The social system
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| The social system - Talcot Parsons |
The present volume is an attempt to bring together, in systematic and generalized form, the main outlines of a conceptual scheme for the analysis of the structure and processes of social systems.
In the nature of the case, within the frame of reference of action, such a conceptual scheme must focus on the delineation of the system of institutionalized roles and the motivational processes organized about them. Because of this focus and the very elementary treatment of processes of economic exchange and of the organization of political power, the book should be regarded as a statement of general sociological theory, since this is here interpreted to be that part of the theory of the social system which is centred on the phenomena of the institutionalization of patterns of value-orientation in roles.
The title, The Social System, goes back, more than to any other source, to the insistence of the late Professor L. J. Henderson on the extreme importance of the concept of system in scientific theory, and his clear realization that the attempt to delineate the social system as a system was the most important contribution of Pareto's great work.^
This book, therefore, is an attempt to carry out Pareto's intention, using an approach, the "structural-functional" level of analysis, which is quite different from that of Pareto, and, of course, taking advantage of the very considerable advances in our knowledge at many points, which have accumulated in the generation since Pareto wrote.
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