Showing papers on "Social system published in 1973"

The Property Right Paradigm

Abstract: Economics textbooks invariably describe the important economic choices that all societies must make by the following three questions: What goods are to be produced? How are these goods to be produced? Who is to get what is produced? This way of stating social choice problems is misleading. Economic organizations necessarily do resolve these issues in one fashion or another, but even the most centralized societies do not and cannot specify the answer to these questions in advance and in detail. It is more useful and nearer to the truth to view a social system as relying on techniques, rules, or customs to resolve conflicts that arise in the use of scarce resources rather than imagining that societies specify the particular uses to which resources will be put.

Widowhood in an American city

Abstract: Widowhood in an American City focuses on the roles and lifestyles of urban American widows fifty years of age or older. These women form a segment of two generations of one society; they present a historical instance of people born and brought up under conditions that are not likely to be duplicated. Not only the U.S., but many other countries are undergoing modifications in the degrees and forms of urbanization, industrialization, and social complexity.Helena Znaniecki Lopata argues that the way women re-engage society following the death of a husband is different due to their location in the modern social system. She notes that the trends in social structure are toward increasingly voluntaristic engagement in achieved, functionally oriented social roles that are performed in large groups and contain secondary social relations. The cultural background of many societal members prevents the utilization of most resources of the complex urban world, restricting them to a small social life space, with almost automatically prescribed social relations.Those who argue that the elderly are socially isolated contend that this is a result of the natural process of withdrawal of the person and the society from each other. These arguments focus on those who are isolated or lonely and those who lack the skills, money, health, and transportation for engaging or re-engaging society. Lopata's study indicates that this assumption is false for many widows. If such people are to be helped, a fresh view of the relation between the urban, industrial, and complex modern world and its residents is required, and new action programs must be creatively developed. This is a timely, ground-breaking work that addresses and shatters common myths associated with growing old alone in an urban society.

Sociological Perspectives on the Life Cycle

Abstract: Students of the life cycle have given much attention to the biological timetable of human development, but much less attention to the socio-historical context. A few of the major sociological concepts significant for understanding personality are briefly reviewed–namely, social system, social role, and socialization, and each is discussed in relation to a time dimension in looking at the life course. The life cycle is then viewed from each of three dimensions of time: life time (or chronological age); historical time; and social time, or the system of age grading and age expectations which shapes the life cycle. After a brief discussion of age norms as a system of social control, and of age stratification in society, there follows a description of the changing rhythm of the life cycle in American society, illustrating how historical time, social time, and life time are intertwined.

Causal models and social indicators: toward the development of social systems models.

Abstract: To be meaningful social indicators must be components of some social systems model so that changes in the values of these social statistics over time tell us something about the functionimg of the social system. A necessary next step in developing social indicators is constructing models involving interrelated sets of social indicators in each major institutional area of society. This paper reports an initial effort to derive a set of social indicators for the area of health care. A structural equation model has been constructed fox the health care system serving the state of New Mexico. The model includes a network that specifies the causal relationships hypothesized as existing among a set of social, demographic, and economic variables related to the availability and use of health services and to health status; a set of structural equations that indicate the direct effect of variables in the model on each endogenous variable; a set of reduced form equations that indicate the combined direct and indirect effect of each predetermined variable on each endogenous variable included in the model. The model can be used to provide monitoring information pertaining to the effect of a change in a particular variable on all other variables comprising the health care system. Also it provides explanatory information regarding the differences in the availability of health care services, their use, and the health-status of the population in various counties. Finally, predictions of the effects of alternative health care policies that would affect the supply, the organization of care, or patterns of use of health services can be made based on the model.

Social organization : a general systems and role theory perspective

Abstract: Social Organization :A General Systems and Role Theory Perspective , Social Organization :A General Systems and Role Theory Perspective , کتابخانه مرکزی دانشگاه علوم پزشکی تهران

The Role of Social Groups

Abstract: One of the most powerful theories in political science in recent years has been that of totalitarianism and this model of society has been taken to represent the reality of the USSR and States patterned on her. ‘Totalitarianism’ may be defined as a social system which ‘seeks to politicise all human behaviour and plan all human relationships’, its chief features include the obliteration of the distinction between State and society and the destruction of associations and groups which are interposed between the individual and the State.1 From the mid-1960s, however, thinking among specialists in the West has moved away from this model, which has been recognised as providing ‘a set of blinders to the perception of change’,2 to emphasise more the autonomous nature of various groups and their role in influencing the political authorities. As Ionescu has pointed out: No society, and especially no contemporary society, is so politically under-developed as not to continue, and reproduce within itself, the perennial conflict of power. No contemporary society can run all the complex activities of the state, political, cultural, social and economic, exclusively, by its own ubiquitous and omniscient servants, without collaboration, and bargains with, or checks by, other interest groups.3

Conceptualizing dynamic models of social systems: lessons from a study of social change.

Abstract: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. Thesis. 1973. Ph.D.

Social Structure and Social Movements: The Black Muslims in the U. S. A. and the Ras-Tafarians in Jamaica

Abstract: This paper examines, by exegetical analysis, two contemporary social movements occurring in two different social structures. It seeks to throw light on the sociological categories of protest and discontent, and the relationship between these and social structural variables such as status situation. The Ras-Tafarians in Jamaica and the Black Muslims in the U.S.A. both openly reject their society. Adherents to these movements have created their own unique Weltanschauung, namely, a projection into semi-secular kingdoms: for the Ras-Tafarians Ethiopia is heaven, Haile Selassie is God; for the Muslims Allah is supreme, Islam is the black homeland. Deliverance from defined socio-economic deprivation will come not from a transcendental Christ, but from Allah and RasTafari. How real are these hopes? It is concluded that both movements achieve some measure of adjustment to their unfavourable lifesituations but that sociology must spell out that that which possesses Muslims and Ras-Tafarians is not a demon but the social system of which they are a part. Sociology can employ dynamic concepts to construct theories capable of predicting conditional outcomes of the conflicts which are built into social systems and which the rebels kick against. The outcome lies in this world. As social systems undergo change, the established truths of religious and intellectual authority are thrown open to doubt and question. Both sacred and secular relativism will tend to break down the traditional pattern and will create large areas of anxiety and uncertainty. A situation such as this provides an opportunity for some groups of actors to offer certainty instead of doubt-a certainty based on * G. Llewellyn Watson B.A. M.A. PH.D. Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada 188 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.179 on Tue, 12 Apr 2016 10:39:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms G. Llewellyn Watson Social structure and social movements alternative sets of beliefs and usually derived from a transcending source of authority. Such an opportunity is the one taken by the Ras-Tafarian (Rasta) movement in Jamaica, a politico-religious protest movement which draws its membership from among the dispossessed and the disprivileged of Jamaican lower classes,' and by the Black Muslims in the U.S.A., whose membership consists of young, activist, disprivileged lower-class Afro-Americans.2 Both movements fit current definitions of social movement, and especially so if a social movement is conceptually defined as a social collectivity and treated as a group rather than as a process.3 Definitional precision of social movements remains problematic, primarily because of the diversity of social collectivities which seemingly qualify for this title, collectivities ranging on a wide continuum, in terms of action-output from peaceful bargaining in the market place to open violence and revolution. A synthesis of varied definitions available would seem to suggest that whatever model of social movement is selected, its basic characteristic is that of a collective enterprise, or effort, designed to correct, supplement, overthrow, or in some fashion influence the social order. By these quite general criteria, then, both the Ras-Tafarians and the Black Muslims constitute social movements-movements which, nevertheless, bear strong elements of millenarianism and other-worldly orientation. Let us take a closer look at these highly interesting social

A Theory of Instrumental Social Networks

Abstract: Network theory, although well advanced as a conceptual and methodological tool for structural analysis, has not yet attained a commensurate level of sophistication in the specification of the functional components of social networks. The present paper is devoted to the formulation of a theory of one functional aspect of ego-centered networks, with special reference to Latin American social systems. It is suggested that, particularly under conditions of substantial economic change, such networks may function as important instrumental elements of individual social mobility. The theory is submitted to a limited empirical test on materials from a small urban community in Latin America and is found to provide a useful explanatory framework. When assessed for its broader sociocultural implications, it is also shown to be a special theory of social change, having utility for the analysis of changing patterns in the distribution of socioeconomic resources and social power in developing societies.

Toward the system theory of dependence: Further general theoretical remarks

Abstract: This paper forms another part of a more extensive study inspired by the authors' aims to contribute to the elaboration of the social systems theory of dependence and to better understand the behavior of the global system of human beings and of its subsystems. The theory of dependence, by elaborating an abstract theoretical model of the dependence space, aims at a better understanding of social change (or resistance to change) on the micro, medium and macro-levels of the social systems.

A social system analysis of the effectiveness of an economic organization

Abstract: ion that it is not clear whether empirically testable hypotheses cam be derived from them, an essential requirement in scientific theory (Blau and Scott, 1962:40}. However, Zetterberg (1965: 79-82) suggests that in generating general hypotheses researchers move from the theoretical to the ordi­ nary level of conceptualization. Thus, Pazsons' provides a possible starting point, even though he does not purport to develop a theory of formal organizations (Parsons, 1960:96). His Aim is to develop a general theory of society applicable to the study of any social system. Most past writers who have followed Parsons* model have focused on the concepts of goal attainment and adaptation. Less attention has been given to integration and latency. One example of studies focusing on adaptation is found in the writings of Gouldner eind Gouldner (1963:394), Another exaumple is explicit in George 0= Koman's The Human Group, especially the analysis of how production was hit by lower pairticipants in the baink wiring room and patterns of adaptation to the physical, technical, and social environment (Homans, 1950: 88-90). The concern with goal attainment is explicit in the works of those who follow Max Weber's ideal model of bureauc­ racy. Parsons' concept of integration is not clear, A problem arises over the distinction between inter emd intra-integration.

Social systems and the criteria of health as defined by the World Health Organization.

Abstract: The main reason for the great discrepancy between the realization of the medical and the social criteria of health as defined by the WHO charter is the disproportion between the knowledge of technical sciences and of human nature. This is relevant to various social systems. There are in addition specific reasons for the discrepancies existing in Communist countries; such reasons include the practical difficulties inherent in creating a new human consciousness in a revolutionary way, a sharpening of the aggressive instincts by acceptance of the dogma of the class struggle, lack of an adequate communication system between the party and the population, and the instability of the value system, leading to a feeling of insecurity. Scientists of various disciplines represent the most productive social forces in society; they should play an important role in designing a unitary system of self-government for mankind.

An Approach To the Simulation of Social Systems

Abstract: I doubt if there is anyone who has attempted simulation modeling of a social system who has not been advised to abandon the idea. Yet, we persist. The complexity of social systems and the potential of simulation for representing complexities seem to fit together logically. However, this fit is not without pitfalls. Recognition of some of these pitfalls and the context within which they lie can lead to more usable social-system simulations.

Program of policy studies in science and technology

Abstract: The application of an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented capability to the performance of total social impact evaluations is discussed. The consequences of introducing new configurations, technological or otherwise into future social environments are presented. The primary characteristics of the program are summarized: (1) emphasis on interdisciplinary, problem-oriented analysis; (2) development of intra- and inter-institutional arrangements for the purpose of analyzing social problems, evaluating existing programs, and assessing the social impacts of prospective policies, programs, and other public actions; (3) focus on methodological approaches to the projection of alternative future social environments, the identification of the effects of the introduction of new policies, programs, or other actions into the social system, and the evaluation of the social impacts of such effects; (4) availability of analytical resources for advisory and research tasks, and provision for use of program facilities as a neutral forum for the discussion of public issues involving involving the impact of advancing technology on social value-institutional processes.