if collective social values are internalized in the majority of their members.[42] Parsons, following ideas from Charles Horton Cooley, spoke of the mutual interpenetration of society and individual. Analytically, society and individuals can be separated. In reality both are completely imbued with each other. Psychological needs for social interaction, love, respect, and affection, and the social necessity to perform a variety of roles, create the multifaceted interlinking of all individuals with their social environment.

6.7.2 The personality system

Since socialization is closely connected to personal development, we make a short detour to discuss Parsons’ view on the personality. He believed that the human personality could be analyzed just as any other system of action. To give a full description of the personality, we have to consider its basic needs and dispositions. Basic needs are essential parts of the biological organism; dispositions are being acquired. They are not genetic, nor of an instinctive nature, but entirely social.

Freud discerned between Id, ego and super-ego. As could be expected, Parsons designed a model of the personality system along the lines of his AGIL-scheme, expanding Freud’s threefold model to a fourfold one.

Scheme 6.6 The Freud-Parsons’ model of the personality     

Freud’s Id denotes the purely instinctive element in human behaviour. This element is purely biological and directed at survival and reproduction. To overcome this instinctive level, humans need to develop their Ego. The Ego directs our behaviour to other goals than the urge to stay alive and to procreate. The Ego feels a need for a positive self-esteem and psychological well-being. In Freud’s view, the Super Ego represents the moral pressure from society. It guides Ego and bridles Id. Parsons situates id in the physical or biological domain too. In his view, it functions as the adaptive subsystem that connects the individual with his natural environment. EGO mobilizes and coordinates the available means to realize personal goals.

Parsons’ concept of the super-ego differs from that of Freud. To fit his agil-scheme, the super-ego has to function as the primary subsystem for integration; that is, for the internalization of rules and roles. To fill the fourth cell Parsons had to find a fourth candidate. In other words, he had to search for a concept that could symbolize latency or pattern maintenance. This he found in the concept of Identity. With the help of the social norms and values individuals give meaning to their behaviour as something that springs from their unique, personal identity, as something that fits their (ideal) self-image. Thus defined, Identity forms the stable ground for the personality system.[43] As soon as individuals have become aware of their identity, however constructed or created, they will be predisposed to opt for actions that will be in line with their perceived identity and reject and avoid actions that go against it. They will refuse to do things that does seem to be normal or attractive to others, but, in their view, do not fit their own and very specific identity.

6.7.3 The socialization process schematized

Parsons defined socialization in highly abstract and purely sociological way as follows:

“Socialization is the learning of any orientation of functional significance for the operation of a system of complementary expectations.” [44]

In short, socialization is the learning of social roles. For Parsons, socialization is equivalent to the satisfactory adjustment of individual actions to conformity with prevailing norms and values. Through this process of adjustment the social system can remain stable in a homeostatic way. The integrative mechanism of socialization and social control will have the following two effects: 1. The psychological system acquires a structure that becomes compatible with the social structure; 2. Cultural patterns will fit, support, and legitimize social structures.

As mentioned before, for Parsons, it was important to stress that social systems require “a sufficient proportion of its members that are adequately motivated to act in accordance with the requirements of the role system.” [45] There is no need for everyone to fit the system for 100 per cent. The social system exerts a significant degree of social control, but it does not have absolute power. There is space for individual variation, for individual preferences and individual choice. Secondly, social systems should avoid involvement with cultural patterns that fail to organize a minimum of social order or require actions and sets of goals that are unfeasible for its members. This will engender frustration and conflicts that will be harmful for the continuity of the system.[46]

The acquisition of social roles is a learning process in which the personality system has to be adjusted to the social system. Learning will change the personality system. During this process individuals will face some tensions that will trigger various kinds of psychological defense mechanisms to uphold their identity. However, during socialization or during periods of rapid social change, individuals have to adjust to their environment to a sufficient degree, that is, to a degree in which they will not entice too much acts of social control for reasons of deviancy. With reference to defense mechanisms we could think of cognitive tricks such as accepting that the adjustment is reasonable or is not really that cumbersome. It could mean that we have to postpone some of our beloved actions or give them up completely. We could make ourselves believe that there still are enough alternatives that will gratify us just as much because satisfaction at a later point in time will give greater joy (inhibition).

On the basis of the foregoing it is possible to develop a model that sketches both the individual adaptation – control mechanism and the external mechanism of social control. [47]

Social control is set in motion as soon as humans start to act in ways that strongly deviate from standard behavior. Negative sanctions and positive reinforcements are a necessary part of the socialization process. It tells individuals what to do and what to avoid (reinforcement / extinction). It teaches them to distinguish between good and evil, between duty and

neglect, between telling the truth and lying, between good work and dismal performance. Perhaps the scheme should be expanded with two extra

Scheme 6.7 A process-model of socialization based on Parsons’ insights

intermediary phases, because the process will always face situations of insufficient adjustment. Hence it requires some social control processes, to mitigate the tension between ego and the rest of the group. In that case we see social control as an integral part of the socialization process.

6.7.4 Socialization as learning process

During socialization humans learn to live according to the rules of their social milieu. At the same time they develop their personality. During this learning process the personality system grows more complex and acquires more specialized functions.

Like any learning process, also socialization follows the law of differentiation and integration.[48] Learning is the effect of the differentiation of an existing and already known structure and the integration of the changes that spring from this differentiation into a new coherent view on a part of reality. Parsons believed that cognitive discrimination always precedes cognitive integration.

Parsons based his model of learning on a combination of the distinction between differentiation or discrimination and integration or generalization on the one hand, and, the distinction between the cognitive and the affective significance of the object of learning on the other hand. The emotional side of the learning process tends to be overlooked. But a learning object must have “both kinds of meaning if it has any meaning at all.”[49] The interweaving of the cognitive and the affective aspects is so strong that it is hard to decide which of the two is most important.

Individuals are strongly inclined to inertia. Most people are not looking forward to real surprises and challenges that could disturb their peace of mind. Hence, most people need consistent and powerful stimuli to motivate them to learn, because learning leads to new insights and different opinions. In turn, this could lead to new patterns of behavior. Besides, people have emotional attachments to certain objects, views, and insights. Therefore, new objects for learning have to present themselves in an unequivocal and transparent way, in order to draw ego’s attention and to awake him from his inertia.[50] On the other hand, development is a fact of life. New stimuli are unavoidable.

Social change gives rise to new cognitive objects and the necessity to digest and assimilate them. This is true for physical growth and psychological maturation too. As a consequence both types of growth parents of young children will raise their expectations. If this growth does not manifest itself in new skills, more wisdom and more self-control, then this will disappoint parents, something children will soon pick up on, if only because they no longer receive the positive reinforcements they have got used to. To minimize or avoid feelings of frustration or relative deprivation they will try anything to fulfill the new expectations of their parents or educators.

The perceived cause of the relative deprivation, that is the change in behavior of the parent or caretaker, has to be ‘explained.’ It must acquire a meaning. Children have to think of a good reason that will restore their positive feelings for their parents.

Children, or individuals in general, need to develop their potential for differentiation and for generalization in such a way that their need for affection will stay satisfied. The new learned object has to fit the existing body of knowledge. This can be done by redefining the old object of knowledge as a particular element in a broader category of different, but closely related elements.[51]

At the end of this section it has to be mentioned that learning, which is an important part of socialization, not only refers to the cognitive assimilation of objects of culture, but also refers to the appropriation of social structures and systems of interactions.

6.8   Evolutionary Change

Parsons work reveals a great interest in social change and evolution. He felt that there was a great need for a theory that would help us understand the strong trends towards social progress.[52] Of course, Parsons was aware that not all forms of social change meant a step forward. History has shown that change can herald positive social development, but also regression, ruin and extra misery for the people. Social change and revolutions can result in oppression and exploitation at the cost of liberty and well-being. However, Talcott Parsons was a typical American. He believed that positive outcomes would prevail.

He contended that every analysis of change has to consider the static elements first. The intricacies of social change cannot be identified if there is no stable structure to relate them to. For Parsons, the concept of structure is simply a shorthand statement of the social situation at a point in time. The structure of a social system can be defined as the set of properties of its component parts and their relations or combinations, which, for analytical purposes, can both logically and empirically be treated as constant within a definable time limit.[53] A system is stable or in equilibrium when the relation between its structure and its processes are maintaining those properties and relations. In ‘dynamic’ systems, this is dependent on a continuous flow of all sorts of processes, which neutralize either endogenous or exogenous sources of variability that otherwise would change the structure. A classic example is the continuity of nearly constant body temperature by mammals in the face of variation in environmental temperature. Next to processes that maintain homeostasis, there are also processes that bring about structural change.

In 1961, Parsons presented his first theory of evolutionary social change. He described it as a process of structural differentiations of functions accompanied by concomitant processes of reorganization. The necessary adjustments include the upgrading of capacities, new modes of including units in the larger social system, and reinterpretations of norms and values. At an abstract level, social systems change by further differentiation supplemented by processes of integration and re-integration. More concretely, structural changes produce a further division of labour. They create an ever-growing number of different functions, while simultaneously obliterating others.

As society gets more efficient, it produces more goods at lesser costs, just like factories produce more at lower costs than the handicraft industries of yore. Theoretically, societies can also change in the opposite direction and get less differentiated. But Parsons focused on modernization processes that show increased specialization and individualization. Like Durkheim, Parsons realized that growing differentiation requires extra coordination and new forms of integration. The greater the number of distinctive professions and occupations, the greater the need for mechanisms of integration. The emergence of an urbanized, industrial society requires a differentiated system of public education to fulfill the need for qualified workers, civil servants, and professionals.

To adjust for growing complexity and cultural diversity, society has to develop collective values at a higher level of abstraction that less vulnerable to social change. The core values of society must have a more stable and more universal character. That is the only way to make them capable to deal with the proliferation of specific newly developing opinions, norms, and values that emerge in a context of new professions. Gradually, traditional values such as localism and particularism must be replaced by cosmopolitanism and universalism. Also growing complexity in the form of increased cultural and ethnic diversity has to be met by the development of a set of universalistic collective values. In that case all children from whatever, creed, class or ethnicity have to be socialized, schooled and trained within the system of core values to ensure that they can live and work together as adults despite significant differences in culture and lifestyle.[54]

Modern societies are changing all the time. Scientific and technological innovations have been and are a strong motor for social change. Presently, nobody can overlook the impressive results of science, in particular technology and medical science. Nor can anybody shut his eyes for the less positive side effects of ‘progress,’ such as overconsumption and climate change. Scientific discoveries and technological innovations have changed human existence in dramatic ways, in ways that go much further than lightening the burden of physical labour, lengthening life expectancy, and improving modes of transport and exchanging information. In the process, many skills and jobs have become obsolete, but also many new skills, jobs, and professions have emerged. As a consequence, educational systems have expanded and undergone dramatic changes. Moreover, all this has affected family-life and the social roles of men and women.

Parsons showed a special interest in the cultural effects of structural changes in society. To explain long-term-changes he preferred to follow Weber’s approach in describing historical change. But unlike Weber, he thought political struggle far less important as a motor for social change. For him, the value system is the most important cohesive for society. Social changes and political schisms spring from shifts in value priorities. Like Weber, he was convinced that significant cultural shifts tend to be triggered by great charismatic religious leaders such as Jesus, Muhammad, Luther, and Calvin, or great political leaders such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.[55] In the long run, the introduction of some new values or the recovery of some old values, as preached by great prophets and leaders, tend to be less important for the change of the cultural system since they can only change those aspects of the traditional culture that were open for change.[56] This begs the question how and why some aspects of traditional culture have opened the potential for change, while others have not. Is this a purely spontaneous and unpredictable process, induced by new ideas from great minds or mundane inventors, or can we predict that inevitably some change will emerge as a consequence of the failure of systems to maintain stability and equilibrium? What would open the potential for cultural change were it not for the impetus of charismatic leaders? In view of the idealistic-collectivistic inclination of Parsons and his tendency to attach great value to entire systems, we can interpret his view as an attempt to stress that cultural changes only get support and will stick if the new ideas and values are integrated in a renewed and coherent system of ideas and cultural values.

6.9   The American value system

In view of his strong interest in norms and values it is no surprise that Parsons also studied the value system of his own society. In his essay A Tentative Outline of American Values, he made a serious attempt to analyze this topic.[57] It remained unpublished during his lifetime. This is rather odd, since he had lectured about this theme for over thirty years. He had published three articles about important aspects related to this topic in which he tackled McCarthyism, social tensions in the US, and the distribution of power.[58] In all three cases, his views differed strikingly from that of his colleagues.

6.9.1 Criticizing some popular sociological commentators

McCarthyism was a right-wing political movement, spearheaded by Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Senator aimed to silence and penalize all people suspected of communist sympathies. This “Red Scare” raged in the 1940s and the 1950s. The Department of Justice and the FBI of Edgar Hoover witch hunted all people alleged of spying for the USSR or engaging in subversive actions to harm the USA. The victims were being accused of and convicted for disloyalty or subversion, without substantiated grounds, ruining many careers of left-wing persons in politics and science without proper evidence.   

The prevailing interpretation was that McCarthyism manifested an American form of emerging fascism that could lead to the same horrendous events that had produced WWII, killed millions of people and ruined many European countries.[59] In Parsons’ view McCarthyism was a form of populism fed by strong feelings of resentment of the middle classes. This frustration was an outcome of far reaching changes in the economy and the political position of the US in the world. At the time, many Americans had the feeling that the enlarged communist block was getting the upper hand. Suddenly the US was threatened by The Soviet Union, another nuclear super power. Besides, the US also had gotten burdened by filling in the power vacuum that had emerged after decolonization; a process that had dwarfed the power of many important European nations. The transformation of the US into a leading empire had cost a huge amount of money and numerous US casualties in Europe and Asia in WWII. The resentment was also a reaction against the modernization of the economy in which tens of thousands of small shops were eaten by new and fast growing chains of super markets. It changed the whole character of small towns and inner cities and their typical way of life.

Parsons agreed that communist espionage and infiltration formed a serious threat for democracy, but he predicted that McCarthyism would be short-lived. He was convinced that it could not generate the necessary power to destroy the existing political system. History proved him right. The hysteria in the forties and the fifties of a specific brand of journalists, intellectuals has faded away as well as the politicians that had stoked up this frenzy. As a champion of grand theories and evolutionary development, he was allergic to highly politicized intellectual fads. He found it his task to prove the power of solid sociological analysis and the weakness of highly dramatized analyses of intellectuals and journalists, wrongfooted by short-lived hypes. He did not trust the disturbing messages of extremely popular books such as David Riesman and Nathan Glazers’ The Lonely Crowd, C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite, and The Sane Society by Erich Fromm. He feared that these studies reflected old ideological biases that tended to depict the United States as an uprooted society with a mass culture without authenticity. To Parsons, they appeared to reveal very few original and tenable ideas.[60] He rejected their treatment of culture and personality, their macro sociological application of psychoanalysis and their overstatement of the influence of power structures. Despite Parsons’ critique these books have long remained very popular, and have been reprinted many times.

If Parsons were still alive today, would he come with a similar temperate reaction and proclaim that the frenzy of Trumpism will be short-lived, that the MAGA movement would be unable to destroy the existing political system of the USA with unconstitutional means? Could Parsons 2.0 be right? I have my doubts. The Moghuls of Big Tech and artificial intelligence are transforming the economy and the labour market faster and more rigorously than ever before. Tens of thousands of people are losing their job or fearing that their jobs are becoming obsolete. And then there is the erratic and unpredictable behavior of The President. His zig-zag policy of  tariffs on the import of foreign goods is costing extra jobs and pushing inflation to the north. Again, ressentiment is rife in the US. The difference between what happened in the middle of the last century and now, in Trump’s second presidency, is that he and his allies are pointing their political attacks, alternative facts, hate speech and fire-arms, at a much broader group of opponents. For them everyone that is not for them is against them, former friends and allies included.

Trump and his Department of Justice, have shown that they are prepared to set aside all laws, rules and regulations, including the American Constitution. April 2026, President Trump has sacked more than 100 sitting immigration judges, for earnestly processing cases of asylum seekers. Trump prefers “deportation” judges who will deny almost all requests for asylum at high speed. Developments and acts like these are red flags for every guardian of human rights and democracy. We have to wait and see whether Parsons’ trust in the American Political System, its System of Justice and its set of core norms and values will be justified.

At the moment I think that Trump will arouse so much opposition that he and the Republican Party. Or what is left of it, will lose the forthcoming elections.   

= = = = =

6.9.2 The Christian foundation of the American Value system.

Parsons had set much of his hope on the Christian basis of the American Value system. From the late forties on, he hired research assistants and PhD-candidates to investigate all kinds of institutional arrangements. The project got extra momentum as soon as he recruited Winston White. Together, they wrote several papers and articles and produced seven draft chapters for a new book with the provisional title: American Society. Unfortunately, White left the university and the book was never finished. For this project, Parsons and White had reread the work of Max Weber to find valuable clues for a more thorough analysis of the American value system. Most popular interpretations described the US as a society in turmoil, disturbed by rapid social changes that drove generations apart. Obviously, the older generations could not cope with the speed and scope of the changes. Moreover, the character of some of these changes seemed to question traditional core values and ridicule the old life style. Scores of authors predicted the erosion of the highly developed work ethos and individual responsibility. They feared the eroding of democratic social relations and the demise of community spirit. But it is typically American to announce loud and clear that the American nation is at risk.[61]

Parsons and White wanted to show that the American society still functioned and would remain functioning on the basis of enduring cultural forces. Yet, they acknowledged that the US was facing some major problems. No doubt, the peaceful integration of religious, social and ethnically different groups posed some challenges. The nation had to cope with a pluralism that was showing segregating tendencies. Nonetheless, they believed that fundamental ‘system forces’ would guarantee the continuation of American society, including its basic values. Furthermore, they wanted to explicate that a large, complex, modern society like the US could not be dominated by specific groups or practical institutional complexes such as the established elite, the speculators of Wall Street, the ‘manipulation mob’ of marketing and advertising specialists, or the so-called military-industrial complex.

Clearly, Parsons did not engage in a completely value free project. He employed a typical American middle class perspective, full of trust in social progress and the great value of American institutions. On the other hand, he had a keen eye for certain shortcomings, such as ongoing racism, the dominance of economic values, and the anti-intellectual spirit of the nation. That last mentality manifested itself in the eagerness to solve social and political problems quickly, before a thorough analysis had been made of its cause.

Like Weber, Parsons viewed the inner worldly ascetics as a core element of Northern America’s culture. In his comparative study of European Puritanism and Chinese Confucianism, Weber had interpreted Confucianism as a doctrine of rational adjustment to the world, and Protestant Puritanism as a doctrine of the rational control over the world. In stark contrast to other eminent scholars, Parsons did not think that the American value system was falling apart. In his view, pragmatism or, as he preferred to call it, instrumental activism, still prevailed. Signs that seemed to show that the traditional work ethos was loosing ground did not distract him, nor did the often-mentioned decline of achievement motivation and community values. He did not overlook some shifts in value priorities, but distrusted their power to engender a fundamental change in American culture. This belief was supported by the absence of strong causal factors, such as influential charismatic movements.

Following Weber, he was convinced that charismatic movements often acted as prime movers of societal change. He was not even impressed by the rise of consumerism, because, as he justly noticed, one could only consume more if one earns more, and to earn more one had to work harder and achieve more. In other words, instrumental activism was a necessary condition for a rising level of consumption.

What was the theoretical foundation upon which Parsons based his trust in the survival power of typical American values? Firstly, he assumed that there is a coherent and dominating value system within any social system. The second assumption was that the value system of a well-established society such as the USA, remains stable during long periods of time. Following Weber and Durkheim, he considered societal values as categories that are deeply anchored in culture. They form the core layer of any cultural system. In contrast to opinions and attitudes, categories that are much closer to the surface of culture, they are hardly susceptible for change.[62]

In A Tentative Outline, Parsons wanted to prove that, at a general level, the American value system has not changed since colonial history. To support his thesis, he sketched a system of categories that he deemed crucially important. He started with his concept of functional prerequisites. These prerequisites refer to the culture and structure of societies, and the psychological and physical make up of the members of these societies. He stated that there has to be another layer, above the top layer of culture that refers to non-empirical phenomena, a layer for religious or mystical matters. This brought him into the field of metaphysics. According to him, there are normative components, capable of steering human behaviour, which cannot be derived from the norms and values of the lower order of existential conditions. Whatever one may think of the meaning of such ultimate values, for Parsons there was no doubt that we have to face a fundamental choice whether we want to see the primary source of moral authority as coming from within our world, as Durkheim would have it, or from a supernatural force outside our world. In other words, do we assume a secular source or a religious source? The second choice that we have to decide upon concerns the fundamental dilemma between an internal and an external orientation. Do we want our actions to have an effect on internal relations within the social system or on the relations between our social system and its surroundings? The third fundamental choice concerns the primacy accorded to instrumental effects of our actions or to expressive or ‘consummatory’ effects? Social actors cannot avoid these choices. Actions that immediately lead to the realization of goals can be found within the secular and the religious domain. Think of actions that solve a social problem or actions that lead to a religious conversion. A religious-instrumental orientation aims at the expansion of the number of churches, temples or mosques, whereas a secular-instrumental orientation for example aims at the expansion or improvement of schools, hospitals, roads, and viaducts. All this is done in the hope that this will contribute to the well being of citizens.[63]

Where does this theoretical framework lead us? For Parsons it was clear that the American culture basically had a religious orientation. It has been created out of a mingling of immigrant groups from various predominantly Christian European countries. In the sixties, when he wrote this article, the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or wasps, still dominated American culture. They had transferred their Christian values to African descendants, whose ancestors were forcefully transported to the US as slaves. Despite some secularization still a very high percentage of Americans is religious. According to Parsons, again leaning on Weber, the primary implication of the religious component was activism. Protestants had to use all their God-given talents to master and control the world. The main objective is to control, to influence, and to manipulate nature, social situations, and individual behaviour so that men would not sin. This activism is the opposite of letting affairs have their course.

The instrumental side of the American value system turns activism into the direction of matters that are of value in this world. Most Americans fully denounce fatalism. Activism has to be directed at development and improvement of the present situation. It has to lead to a more desirable social situation than the one we live in now. For Calvinists individual activities must contribute to the realization of the Divine Plan. For pragmatic reasons its realization was turned into the more concrete objective of becoming a ‘righteous individual.’ To be a righteous man or woman was to be socially responsible and to contribute through high performance in secular ‘callings’. In religious terms, then, the American value system clearly belongs to the category of ‘worldly asceticism’. It is the farthest antithesis to the type of religious other-worldliness that puts escape from human society and its obligations as the highest religious goal.[64] The value that scores highest is achievement or, to be more precise, individual achievement within one’s social role. The universal standard used for evaluating individual achievements is the contribution to the realization of societal values, the contribution to realizing a more desirable society.

= = = = =

Can we still tick some of the boxes mentioned by Parsons?

6.8.3 Full citizenship for Afro-Americans[65]

In 1965, the scholarly magazine Daedalus organized two conferences to mobilize the American intellectual community to address the problems of Black Americans. Parsons presented an important paper. He began with a discussion of Thomas H. Marshall’s analysis of the concept of citizenship. Citizenship refers to full of the societal community.[66] It focuses on solidarity or mutual loyalty. It constitutes the consensual base underlying one’s political integration. So, in cases of full citizenship we can speak of Black or Afro-Americans, to show that they first and foremost are Americans. During the period of slavery they were called American Negroes to indicate that they lived in America but were not viewed as full citizens. They had hardly any rights and were not fully accepted as members of the societal community. For them, segregation and subordination were facts of life. The modern notion of Afro-American indicates that they are supposed to have more in common with other Americans than with other members of their race in the rest of the world.

Their transition from slavery to full citizenship has taken a very long time. And even now there are racial cleavages that can be related to the long history of slavery.[67]

Parsons agreed that the international fight against colonialism has stimulated the struggle for full citizenship, but he emphasized that the main impetus for this major transition has been internal to developments of American society itself. They are strongly connected with the process of differentiation. This has produced an increasingly pluralistic social structure, in which ethnicity should and does not determine all social participations. More and more, occupation, education, work organization, and political affiliation have become weaker correlated with ethnic background: more and more careers are based on achievement instead of ascription. In this context it is essential to make a clear distinction between inclusion and assimilation (Italics by TP). In his view, full inclusion and multiple role participation are compatible with the maintenance of a distinctive ethnic or religious identity. It is worth noting that already in 1965 Parsons expressed what later was to become the first article of faith of multiculturalism.

Thomas H. Marshall distinguished between three dimensions of citizenship: (1) the civil or legal, (2) the political and (3) the social. Legal citizenship developed first. This gave people certain rights and freedoms, such as individual security, property rights, and freedom of speech, religion, assembly and association. These civil rights provided the legal basis for African descendants and other minority groups to organize themselves in associations that strove for equal rights in all sectors of society. The extension of civil rights was followed, slowly, with granting political rights to participate in local and national elections. In general, social rights that protected people against poverty as a consequence of sickness, invalidity and old age come last. But equal rights can remain empty if opportunities are not equalized. For persons to be able to take advantage of opportunities they must have the financial and educational resources to do so. Legal decisions are crucial but they only are a first step. More political pressure was required to insure that blacks could enjoy both formal political rights and actual participation in the political process and the governmental apparatus. In the beginning, the police force and in some cases even the federal army had to be mobilized to safeguard the implementation of these rights, for instance the right of black girl to go to “white school”. But having attained legal and political rights and political participation only is a beginning. Full inclusion also requires that all historically created social handicaps must be erased.

The emergence of relevant social movements is very crucial. They can transform the strain of the conflict between normative requirements and factual limitations into pressures to act. To Parsons, the ultimate basis of the demand for inclusion lays in commitment to the values that legitimize it, in this case, the constitutional equality of American citizens. However, he hastens to add that this value commitment is not the only factor we have to deal with. There also are long-existing stubborn structural and cultural factors, which can create all kinds of setbacks. Of central concern is the vicious circle of factors related to poverty, bad health, family disorganization, low educational standards, juvenile delinquency, and other anti-social phenomena that are mutually reinforcing. This kind of argument has routinely been criticized as a form of ‘blaming the victim’. Though, two decades later, this sketch of a vicious circle was echoed and supported by new arguments and new empirical facts presented by William Julius Wilson in his book The Truly Disadvantaged.[68] Naturally, Wilson stressed the enduring negative consequences of historical and contemporary racism and discrimination in inner-city ghettos.

= = = = = But he also made clear that family disorganization, in casu, families headed by teenage mothers, and juvenile delinquency related to severe drug abuse added to the bleak situation of blacks. Another important new factor is the absenteeism of positive role models now that the black middle class has moved out to the richer suburbs. Although this was made possible by the victory of the Civil Rights Movement, it aggravated the plight of the black ghetto underclass. Moreover, modernization obliterated most jobs for people with limited educational credentials. All these factors and processes have been devastating for social life in the ghettos. What makes Wilson’s analysis so convincing is his serious treatment of a whole array of causal factors other than racism. He rightfully points at economic, demographic, cultural, and social factors to explain for the tenacity of ethnic segregation and the deprivation of large parts of the black minority. This kind of analysis gives due attention to the complexities of social existence and the manifold factors which are involved in changing or reproducing social conditions.

Two decades earlier Parsons discussed four categories of factors. The first is the commitment to the values that legitimize that the goal of inclusion itself is desirable. Here the Civil Rights movement has played the paramount part. In this respect he draws special attention to the role of the church, manifested by charismatic leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, and also by the support of prominent representatives of the Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. All this shows that the support for the Civil Rights of the Black Americans had become very broad, if not nation-wide. This extensive value-commitment had to be articulated in a full acceptance of members of minority groups as equals, as people that are in no way inferior to members of mainstream society. Everybody should acknowledge that the only tolerable solution to the ethnic tensions within the US lies in the constitution of a single societal community with full membership for all. The continuing mobilization of these loyalties and commitments on both sides of the racial line is the second crucial factor in the process of inclusion. Besides these two ‘idealistic’ factors that are crucial for social inclusion there also are ‘real’ or ‘materialistic’ factors at play, that is the political and the economic factor. Essential as government is, it does not stand alone in implementing major political changes. The political problems of integration involve all fields of organizational decision-making. Business firms and public organizations should accept Afro-Americans in employment. Colleges and universities should admit them for study and employment, to give a few examples. However, attempts to enforce compliance with equal rights acts or forms of affirmative action are all-too-often ineffective. Nevertheless, at certain crucial points its mobilization is clearly an essential factor. It includes decisions that make inclusion processes binding as obligations on all members of the collectivity, whether governmental or private.

Note that the use of power has a double effect. It mobilizes sanctions against recalcitrant persons that try to obstruct the implementation of the law. Second, it asserts that the policy of inclusion is taken seriously and that noncompliance will be sanctioned. Parsons thinks that economic interests are the most neutral as far as integration is concerned. Businesses want to make profits. The option to employ or serve people from disadvantaged groups will largely depend on the prospects for the firm. Will they gain or lose customers by hiring people from minority groups or promoting them to higher positions? In Parsons’ view, generally businessmen simply will not move, unless the balance of the other factors shifts towards integration. 

Although Parsons’ analysis lacked the empirical basis, his theoretical skills saved him from a biased and one-dimensional analysis that boils down to an explanation that only blames the whites for everything, thus implicitly disempowering the blacks and rendering their specific cultural and ethnic features of no consequence whatsoever. Parsons’ analytical strength lay in his focus on the emancipation of individuals of all categories from diffuse particularistic solidarities. This must be seen as a further differentiation of the role-set in which the individual is involved. By being included in larger community structures, the individual need not cease to be a member of the smaller ones, but the latter must relinquish certain controls over him or her. This reasoning applies to privileged as well as to disadvantaged groups. According to Parsons, we have been witnessing major steps in the extension and consolidation of the societal community of the US, although Wilson’s study shows that still much has to be achieved to arrive at the equal society that was proclaimed by the American Constitution established in 1789.

6.9   In conclusion

Parsons has been criticized on empirical, theoretical, ideological and pre-suppositional grounds.[69] There are two main types of critique on Parson’s suppositions. Some critics see him as someone who has fallen victim to a typical belief of cultural scientists, that is, the belief in a freedom of choice and the complete absence of social constraints that strongly limits anyone’s options. Some critics only notice this flaw in his early work; others see it reappear in all his writings. Other critics see clear manifestations of his idealistic approach in his recurrent emphasis on social-normative and social-psychological restrictions of complete freedom of action. Their main reproach is that Parsons overlooked material restrictions, such as an unjust distribution of scarce goods. Where Marx tried to explain inequality and social conflict by exploitative relations of production, Parsons drew our attention to social tensions that could be caused by unsuccessful forms of socialization.[70]

A second type of critique asserts that Parsons did not really present a voluntaristic theory of action. Atkinson clearly misread Parsons as a functional theorist that pictures man as the plaything of social forces, without any freedom of choice and without the ability to control his own life, because the social systems in which he plays his role simply demands him to play his predetermined role and nothing else. For Atkinson, functional imperatives leave no room for real voluntary actions.[71]

However, it is untrue that Parsons presented theoretical models that completely ignore social constraints and also, according to other critics, that his models are flawed because of his ‘over-socialized’ conception of man, a conception without any freedom of action. Such biased readings ignore that he believed in the existence of the freedom of choice, albeit it freedom of choice that is restricted by existing social structures, and prevailing norms and values.

Parsons’ approach is a compromise between the idealistic and materialistic, as well as a compromise between th individualistic and the collectivist model. But we have to admit that this is a very sensitive compromise, or to put it more positively, a highly valuable synthesis of distinctive theoretical perspectives, a synthesis that could only be the result of a combination of theoretical skill and clear observations of empirical reality. Certainly, Parsons was no 100 per cent philosophical idealist or materialists, nor was he 100 per cent individualist or collectivist. Nowhere in his numerous publications will we find an exact percentage to gauge the real balance between those perspectives. We will not even find a statement that says which is more important: individual freedom of choice or collective restraints that limit the freedom of choice. He only stressed that we need all four approaches to get a rather complete and valid picture of social actions and social systems.

Parsons’ ideological intentions are clear. He aimed for individual liberty within a well-functioning social system; a society that gives individuals space for personal development.

Parsons’ theories are strongly rooted in an empirical basis. Everyday humans take all kinds of decisions although not everybody can do what he wants. Everyone has to reckon with the interest of fellow-humans. Hence, all we do, all our choices and actions have to be made within the limits of what is socially acceptable. Therefore, Parsons never forgets to take individual interests into consideration when he is theorizing about functional prerequisites. It is a prerequisite that members of societies and social organizations can realize a sufficient number of their goals

Referring to his scheme of four scientific perspectives and his AGIL-scheme, I conclude that he has created ingenious syntheses and that he has elaborated these syntheses further in fruitful ways.

At the pre-suppositional level, Parsons committed himself completely to the primacy of social norms, all this with a strong emphasis on the importance of existential reality of real social equilibrium. He saw this equilibrium model as the most valid model of the empirical world, and as a moderated, antiradical ideological perspective. In my view, any theorist that does not have this pretence is not very sincere.

Parsons’ main contribution is his great attempt to give this sociology a major theoretical impulse. Social scientists always call for better theories, though most of them are not doing innovative theoretical work. They tend to carry out straightforward empirical studies, which, in view of the problematic nature of our field, is difficult enough. For most sociologists, already Merton’s goal of developing theories of the middle range seems to lie out of their league of imagination, let alone the hard work of sketching and improving so-called grand theories that Parsons was hunting for tenaciously. Therefore, we have reasons enough to show much respect for his oeuvre and to use it as a source of inspiration. Despite all its shortcomings, it is unique, valuable, and applicable in many situations. It deserves to be studied by each new generation of social scientists.

(Date: 14 June 2026; words 15508)

Notes

[1] J. Habermas (1981): Talcott Parsons: Problems of Theory Construction. Sociological Inquiry, 51 (3-4), 173-196.

[2] B.C. Wearne (1989): The Theory and Scholarship of Talcott Parsons to 1951 (p. 11-18). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

[3] E.C. Devereux Jr. (1961): Parsons’ Sociological Theory. In Max Black (Ed.), The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons (p.4).. Englewood Cliffs N.J.: Prentice Hall.

[4] Wearne: o. c., p. 19-20.

[5] T. Parsons (1949): The Structure of Social Action (Ch. 1, p. 7). Glencoe: Illinois, The Free Press.

[6] T. Parsons (1970): On Building Social System Theory: A Personal History. Daedalus, 99, 826-881.

[7] E. C. Devereux: o. c.: p. 4-5.

[8] J.C. Alexander (1983): The Modern Reconstruction of Classical Thought. Talcott Parsons.. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

[9] W. Breines (1986): Alone in the 1950^th: Anne Parsons and the feminine mystique. Theory and Society: Vol. 15. No. 6 (November 1986) pp. 805-843

[10] T. Parsons (1981): Revisiting the Classics throughout a Long Career. In Buford Rhea (Ed.): The Future of the Sociological Classics. London: George Allen & Unwin.

[11] D. Wrong (1961): The Oversocialized Conception of Man. American Sociological Review, 26(2), 183-192.

[12] T. Parsons (1962): Comment on ‘The Oversocialized Conception of Man’ by Dennis Wrong. Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Review, 10, 322-34

[13] C. Wright Mills introduced the term ‘Grand Theory’. He always used it in a pejorative way.

[14] R. Robertson & B. S. Turner (1991): An introduction to Talcott Parsons: Theory, politics and humanity. In R. Robertson & B.S. Turner (Eds.), Talcott Parsons, Theorist of Modernity (p.10). London: Sage Publications. 1991.

[15] T. Parsons & E.A. Shils (1951): Toward a General Theory of Action (p.50). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

[16] T. Parsons (1949): The Structure of Social Action (Ch. 1, p.7-8). Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.

[17] T. Parsons (1966): Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (p. 113). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

[18] J.C. Alexander (1987): Twenty Lectures: Sociological Theory since World War II. New York: Columbia University Press.

[19] Idem, o. c., p. 22

[20] See Habermas’ discussion of The Structure of Social Action in his Theory of Communicative Action.

[21] T. Parsons (1937): The Structure of Social Action. Glencoe: The Free Press.

[22] Idem, p. 731.

[23] T. Parsons (1960): Pattern Variables Revisited: A Response to Robert Dubin. American Sociological Review, 25(4).

[24] R. Münch (1988): Theory of Action. Towards a New Synthesis Going beyond Parsons (p.41). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

[25] T. Parsons (1951): The Social System (p. 436-437). London: Routledge Kegan Paul.

[26] See also: T. Parsons (1978). The Sick Role and the Role of the Physician Reconsidered. In T. Parsons: Action Theory and the Human Condition (p.21). New York: The Free Press.

[27] In response to Dubin, Parsons concedes that the fifth pattern variable (self versus collectivity) falls outside these two sets and seems to belong to another level of analysis. See: Talcott Parsons (1960). Pattern Variables Revisited: A Response to Robert Dubin. American Sociological Review, 25(4) See also: R. Dubin (1960): Parsons’ Actor: Continuities in Social Theory. American Sociological Review, 25(4)

[28] T. Parsons (1951): o. c. p. 10-11

[29] T. Parsons [(1945)]: The Present Position and Prospects of Systematic Theory in Sociology, in: G. Gurvitch, W. E. Moore, eds. Twentieth Century Sociology. New York: Philosophical Library.

[30] T. Parsons (1951): The Social System, o. c.: p. 27-28.

[31] J. Alexander (1987): o. c.

[32] K. Davis & W.E. Moore (1945): Some Principles of Stratification. American Sociological Review, X, 242-249. See also: M. Tumin (1953): Some Principles of Stratification. American Sociological Review, 18, 387-394

[33] T. Parsons & E. Shils (1951): Toward a General Theory of Action (p.108). Cambridge: MA, Harvard University Press.

[34] B.S. Turner (1991): Neofunctionalism and the New Theoretical Movement. In R. Robertson & B.S. Turner (Eds.), Talcott Parsons, Theorists of Modernity, London: Sage Publications.

[35] T. Parsons (1965): General Theory in Sociology. In: Sociology Today, Problems and Prospects. New York: Harper & Row.

[36] T. Parsons (1951): The Social System (p.27). New York: The Free Press.

[37] Idem, p. 27-28.

[38] J.H. Turner (1978): The Structure of Sociological Theory (Revised ed.) (p.51). Homewood: The Dorsey Press.

[39] C. Morse (1961): The Functional Imperatives. In M. Black (Ed.):  The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons. New York: Prentice Hall.

[40] Hans Adriaansens (1976): Talcott Parsons en het conceptuele dilemma. Deventer: Van Loghum Slaterus.

[41] C.A.C. Klaassen (1981): Sociologie van de persoonlijkheidsontwikkeling:   Verkenningen in de socialisatietheorie. Deventer: Van Loghum Slaterus. 

[42] T. Parsons, (1964): o. c. p. 56-57.

[43] Idem

[44] T. Parsons, (1951): The Social System: p. 207-208.

[45] Idem p. 27

[46] Idem p. 27-28

[47] The idea for this model was based on his theoretical observations made in the following books: Family, Socialization, and Interaction Process: New York: The Free press. (1955, in cooperation with Robert Bales and others,) The Social System (o. c.), and in Social Structure and Personality. New York: The Free Press (1964).   

[48] Parsons owes this idea to G. W. Allport.

[49] Parsons & Bales, o. c. p. 198.

[50] Idem, p. 194.

[51] Parsons en Bales, o. c. (Piaget has made clear that learning not only requires the integration of new elements in old, existing cognitive schemes, but that learning also will involve the creation of whole new schemes of thinking).

[52] T. Parsons (1966): Societies: Evolutionary and comparative perspectives. Englewood Cliffs (N.J.): Prentice Hall. 

[53] T. Parsons (1961): Some Considerations on the Theory of social change. Rural sociology, 26, 219-239.

[54] M.J. de Jong (1986): Educational policy in the Netherlands: a plea for integration. Equity and Choice, II(3), 86-96

[55] History also has produced negative charismatic forces such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Fortunately their power and influence appears to be relatively short lived.

[56] Collins & Makowsky, o. c. p. 178-180.

[57] T. Parsons (1991): A tentative outline of American Values. In R. Robertson & B.S. Turner (Eds.), Talcott Parsons, Theorist of Modernity. London: Sage Publications.

[58] See Part III, Structure and Process in Political Systems, in T. Parsons (1960), Structure and Process in Modern Societies (pp. 17-250). New York: The Free Press.

[59] McCarthyism; Wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 11-5-2026

[60] V. Lidz (1991): The American Value System:  A commentary on Talcott Parsons’ Perspective and understanding. In:R. Robertson & Bryan S. Turner (Eds.) Talcott Parsons, Theorist of Modernity. o. c.

[61] A telling example is the report A Nation at Risk, published in 1983. The first page opened with the statement that no foreign power could have been so successful in destroying the core of American society than recent educational policies had succeeded in doing.

[62] G. Hofstede (1980). Cultures consequences, International Differences in Work-Related Values. London: Sage Publications.

[63] T. Parsons (1991): A Tentative Outline, o. c., p. 43-44.

[64] Idem, p. 49.

[65] T. Parsons (1965): Full Citizenship for the Negro American? A Sociological problem. Daedalus. Vol. 94 (Fall) pp. 1023-1034.

[66] This term refers to that aspect of the total society as a system, which forms a Gemeinschaft, a term used by Tönnies.

[67] W.J. Wilson (1987): The Truly Disadvantaged. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

[68] Idem

[69] J.C. Alexander (1984): Theoretical Logic in Sociology, Volume Four. The Modern Reconstruction of Classical Thought: Talcott Parsons (pp. 289-310). London: Routledge Kegan Paul. 1984.

[70] J. C. Alexander, (1984): o. c., p. 302. Alexander refers to David Lockwood’s Some Remarks on The Social System, published in 1953. Mills, Dahrendorf, Rex and Gouldner have followed Lockwood’s line of argument.

[71] Idem, p. 303.