Differentiation (sociology)
In system theory, "differentiation" is the increase of subsystems in a modern society to increase the complexity of a society. Each subsystem can make different connections with other subsystems, and this leads to more variation within the system in order to respond to variation in the environment.
Differentiation that leads to more variation allows for better responses to the environment, and also for faster evolution (or perhaps sociocultural evolution), which is defined sociologically as a process of selection from variation; the more differentiation (and thus variation) that is available, the better the selection.[1]: 95–96
Segmentary differentiation[edit]
Segmentary differentiation divides parts of the system on the basis of the need to fulfil identical functions over and over. For instance, a car manufacturer may have functionally similar factories for the production of cars at many different locations. Every location is organized in much the same way; each has the same structure and fulfils the same function – producing cars.[1]: 96
Stratifactory differentiation[edit]
Stratificatory differentiation or social stratification is a vertical differentiation according to rank or status in a system conceived as a hierarchy. Every rank fulfills a particular and distinct function in the system, for instance the manufacturing company president, the plant manager, trickling down to the assembly line worker. In segmentary differentiation inequality is an accidental variance and serves no essential function, however, inequality is systemic in the function of stratified systems. A stratified system is more concerned with the higher ranks (president, manager) than it is with the lower ranks (assembly worker) with regard to "influential communication." However, the ranks are dependent on each other and the social system will collapse unless all ranks realize their functions. This type of system tends to necessitate the lower ranks to initiate conflict in order to shift the influential communication to their level.[1]: 97
Center-periphery differentiation[edit]
Center-periphery differentiation is a link between Segmentary and Stratificatory, an example is again, automobile firms, may have built factories in other countries, nevertheless the headquarters for the company remains the center ruling, and to whatever extent controlling, the peripheral factories.[1]: 98
Understanding the risk of complexity[edit]
It is exemplified that in Segmentary differentiation if a segment fails to fulfill its function it does not affect or threaten the larger system. If an auto plant in Michigan stops production this does not threaten the overall system, or the plants in other locations. However, as complexity increases so does the risk of system breakdown. If a rank structure in a Stratified system fails, it threatens the system; a Center-Periphery system might be threatened if the control measure, or the Center/Headquarters failed; and in a Functionally differentiated system, due to the existence of interdependence despite independence the failure of one unit will cause a problem for the social system, possibly leading to its breakdown. The growth of complexity increases the abilities of a system to deal with its environment, but complexity increases the risk of system breakdown. It is important to note that more complex systems do not necessarily exclude less complex systems, in some instances the more complex system may require the existence of the less complex system to function.[1]: 98–100
Modern social theory[edit]
Luhmann uses the operative distinction between system and environment to determine that society is a complex system which replicates the system/environment distinction to form internal subsystems. Science is among these internally differentiated social systems, and within this system is the sub-system sociology. Here, in the system sociology, Luhmann finds himself again, an observer observing society. His knowledge of society as an internally differentiated system is a contingent observation made from within one of the specialized function-systems he observes. He concludes, therefore, that any social theory claiming universal status must take this contingency into account. Once one uses the basic system/environment distinction, then none of the traditional philosophical or sociological distinctions – transcendental and empirical, subject and object, ideology and science – can eliminate the contingency of enforced selectivity. Thus, Luhmann's theory of social systems breaks not only with all forms of transcendentalism, but with the philosophy of history as well.[5]
Luhmann is criticized as being self-referential and repetitive, this is because a system is forced to observe society from within society. Systems theory, for its part, unfolds this paradox with the notion that the observer observes society from within a subsystem (in this case: sociology) of a subsystem (science) of the social system. Its descriptions are thus "society of society".[6]
Luhmann's critique of political and economic theories of society[edit]
Luhmann felt that the society that thematized itself as political society misunderstood itself. It was simply a social system in which a newly differentiated political subsystem had functional primacy. Luhmann analyzes the Marxist approach to an economy based society: In this theory, the concept of economic society is understood to denote a new type of society in which production, and beyond that "a metabolically founded system of needs" replaces politics as the central social process. From another perspective also characteristic of Marxist thought, the term "bourgeois society" is meant to signify that a politically defined ruling segment is now replaced as the dominant stratum by the owners of property. Luhmann's reservations concerning not only Marxist, but also bourgeois theories of economic society parallel his criticisms of Aristotelian political philosophy as a theory of political society. Both theories make the understandable error of "pars pro toto", of taking the part for the whole, which in this context means identifying a social subsystem with the whole of society. The error can be traced to the dramatic nature of the emergence of each subsystem and its functional primacy (for a time) in relation to the other spheres of society. Nevertheless, the functional primacy claimed for the economy should not have led to asserting an economic permeation of all spheres of life. The notion of the economy possessing functional primacy is compatible with the well-known circumstance that the political subsystem not only grew increasingly differentiated (from religion, morals, and customs if not from the economy) but also continued to increase in size and internal complexity over the course of the entire capitalist epoch. For functional primacy need only imply that the internal complexity of a given subsystem is the greatest, and that the new developmental stage of society is characterized by tasks and problems originating primarily in this sphere.[7]