Functional Analysis of Change

Abstract

racies to proliferate offices, or the complex sequence in competitive structures of instrumental innovation, conservative reaction, and additional regulation. (2) What changes are the orderly consequences of intersegment functional interaction? Here, the interpenetration of occuptional interest groups like unions, and complex work organizations like corporations afford illustrations. (3) What are the predictable leads, lags, tensionssuch as the lead of deliberate change and the lag of adversely affected interests? (4) What are the reliable consequences for whole societies of these trends and interplays? An example is the pushing of common values to higher, indeed rarefied, levels of generalization while primary-group values may be intensified and particularized. (5) What can be painted with a broad brush on large canvases about inter-society relations and the trend of human kind generally? An important example is provided by the creation of common material standards of life without effective agreement on an equitable rationale for actual inequalities or even on the more ultimate values of human existence. In sum, an integrated theory of social change will be as singular or plural as sociological theory as a whole, and will include about the same subdivisions and topics. It is not only later than we think, as always, but we are also nearer home.