On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:40:50 -0500 Dennis Breslin <dbreslin at ctol.net> writes (in response to Yoshie):
> >
>
>
> Unfortunately, you go too far beyond even the lyric: some groups,
> like the capitalist class, always get what they need. Or the
> system, mode of production, whathaveyou, always has its imperatives
> satisfied and so is reproduced. At least the Stones let it be
> a sometime thing.
>
> In order to elaborate, let me offer some quick thoughts about
> functional explanations.
>
> Functional explanations certainly involve telos - but they always
> depend on the invisible hand to deliver the outcome. In the
> conventions of anthropology and sociology, a function is
> unrecognized - neither intended nor anticipated and so does not
> rely on the conscious actions of actors (individuals or groups)
> for its existence. It is what gives the social scientist a leg
> up on the laity because it can observe _objectively_ how things
> really work.
>
>
>
> There's another limitation to functional explanations, perhaps
> _intrinsic_ to them but certainly in practice: its how
> functional explanations seduce an observer into _only_ seeing
> functions satisfied and order maintained. One of the
> major complaints that has long been levelled against sociological
> functionalism was its bias in favor of social order.
That is I think a legitimate complaint against the structural functionalism of Durkheim or Malinowski or Parsons or even Merton but it doesn't necessarily discredit the utility of functional explanations per se in social science. One of the things that Jerry Cohen was able to do in *Karl Marx's Theory of History* was to draw a distinction between what is known as functionalism in sociology and anthrolopoogy and the use of functional explanations which does not necssarily entail all the theoretical and ideological commitments that go along with standard functionalism. For Cohen, the underlying telos in his functional explanations is not system maintenance and social cohesion in quite the same sense of Durkheim or Malinowski but rather the continued development of the forces of production. In his scheme, the development of the forces of production may either be fostered by the social relations of production that exist at a given historical moment or they may be hindered. The same set of relations of production may well foster the development of the forces of production at one but later on act as fetters on their further development. In Cohen's view when this contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production occurs, then it is quite likely that changes will eventually occur in the relations of production, so that new relations will arise that are better adapted to the forces of production. (This is what is known as Cohen's Thesis of the Primacy of the Forces of Production).
On the other hand when the existing relations of production are relatively well adapted to the current level of development of the forces of production, then the social system will tend to function so as to stabilize the existing relations of production. In Cohen's view, it is thus possible to analyze the supersturcture (i.e. the state, law, religion, and ideology) in terms of its functioning to stabilize the economic base (i.e. the forces of production combined with the relations of production). Therefore, in Cohen's view, functional explanations of the supersturcture ought to be prove to be especially fruitful. In periods in which the existing relations of production have come to act as fetters on the forces of production then we can expect that social conflicts, especially class struggles will appear as the existing relations of production become destabilized, thereby necessitating changes in the superstructure as well as in the relations of production.
Alan Carling has proposed some modifications in Cohen's scheme so as to make room for Brenner's emphasis on the role of class struggle in effecting historical change. Carling proposes an avowedly selectionist version of historical materialism. In place of Cohen's Primacy Thesis, he proposes what he calls a Competitve Primacy Thesis. In his scheme, different modes of production are said to exist in a state of competition with one another as well as with nature. If one mode of production emerges triumphant over another, this is most likely because the triumphant mode had by better fostering the forces of production been able to outcompete the loser either in economic/technological terms and/or in political/military terms. Thus for Carling, the The Primacy Thesis holds only where there is direct competition between two rival regimes of production.
For Carling, class struggle plays an essential role in social evolution because it is class struggle that acts as a generator for new variations in the relations of production. These new variations in turn are subjected to differential selection upon the basis of their relative adaptiveness in terms of fostering the forces of production. Carling, thus attempts to create a version of historical materialism that is directly analogous to Darwinian biology. Class struggles in Carling's theory play role analogous to that of mutations in Darwinian biology - that is the generator of new variations that are subjected to differential selection. Therefore, in Carling's scheme, things like deviance, conflict, and division are essential to continued social evolution insomuch as they serve as generators of new variations in social relations.
>Things
> always worked to sustain/maintain/long may you reign social
> order so that in its organismic and later abstract systemic
> theorizing, deviance, conflict, division, etc. were theoretically
> defined as irrelevant. Order was natural and typical; disorder
> was a departure and unusual. Not so much undesirable as
> theoretically besides the point. Its the godhead of equilibrium.
>
> And this seduction in favor of system maintenance - capitalist
> reproduction has seduce more than one marxist scholar.
> Althusser and his ISAs comes mind shares a real affinity with
> Talcott Parsons. Even the musings of a sometime fellow traveller
> Foucault genuflects to functional language in his references
> to power (very Durkheimian, very French). Things always in the end,
>
> in the last instance, work to/function to/act to/as a consequence
> reproduce the mode of production. Conflict is always resolved in
> subordinate classes defeact or acquiesence, contradictions are
> always
> resolved so the the capitalist system is restored to health, the
> capitalist class once again reigns supreme and things chug along
> until another crisis erupts.
Jim Farmelant
>
> DB
>
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