> I agree with all of this except for the adveerb in the quotation from Parenti. That _seems_ to be overlookign contingency, including false judgments by the "makers" of history. But perhaps I misunderstand what is meant by "unfolds functionally."
A fair point, although in Parenti's defense the line was delivered more as a provocative interruption of the degenerate, atrophied "functionalist v. structuralist" debate than as a tenet of theory. It's from his lecture "Conspiracy and Class Power" - in the introduction to which he's at pains to emphasize the conjunction: both systemic *and* individual factors are at work in the mighty ass-whoopin' we're collectively getting.