Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I think the question of what "functionalism" means (as a technical term) is > an important question, and can legitimately be debated.< >
When I studied sociological theory in college, structural functionalism was best described by the sociology of Talcott Parsons. A social structure or institution was thought to exist _because_ it served some function for society. To Parsons, medical doctors act superior and all-knowing to patients, wear white coats, talk in jargon, etc., because there exists an inherent tension in the doctor/patient relationship and this superiority (etc.) helps to moderate or even end that tension. It's a form of teleological reasoning. (Somehow it doesn't fit today's doctors' offices, in which patients talk back to the docs, refuse recommended vaccinations, and ask for prescriptions advertised on TV. I don't know how a functionalist would explain the change.) Textbook "neoclassical" economics doesn't know it, but their theory involves a heavy dose of functionalism. Something happens (gas-guzzling cars are produced, etc.) because markets serve consumers (as if guided by an Invisible Hand). Alternatively, markets _would_ serve consumers if they were perfect. (The latter is likely the more popular view.) It's the Invisible Hand that makes the theory functionalist or teleological. In the book I cited earlier, Stinchcombe critiqued Marxist sociology as being a version of structural functionalism. Though that doesn't work as a blanket condemnation (as Jurriaan seems to want to do), it is true for _some_ Marxist thinkers. For example, some see the capitalist state as acting the way it does _because_ it must do so to preserve capitalism. The mechanism that makes this work is not specified clearly, making this "structuralist" theory of the state functionalist. To my mind, the capitalist state serves the collective needs of the capitalists in "normal" times (where the state's success at serving those needs are a major factor making those times "normal"). But the actual actions of the state depend on conflicting political forces and alliances both inside and outside of the state, many of which do not have capitalism's best interests at heart. Often they reflect short-term greed (e.g., an important element of the Tea Party) rather than what's good for capitalism as a whole in the long run (which I'd guess would involve avoiding global warming). Second, the state's actions might reflect the interests of government officials, e.g. in the Pentagon. (Clearly, an alliance between outside forces such as the military industries and inside forces such as the Pentagon can be hard to break.) Third, they might reflect the need to legitimate the state in the eyes of workers and other dominated groups. In "abnormal" times, these conflicts push the capitalist state to go against what's good for capitalism (as with the Unidad Popular government of Allende in Chile in 1973), so that a political and even an economic crisis results. But contrary to functionalism, any homeostatic mechanisms that push the state back to serving its "functions" (e.g., the force led by the CIA and General Pinochet) co-exist with other forces. Thus, the crisis (the conflict between the state's actions and what's good for capitalism in the long run) might be "solved" in other ways besides restoring capitalism and the capitalist state. -- Jim Devine / "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
