Social Systems
Social system is a central term in sociological systems theory. The term draws a line to ecosystem, biological organisms, psychical systems and technical systems. They all form the environment of social systems. Minimum requirements for a social system is interaction of at least two personal systems or two persons acting in their roles. The first who formulated a systematic theory of social systems was Talcott Parsons where it was a part of his AGIL paradigm yet the social system is only a segment (or a "subsystem") of what Parsons calls action theory; however, Vilfredo Pareto had used the term, "social system," earlier but only as a sketch and not as an overall analytical scheme in the sense of Parsons.
Jay Wright Forrester describes three counterintuitive behaviours as important: causes from symptoms are often far removed in time and space, identifying leverage points, conflicting short + long-term consequences.
Read more about Social Systems: Approaches of Parsons and Luhmann, Social Systems and Digital/online Worlds, See Also, Literature
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or systems:
“A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air- conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)