Talcott Parsons - Work - AGIL Paradigm

AGIL Paradigm

The heuristic scheme Parsons used to analyze systems and subsystems is called the "AGIL Paradigm", "AGIL scheme". To survive or maintain equilibrium with respect to its environment, any system must to some degree adapt to that environment (Adaptation), attain its goals (Goal Attainment), integrate its components (Integration), and maintain its latent pattern (Latency Pattern Maintenance), a sort of cultural template. These concepts can be abbreviated as AGIL. These are called the system's functional imperatives. It is important to understand that Parsons AGIL model is an analytical scheme for the sake of theoretical "production," it is not any simple "copy" or any direct historical "summary" of empirical reality. Also the scheme itself doesn't explain "anything" as little as the periodical table in the natural sciences explains anything in and by itself. The AGIL scheme is a tool for explanations and no better than the quality of those theories and explanation by which it is processed.

In the case of the analysis of a social action system, the AGIL Paradigm, according to Parsons, yields four interrelated and interpenetrating subsystems: the behavioral systems of its members (A), the personality systems of those members (G), the social system (as such) (I) and the cultural system of that society (L). To analyze a society as a social system (the I subsystem of action), people are posited to enact roles associated with positions. These positions and roles become differentiated to some extent and in a modern society are associated with things such as occupational, political, judicial and educational roles.

Considering the interrelation of these specialized roles, as well as functionally differentiated collectivities (e.g., firms, political parties), the society can be analyzed as a complex system of interrelated functional subsystems, namely:

The pure AGIL model for all living systems:

• (A) Adaptation.
• (G) Goal Attainment.
• (I) Integration.
• (L) Pattern maintenance. (L stand for "Latent function").

The Social system level:

• The economy — social adaptation to its action and non-action environmental systems
• The polity — collective goal attainment
• The societal community — the integration of its diverse social components
• The fiduciary system — processes that function to reproduce historical culture in its "direct" social embeddedness.

The General Action Level:

• The behavioral organism (or system). (In later version, the foci for generalized "intelligence.").
• The personality system.
• The social system.
• The cultural system. (See cultural level).

The cultural level:

• Cognitive symbolization.
• Expressive symbolization.
• Evaluative symbolization. (Sometimes called: moral-evaluative symbolization).
• Constitutive symbolization.

The Generalized Symbolic media:

Social System level:

• (A) Economic system: Money.
• (G) Political system: Political power.
• (I) The Societal Community: Influence.
• (L) The Fiduciary system (cultural tradition): Value-commitment.

Parsons elaborated upon the idea that each of these systems also developed some specialized symbolic mechanisms of interaction analogous to money in the economy, e.g.., influence in the social community. Various processes of "interchange" among the subsystems of the social system were postulated.

Parsons' use of social systems analysis based on the AGIL scheme was established in his work Economy and Society (with N. Smelser, 1956) and has prevailed in all his work ever since. However, the AGIL system does only exist in a "rudimentary" form in the beginning and is then gradually elaborated and expanded in the decades which followed. A brief introduction to Parsons' AGIL scheme can be found in chapter 2 of The American University (with G. Platt, 1973). There is, however, no single place in Parsons writing where the total AGIL system is visually displayed or explained—the complete system have to be reconstructed from multiple places in his writing. The system displayed in "The American University" is only the most basic elements and should not be mistaken for the whole system.