Linear and Cyclical Models of Social Change

Linear Models of Social Change

  • Linear models describe patterns of social change, not the causes.
  • They involve stages of development, often evolutionary, with increasing complexity.
  • Evolutionary regress (going backward) is not a feature of linear models.
  • Examples:
    • Mechanical to organic solidarity (Durkheim)
    • Mineshaft to gazelle shaft
    • Comte's Law of Three Stages
    • Spencer's industrial and militant societies
    • Lenski's model: Hunting/gathering -> Horticultural -> Agricultural -> Industrial

Gerhard Lenski's Model

  • Based on the technology of economic production.
  • Stages:
    • Hunting and Gathering: Focus on food.
    • Horticultural: Gardening.
    • Agricultural: Widespread mass gardening.
    • Industrial: Using inanimate energy sources (steam, water power, electricity, nuclear power).
  • Society's characteristics depend on the technology of economic production.
  • Post-industrial economy (service-based) in some regions like the U.S., but Lenski considers the global system still industrial.

Urban Development Model

  • Another linear model; cities evolve and don't regress.
  • Skipping stages is possible, but not going backward.
  • Key dimensions:
    • Spatial patterning: How activities are distributed in the urban center.
    • Economic production: Marketplace for essential goods and services.
    • Polity: Centralization of political power.
    • Civil community: Status, rights, and duties of citizens.
Urbanization Statistics:
  • 1800: 3% of the world's population in urban areas.
  • 1990: 73% in developed nations, less than half in developing nations.
  • 2050 (projected): >66% globally.
City Types & Characteristics:
  • Ancient Cities:
    • Political Power: Dynasties of nobles or kings owned the city, ruled as an extension of their personalities.
    • Civil Community: Peasant revolts and conflicts among elites.
    • Economic Production: Agriculture and some markets.
    • Spatial Patterns: Rulers and elites in the center, citizens around them, walled for protection, and poor/immigrants outside.
  • Industrial Cities (1750s-1800s):
    • Political Power: Industrialists.
    • Civil Community: Labor movements, high inequality.
    • Spatial Patterns: Downtown central business districts, suburbs, and residential segregation by class.
  • World Cities:
    • Political Power: Those involved in global processes.
    • Civil Community: Conflicts over language, politics, community autonomy, and taxes.
    • Spatial Patterns: Sprawling patchwork of towns, commercial/industrial areas, and new suburbs.

Cyclical Models of Social Change

  • Suggests that things change, but don't progress in a specific direction.
  • Implies society hasn't changed much, repeating old patterns.
  • Can be seen as a pessimistic model.
  • Important to define scope conditions.
  • Examples: wars, famines, boom and bust economic cycles.

Business Cycles in Free Market Economies

  • Boom and bust cycles (Marx and Adam Smith).
  • Companies compete, produce more until oversupply, slowing production, raising unemployment.
  • Solved by new markets, cheaper production, marketing.
  • Governments intervene to smooth out cycles.
    • Higher interest rates: Good for saving, bad for business expansion, slowing economy.
The Typical College Quarter
  • Enthusiasm at the start, lagging halfway, final push towards the end.
  • Each quarter is the same stuff.
  • Midterm period is particularly difficult ofr students and faculty.

Sorokin's Master Cycles of History

  • Pendular swings between:
    • Idealism: Lofty ideas about art, beauty, and wisdom.
    • Hedonism/Materialism: Self-indulgent pleasure-seeking and material acquisition.
    • Transitions that balance or blend these models.
  • Currently (as of lecture), difficult to assess without historical context.
  • Mindfulness, meditation, and yoga are examples of coping mechanism.

Kevin Phillips and Wealth Concentration

  • Wealth and Income concentration from 1900 to present
  • High concentration of income at the top (1%) before the Great Depression, a decline, and then a resurgence to even higher levels.
  • The concentration of income that is occurring right now is just as big, or maybe greater than at any time in the last 100 years.
  • Concentration of wealth grows in:
    • Gilded Age (1890s)
    • Roaring Twenties
    • 1980s-Present.
Conditions leading to wealth concentration:
  • Renewal of rags to riches myths and entrepreneurialism.
  • Deregulation of industry.
  • Tax cuts and lower inflation.
  • Strong financial markets.
  • Doubts about the role of government.
  • Corporate mergers and takeovers.
  • Restructuring and concentration of wealth.
  • Government redistributing income towards the wealthy.
Potential Outcomes:
  • Capitalist blowout (financial speculation, corruption).
  • Followed by swings back to populist, community-minded, activist governments.
  • Everything is on the table in order to figure out the kinds of practices and means which result in the society you want to have, and which one that is most productive for the most people.