Power, Ideology, and Control (Contemporary Systems Thinking)

POWER, IDEOLOGY, AND CONTROL

Contemporary Systems Thinking Series Editor: Robert L. Flood University of Hull Hull, United Kingdom

LIBERATING SYSTEMS THEORY Robert L. Flood

OPERATIONAL RESEARCH AND SYSTEMS The Systemic Nature of Operational Research Paul Keys

POWER, IDEOLOGY, AND CONTROL John C. Oliga

SELF-PRODUCING SYSTEMS Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis John Mingers

SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY FOR THE MANAGEMENT SCIENCES Michael C. Jackson

A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher.

POWER, IDEOLOGY, AND CONTROL

John C. Oliga University of Hull Hull, United Kingdom

PLENUM PRESS • NEW YORK AND LONDON

Library of Congress CatalogIng-in-PublIcatIon Data

011ga, John C. Power, ideology, and control / John C. Oliga. p. cm. -- (Contemporary systems thinking) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-306-45160-3 1. Critical theory. 2. Ideology. 3. Power (Social sciences) -1. Social control, 5. Liberty. 6. Happiness. 7. Social change, I, Title. II, Ser ies, HM24.0293 1995 303,3--dc20 95-46988 CIP

ISBN 0-306-45160-3

© 1996 Plenum Press, N e w York A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 233 Spring Street, N e w York, N. Y. 10013 All rights reserved

10 987654321 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher Printed in the United States of America

For my mother, Chiro and in memory of my father. Owe

Foreword One of the great challenges we face today is coming to grips with "forces of power/' in both theoretical and methodological terms, in a way that prepares us for action—action that is not totally subject to existing forces. The literature has some excellent theoretical accounts of power, but these say little about what we should do. Most often they are abstract and out of reach of all but a select few. In this book, however, we have a clear-cut account of power, ideology, and control that paves the way for practicalminded people to make a genuine attempt at tackling issues of power on both organizational and societal levels. John C. Oliga suggests a division between what he calls "objectivist," "subjectivist," and "relational" perspectives. With objectivism, he refers to theories that focus on power as capacities located in social structures. These tend to be either synergistic (e.g., Parsonian collective) or conflictual (e.g., Marxian conflictual view) theoretical orientations. With subjectivism he discusses theories that focus on power possessed by agents. With relational approaches he places theories that conceive power as a property of interaction among social forces. With Oliga's typology, we are able to "categorize" and critique existing literature in the management and systems sciences. This allows us to judge the contribution that the spread of theories and methodologies have made in the way they deal directly with power. At first sight, it seems that little of worth has been achieved with those theories and methodologies when it comes to the question of power, but with further thought through the typology we begin to see the latent contribution that is simply waiting to be released. For instance, the objectivists concerned with design have argued much over rules in structures, and how many or how few there should be (since it is accepted that some order is needed). With Oliga's complementarist typology, we begin to see the relevance and value of all arguments and appreciate that the intellectual task is one of contextualization rather than absolute choice. Subjectivists too have debated heatedly about the relevance of various forms of intersubjective decision making. Some argue that no decisions vtt

Vttt

Foreword

are possible and that we will always talk past each other. Existing structures may then become deciding forces. Conversely, some people, in effect, permit superdecisions where ossified meanings set the framework in which all decisions take place. Again, with Oliga, we are able to traverse this spectrum. With his complementarist approach to power, we realize that it is not a matter of pinning down a point on the spectrum that is correct, but a matter of contexualizing modes of decision making to actual circumstances. A similar argument holds for relational approaches, that is, establishing and contextualizing empowering relationships and making them part of social practices. What Oliga has done is to bring together two burning research topics—power and complementarism—integrate them, and in doing so create a platform for further development. Development may now progress in the applied management sciences in the tricky area of emancipatory practice. This is now possible thanks to Oliga's work! ROBERT L. FLOOD Director, The Centre for Systems Studies Sir Q. W. Lee Professor of Management Sciences University of Hull, Hull United Kingdom

Preface As we enter the twenty-first century, we can look back on our recent history with a great deal of mixed feelings. On the one hand, we have made unprecedented and tremendous progress in science and technology in such areas as information, communication, electronic engineering, medicine, transport, and space research. On the other hand, we have made little progress, if not actually regressed, in areas where we interact in social-political terms as fellow human beings. Today, there are numerous examples of social conflicts and violent fissions, some ethnic, others relating to religion, race, gender, minority, age, the underprivileged, and the disabled, and still others to politico-economic dissensions and confrontations. There are examples of exploitation and discrimination within and between different nations, blocs of nations, and regions. There are examples of military aggression, wars, and territorial and boundary disputes. There are examples of escalating crime rates, economic and political corruption, and manipulation of social movements by power- and moneyhungry leadership. There is wanton plundering, degradation, and destruction of the environment. And, of course, there are silent, latent, ideologically institutionalized forms of domination and exploitation between and within societies. The list of manifestations of these sociopathologies of our contemporary societies goes on and on. While these sociopathological manifestations of power, ideology, and control underscore the significance of the critical intent of this book, the aim is not to catalogue, describe, or focus on them as such. Rather, the book seeks to explore the deeper root problems as encapsulated in the broader underlying social issues relating to the concepts of power, ideology, and control, the aim being that some understanding of these phenomena is likely to contribute, even if only dimly and minimally, toward some progress in the transformation of the pathological aspects of contemporary social order. My purpose in writing this book, however, is not to suggest or offer a method for securing quick or easy solutions in the long struggle toward human and social emancipation, defined in terms of individual freedom and happiness and collective autonomy and reix

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sponsibility; rather, the modest objective of the book is to contribute to the "battle cry" from a long historical stream of critical social theorists who have cherished the Utopian vision of human societies freed from the shackles of dominant control through blind and arbitrary use of power and ideological illusions or obfuscations. The processes envisioned in this battle cry are oriented toward the long term, arduously uphill struggle against entrenched and often unwitting forces of social domination, oppression, and exploitation. In my view, it is Utopian to search for Utopian solutions. What seems to be the viable way forward is the long, continuous kaizen process of engagement in relentless efforts toward educative enlightenment, leading to the empowerment of human subjects as social agents for change. This in turn leads to the galvanization of individual and collective will for societal transformation in the interest, not merely in reforming, but in fundamentally improving the human condition in an emancipatory manner. It is against this vision that the book projects the key ideas of enlightenment, empowerment, transformation, and emancipation in its treatise on power, ideology, and control. Turning to the specific themes of the book, I have had in mind a broad spectrum of readers, not only those who may have an academic, professional, a n d / o r managerial interest in social theory, critical social theory, management, systems thinking, or development studies, but also the general reader who is concerned about the emancipatory problems of our contemporary societies. The discursive themes are organized around the following five key questions: Question 1: What are critical systems thinking and critical social theory all about? Question 2: What are social order and human freedom and happiness? Question 3: Must we remain helpless and ignorant of ourselves? Question 4: Can we not shape our own destiny? Question 5: Is the idea of human freedom and happiness and collective autonomy and responsibility Utopian?

Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge a number of people from whom I have benefited in one way or another in the course of preparing this book, and to express my sincere gratitude for their invaluable help. On the intellectual side of my work on the book, I must thank, first and foremost, Robert L. Flood, who was instrumental in making the very idea of this book a reality. As editor of a series of texts entitled Contemporary Systems Thinking, he not only encouraged me to write this book for the series but was patient and most tolerant when, after signing the contract with Plenum Press of New York and London, I started falling behind the agreed deadline for the submission of the manuscript. Leaving the submission-deadline problem aside, I owe Robert Flood a great debt for the invaluable insights I obtained from his suggestions about the intellectual direction the book might take in terms of contributing to the critical systems thinking as part of critical social theory. Tony Lowe is the next person I would like to thank deeply. I owe the roots of my critical intellectual development, as well my interest in systems thinking, to Tony Lowe. He has remained my mentor. My thanks also go to Tony Tinker, whose ideas, along with those of Tony Lowe, sparked the initial idea of entering into the intellectual arena of critical thought. My gratitude also goes to John Samuels, with whom I collaborated in intellectually oriented accounting work and who kept a continual interest in my development accounting thought. David Cooper was instrumental in the way I looked at the problem of power and ideology. My thanks go to him for this invaluable intellectual advice. My very special thanks go to Keiko Morita, with whom we undertook the arduous, complex, and "risky" task of trying to understand and interpret a few parts of Habermas's (1984a, 1987b) monumental work in his The Theory of Communicative Action. We stand fully open to criticisms about possible misunderstandings of our understanding of Habermas. My very special gratitude also goes to Foong Lim Fong, with w h o m we sought to develop the beginnings of a critical understanding of the xt

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phenomena of entrepreneurship, innovation, and change—phenomena, which like Total Quality Management (TQM), are currently attracting phenomenal interest everywhere in today's world. The insights we gained have influenced, even if only implicitly, some of the ideas in the book. Furthermore, I must thank Lim Fong for the meticulous and professional skill that went into the onerous task of proofreading the drafts of the manuscript. In the same vein, I would like to extend my very special thanks to A. E. Ojuka-Onedo, with whom we have shared invaluable ethnographic insights about the Papua New Guinean society and also about Uganda, particularly during the country's period of crisis in the 1970s. Both of us have been part of those experiences, which have helped in influencing some of my thoughts in Chapter 14 on developing countries. Turning to my publisher, I wish to thank all those who have been involved in finally making this book a public reality. In particular, my very special gratitude goes to Ken Derham of Plenum Press, London. From day one of this "project" to its final completion, it was Ken who gave me invaluable advice and suggestions about the logistical aspects of this work, particularly with regard to the importance of keeping in mind all the time the interests of the expected audience. My special thanks also go to Robin Cook of Plenum Press, New York, for her excellent editorial assistance. As the Production Editor for my book, Robin bore the burden of coping with necessary amendments to the manuscript even as the production process was far advanced. At a personal and family level, I extend my deep feelings for the love and support from my family members: Paul Owe, my late father, who sent me to "school"; Marcelliana Chiro, my mother; Fatima Maria, my wife, who patiently put up with this rather obscure and demanding piece of "work"; my four children: John, Pamela, Raymond, and Terence; and my brothers and sisters (and their families): Valeria, Charles, Agnes, Martin, Mary, and Melchior. JOHN C . OLIGA

Contents PART I. INTRODUCTION: WHAT ARE CRITICAL SYSTEMS THINKING AND CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY ALL ABOUT? 1. Introduction

3

2. Critical Systems Thinking and Critical Social Theory

9

2.1. Introduction 2.2. Pioneering Work in Developing Critical Systems Thinking as a Distinct Area of Study and Practice 2.3. Some New Developments in Critical Systems Thinking.. 2.4. Some Critical Views on the Critical Systems Thinking Research Program 2.5. General Comment 2.6. Critical Social Theory

9 10 21 23 30 31

PART 11. METATHEORETICAL CONCERNS: WHAT ARE SOCIAL ORDER AND HUMAN FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS? 3. Forms of Social Order and Their Sustaining Worldviews 3.1. Forms of Social Order 3.2. Sustaining Worldviews 3.3. Connective Summary

37 37 37 39

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4. Individualism and Social Order 4.1. Social and Intellectual Roots 4.2. Individualism as Ideology 4.3. Summary 5. Unitarism and Social Order 5.1. Social and Intellectual Roots 5.2. Unitarism as Ideology 5.3. Summary 6. Pluralism and Social Order 6.1. Differentiated versus Integrated Pluralism 6.2. Pluralism as Ideology 6.3. Reflective Summary

41 41 45 49 51 51 54 58 59 59 63 64

PART III. ENLIGHTENMENT AND EMPOWERMENT: TOWARD SELF-CLARITY AND SELF-WILL: MUST WE REMAIN HELPLESS AND IGNORANT OF OURSELVES? 7. Power and Interests: From Domination to the Power of Knowing You Are Not Powerless 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 7.4. 7.5. 7.6. 7.7. 7.8.

Introduction Subjectivist Conceptions of Power Objectivist Conceptions of Power Relational Conceptions of Power Conceptions of Power: A Summary The Concept of Interest Toward Empowerment of Social Systems Conclusion

8. Ideology: From Mystification to the Power of Knowing That You Can Critically Reflect upon Yourself 8.1. Introduction 8.2. Historical Conceptions of Ideology

69 69 73 74 76 84 85 87 91

93 93 97

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8.3. Naturalistic Conceptions of Ideology 8.4. Toward "Liberating Systems Theory" 8.5. Conclusion

104 112 117

PART IV. TRANSFORMATION: TOWARD INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS A N D COLLECTIVE AUTONOMY A N D RESPONSIBILITY: CAN WE NOT SHAPE OUR OWN DESTINIES? 9. Control and Social Order

121

9.1. Introduction 9.2. Control: A Cybernetic Viewpoint 9.3. The Concept of Control: An Organization-Theory Viewpoint 9.4. Social Contradictions and Conflicts: The Problem of Social Order 9.5. Connective Summary

141 142

10. Control and Human Interests: Methodological Foundations of Systems Methodologies

145

10.1. 10.2. 10.3. 10.4. 10.5. 10.6.

Introduction Method or Methodology? A Framework for Methodology in General Three Methodological Foundations Systems Methodologies Connective Summary

11. Control, Constancy, and Change: The Architecture of Power and Ideology 11.1. Introduction 11.2. Critical Systems Thinking: A Very Slow "Slowcomer" to Systems Science 11.3. Systems Stability and Change: Natural or Historical? ... 11.4. Control and the Architecture of Power and Ideology ... 11.5. Some Implications for Systems Theory 11.6. Connective Summary

121 121 139

145 146 149 152 161 167

169 169 169 171 172 177 178

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12. Control and Strategic Ideologies 12.1. 12.2. 12.3. 12.4.

Introduction Concepts of Weak and Strong Organizations Strategic Ideologies Thesis Conclusion

13. Critical Social Theory: From Epistemology to Communicative Paradigm 13.1. Introduction 13.2. Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests: A Human-Centered Epistemological Critique of Objectivistic Positivism 13.3. Critical Hermeneutics: A Brief Definition 13.4. Burrell and Morgan's Sociological Paradigms and Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests 13.5. The Epistemological Enigma of Modernity: The Philosophy of Consciousness 13.6. The Linguistic Enigma of Modernity: The Communicative Action Paradigm 13.7. Action in the Communicative Paradigm: A Reconstructed Logic 13.8. Communicative Coherency: Toward a Reconstruction of the Idea of Complementarism in Critical Systems Thinking

181 181 181 185 198

199 199 200 202 202 203 227 266 268

PART V. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS: ARE THE IDEAS OF HUMAN FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS AND COLLECTIVE AUTONOMY AND RESPONSIBILITY UTOPIAN? 14. Enlightenment, Empowerment, and Transformation of Societal Systems: What Is to Be Done? The Case of Developing Countries 14.1. Introduction 14.2. Developing Countries and the "Double" Emancipatory Problematic 14.3. Developing Countries: A Comment on Terminology

273 273 274 274

Contents

14.4. Development Theories 14.5. What Should Be Done? 14.6. Is It Utopian?

15. Conclusion 15.1. In Regard to Critical Social Theory 15.2. In Regard to Developing Countries 15.3. In Regard to Critical Systems Thinking

XVU

276 285 288

291 291 293 293

References

295

Author Index

313

Subject Index

317

Figures and Tables Figures Figure 6.1. A Continuum of Membership Discipline (D) and Representation (R) Figure 7.1. Concepts of Power Figure 8.1. Concepts of Ideology Figure 9.1. Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety: Payoff Matrix Figure 9.2. An Inducement-Contribution Matrix Figure 9.3. A General Empirical Model of Control Figure 9.4. Population Ecology Model Figure 9.5. Resource Dependence Model Figure 9.6. Rational Selection Model Figure 9.7. Environmental Variety: The Dialectics of Complexity, Illiberality, and Variability Figure 9.8. A Model of Environmental Variety Figure 9.9. Environmental Variety and Its Determinants Figure 10.1. Four Paradigms for the Analysis of Social Theory... Figure 11.1. Systems Stability and Change: The Architecture of Power and Ideology Figure 13.1. The Enigma of Modernity: The Dialectic of Enlightenment Figure 13.2. Hegel's Objective Idealism: Absolutist Paradigm Figure 13.3. A Common Interpretive Framework for Understanding Different Paradigmatic Positions on the Enigma of Modernity Figure 13.4. Marxian Marxism: Economistic Determinism: Production Paradigm Figure 13.5. The Reconstruction of the Process of Rationalization Figure 13.6. Weber's Culturalist Paradigm Figure 13.7. Lukacsian Marxism: Dialectical Voluntarism Paradigm xix

62 71 95 124 128 130 132 132 133 136 137 138 150 176 205 208

209 211 213 214 216

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Figures and Tables

Figure 13.8. Gramscian Marxism: Revolutionary "Praxis" Paradigm Figure 13.9. The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory: Critique of Instrumental Reason Paradigm Figure 13.10. Sociology of Change (Subject-Centered Philosophy of Consciousness) Figure 13.11. The Young Habermas's Epistemological Paradigm.. Figure 13.12. Nietzschian Aesthetics Paradigm Figure 13.13. Rationalization Complexes Figure 13.14. Mature Habermas's Communicative Action Paradigm Figure 13.15. Actor-World Relations Figure 13.16. Types of Argumentation Figure 13.17. The "Reconstruction" of Weber Figure 13.18. Action-Rationality-Rationalization Complex Figure 13.19. Forms of Language Orientation Figure 13.20. The Paradigm of Language and Habermas's TCA Project of Modernity Figure 13.21. Locutionary, Illocutionary, and Perlocutionary Speech Acts Figure 13.22. Perlocutionary and Illocutionary Human Actions . . . Figure 13.23. Communicative Action: The "Originary" Form of Language-in-Use Figure 13.24. The Philosophy of Language: An Account of Developments in Language Perspectives Figure 13.25. Contributions of Reproduction Processes to Maintaining the Structural Components of the Lifeworld Figure 13.26. Society-as-a-Whole (SAAW) from System Perspective Figure 13.27. Society-as-a-Whole (SAAW) from Lifeworld Perspective Figure 13.28. Society-as-a-Whole (SAAW) from the Perspective of Its Constituent Subsystems (the Olympic Metaphor) Figure 13.29. Colonization of the Lifeworld by the System through the Medium of Juridification Figure 13.30. Manifestations of Crisis when Reproduction Processes Are Disturbed (Pathologies) Figure 13.31. Welfare State: System and Lifeworld Exchanges of Burdens and Benefits (from the Perspective of the System) Figure 13.32. Welfare-State Compromise Structures of Late Capitalism (from the Perspective of the Lifeworld) Figure 13.33. The Logic of Social and Nonsocial Actions

217 219 222 224 225 227 228 233 236 237 238 242 244 246 248 249 251 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 267

Figures and Tables

Figure 14.1. "Development Problem": What Is to Be Done? Figure 15.1. From Domination toward Emancipation: The Logic of the Overall Critical Argument

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287 292

Tables Table 1.1. Structure of the Book Table 3.1. Typology of Forms of Social Order Table 6.1. Differentiated (Pluralist) Welfare State versus Integrated (Corporatist) Welfare State Table 7.1. Conceptions of Power and Their Fundamental Assumptions Table 10.1. Habermas's Interest Constitution Theory Table 10.2. Problem Contexts and Systems Methodologies Table 11.1. Mechanisms of Ideological Subjection and Qualification Table 12.1. Judgments on the Textbook Scandal Table 13.1. The Enigma of Modernity: With Some Key Players and Their Lifetimes Table 13.2. Weber's Typology of Actions and Their Underlying Rationality and Meaning Table 13.3. World Relations, Actions, and Forms of Rationality (Validity Claims) Table 13.4. Developments in Language Perspectives

7 38 61 85 152 165 174 193 206 239 240 243

I Introduction What Are Critical Systems Thinking and Critical Social Theory All About?

1 Introduction The great importance attached to problems of control in human (sociocultural) organizations is evident in the social science literature in general and, in particular, in the management-control systems literature (including management, organization theory, management systems and sciences, and accounting). Social scientists are preoccupied with studying how our knowledge of control can be improved and applied to achieve more efficient and effective results. Thus much of social science literature takes control, not as a phenomenon to be investigated, but as a sacrosanct topic to be theorized for. Control is the prized "model" contenders fight for. In "the court of justice," control is never in the "dock." It is the need to break this pervasive and biased silence " o n " the very problematic nature of control itself that has motivated the writing of this book, the aim being to undertake a critical study of the problem of control from a perspective that embraces individual, organizational, and societal levels of analysis. Thus the major thrust of the book is the development of the argument that the need or necessity for control must be located in the fundamental problem of social conflicts and contradictions reflecting the historical character (or social order) of a given society, or between two or more societies (or distinct groups, nations, blocs, and similar social distinctions) in question. In these terms, rather than take control as a given and proceed to theorize for it, the book takes it as problematic and seeks to develop an understanding of how it is conceived and reproduced in human social settings. Central to this understanding is the issue of (ideological) views of social order and their implications for social conflicts and contradictions, and struggles, and in particular how such views influence the definition of individual, organizational, societal and intersocietal "problems." This book is thus a critical study of control as a social phenomenon, but from a broad social order perspective. Moreover, the concept of control is not only pervasive but also is perhaps the most powerful and ideological concept in human and social relations. At the same time, power and ideology themselves have the most controlling influence on the kind of social order under which we live.

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Chapter 1

And yet how the three concepts relate to one another and the processes by which they operate remain poorly theorized, particularly in social-critical terms. No serious attention seems to have been paid to the following issues: 1. Why is social order problematic, such that its maintenance or transformation dictates the need for control? 2. What kinds of worldview predicate different forms of social order within and between societies or similar, distinct social groupings? 3. What can be argued as being perhaps more adequate views of the nature of the concepts of power and ideology, and how are the two concepts related? 4. What are the conditions of possibility for control to be maintained, reproduced, or transformed? This book explores these issues in a critical manner. Identifying three basic, alternative forms of such (historical) social order (market, community, and state models), this book argues that, in contemporary societies, each of them is underwritten by a seemingly innocuous particular worldview (individualism, unitarism, and political pluralism). But a critical examination of those worldviews exposes their ideological and coercive nature. Thus running throughout the book is the strong current of intellectually critical thought and belief that historical processes entailing power, ideology, and control have not been given the attention they deserve, particularly in the mainstream literature of social theory and systems thinking. Indeed, the dominant (positivistic) literature has proceeded as if coercive issues of power, ideology, and control were irrelevant, deserving no intellectual thought whatsoever. But can any serious form of social inquiry credibly and legitimately proceed without problematizing the issue of whose interest is being served? According to Habermas (1972), different kinds of human interest motivate different kinds of inquiry and hence constitute different forms of knowledge. He identifies three types of constitutive interest arising from two fundamental forms of activity—labor (work) and communicative interaction (language), both of which, in spatiotemporal terms, are universal and invariant to the human species. The three human interests are the "technical," the "practical," and the "emancipatory." The "technical interest" is constitutive of empirical-analytic knowledge aimed at the prediction and control of "things, events and conditions which are, in principle, capable of being manipulated" (Habermas, 1974, p. 8). The "practical interest" constitutes the historical-hermeneutic knowledge aimed at achieving intersubjective communicative (symbolic) understanding. The "emancipatory interest" constitutes self-reflective knowledge aimed at the realization of autonomy from defective actions and utterances

Introduction

5

arising from social relations of power, domination, and alienation. The three forms of knowledge are underwritten by different paradigms and research methodologies: the "functionalist" (for empirical-analytic sciences), the "interpretive" (for the historical-hermeneutic sciences), and the "radical/critical" (for the self-reflective sciences; cf. Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Giddens, 1977; McCarthy, 1978; Puxty, Soo, Lowe, and Laughlin, 1980). In terms of Habermas's interest constitution theory, most institutions and organizations in our present (capitalist) social formations are in dire need of critical inquiry, given that they are generally characterized by power asymmetry, unequal distribution of wealth, structural conflicts, and contradictions. Buckley (1967), for instance, points to the fact that the distinguishing problem foci for sociocultural systems are the structurally induced and maintained conflicts and social dissensus. In those terms, a critical approach to social inquiry will clearly be necessary where certain fundamental and taken-for-granted assumptions are untenable or where certain validity claims are challengeable. When applied to social systems, mainstream social theories of control are implicitly or explicitly underwritten by functionalist or interpretive paradigmatic interests. Their overriding concern is to regulate the existing state of affairs which is seen as natural. Thus functionalist methodologies are either guided by the morphostatic criteria of equilibrium (minimal organization), or homeostasis (preservation of given structures), or by the morphogenic criteria of adaptiveness and steady state that allow for structure elaboration and development. In either case, the basic form of the existing structure is taken as given and therefore natural, eternal, and unalterable. Similarly, interpretive methodologies are guided by the criteria of consensus, common understanding, and shared meaning, all arising from social processes of interaction in which multiple values, interests, perceptions, and perspectives are seen as the essential resources. But should these resources be taken as given and natural? The possibility that the particular strategic or ideological forms these resources take may be the consequence of power asymmetry, domination, and self-misunderstanding remains outside the interpretive paradigm's agenda. Both functionalist and interpretive approaches therefore share a common concern in their view of social control: the problem of maintaining social order in the face of actual or potential conflicts, such conflicts being variously described as (external) environmental disturbances, unfair competition, the problem of shared meanings, deviance, lack of motivation or personal satisfaction, goal incongruence or lack of commitment, conflicts of interests, and so on. Such perspectives take social order as given and natural, the problem of control reducing to one of containing conflicts

6

Chapter 1

whose origins remain unquestioned. This book adopts a critical approach where the origins of these social conflicts become problematized. The structure of the book is thus intended to reflect a strong emphasis on the need to develop a deeper and more penetrative understanding of power, ideology, and control as fundamental phenomena in human and social life. Chapter 2 situates this study within critical social theory literature in general, and as part of the emerging critical systems thinking literature in particular; and to this latter objective, a brief review of the emerging intellectual thought and understanding of what critical systems thinking is all about is sketched out around an admittedly selective number of contributors to this area. In Chapter 3, the book gives a brief introduction on the problem of social order, conflict, and social struggles. This sets the scene for the apparent need for control in social organizations. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 provide an exposition of three fundamental worldviews that characterize three forms of social order. These are individualism (Chapter 4), unitarism (Chapter 5), and political pluralism (Chapter 6). In these chapters, however, the concepts of power and ideology—without which the very idea of social order is inexplicable—are used merely as resources. These concepts become critically problematized in Chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 discusses critically the concepts of power and interests. Going through a diversity of conceptualizations, the chapter unfolds a more adequate view of power and interests. As in Chapter 7, the various conceptualizations of ideology are critically examined in Chapter 8, and a more adequate view is suggested. It is only after these reconceptualizations of power and ideology that the book is set to take a more penetrative exploration of the control phenomenon in Chapters 9 through 12. Chapter 9 introduces the concept of control and why it is a response to the problem of social order, whether in conservative- or radical-transformative terms. In Chapter 10, the control phenomenon is discussed from the point of view of those "in control." Applied to the literature of systems thinking, the focus is on the fundamental philosophical assumptions and concerns that underwrite different types of problem-solving methodology under different problem situations. In Chapter 11, control is now discussed from the point of view of those "under control." This broadens the inquiry from the structural aspects of control in Chapter 10 to processes of power-ideology relations as they influence the actual behavior of members in social and organizational settings.

Introduction TABLE 1.1 Structure of the Book PART I. INTRODUCTION What Are Critical Systems Thinking and Critical Social Theory All About? Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Critical Systems Thinking and Critical Social Theory PART II. METATHEORETICAL CONCERNS What Are Social Order and Human Freedom and Happiness? Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

3. Forms of Social Order and Their Sustaining Worldviews 4. Individualism and Social Order 5. Unitarism and Social Order 6. Pluralism and Social Order

PART III. ENLIGHTENMENT AND EMPOWERMENT Toward Self-Clarity and Self Will: Must We Remain Helpless and Ignorant of Ourselves? Chapter 7. Power and Interests: From Domination to the Power of Knowing You Are Not Powerless Chapter 8. Ideology: From Mystification to the Power of Knowing That You Can Critically Reflect upon Yourself PART IV. TRANSFORMATION: TOWARD INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS AND COLLECTIVE AUTONOMY AND RESPONSIBILITY Can We Not Shape Our Own Destinies? Chapter 9. Control and Social Order Chapter 10. Control and Human Interests: Methodological Foundations of Systems Methodologies Chapter I L Control, Constancy, and Change: The Architecture of Power and Ideology Chapter 12. Control and Strategic Ideologies Chapter 13. Critical Social Theory: From Epistemology to Communicative Paradigm PART V. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS Are the Ideas of Human Freedom and Happiness and Collective Autonomy and Responsibility Utopian? Chapter 14. Enlightenment, Empowerment, and Transformation of Societal Systems: What Is to Be Done? The Case of Developing Countries Chapter 15. Conclusion

8

Chapter 1

Chapter 12 revisits the "in-control" discussion of Chapter 10, but now from a standpoint of process rather than structure. This further discussion of control and the notions of constitutive and strategic ideologies complement Chapter 11 by extending the examination of process of power and ideology as they relate to those "in control/' Chapter 13 focuses specifically on the problem of emancipation in modernity, in two stages: first, as an epistemological enigma that Habermas exposed as "objectivist illusion," in which all previous influential intellectuals (whether positivists, interpretivists, or radical theorists) failed to see the constitutive force of human interests upon knowledge; and second, as a linguistic enigma in which the emancipatory essence of communicative action again escaped the understanding of social theorists. Chapter 14 attempts to reflect critically on the very problematic issues of enlightenment, empowerment, and transformation of coercive societal systems, which by their very nature may differ from one societal context to another. It takes the case of developing countries and asks the enormously difficult question: What is to be done? Chapter 15 provides a summary of the book. Drawing from the implications of the preceding discussions, it suggests new challenging ways forward for critical social theory in general, and for critical systems thinking in particular. These themes are schematically presented in Table 1.1.

2 Critical Systems Thinking and Critical Social Theory 2.1

Introduction

Habermas's (1987b) revolutionary insight that all previous social theories had failed to grasp the life world-systemic nature of society brought to the fore the importance of the concept of system in sociophilosophical thought and theorizing. It is this insight that has motivated my interest in "scaffolding" much of my sociophilosophical thought and inquiry in this book with systems material. Indeed, half of Habermas's monumental work on his Theory of Communicative Action is devoted to developing a critique of "functionalist reason" in modernity (a metaphorical way of referring to the "rationality" of systems functionalism). In terms of developments in critical systems thinking, Buckley's (1967) work is perhaps seminal in that he systematically traced the roots of systems thinking and strongly gestured to its critical potential. In the first phase, structural functionalism of the social anthropological perspective generated interest in the ideas of equilibrium in mechanical models, and homeostasis in organismic models. From these ideas emerged the biocybernetic perspective in systems thinking that flowered into systems functionalism, and with it the birth of hard systems thinking. The next phase saw the development of the social interactionism perspective in systems thinking, wherein the work of Parsons (1937,1951), among others, battled with the problem of integrating two integration problematics: system integration within system theory paradigm, and social integration within action theory paradigm. It is within the latter that soft systems thinking came to be born. Thereafter critical systems theory, drawing from both systems thinking and the broader body of social theory, came into being. And it is to this "youngest" child of systems thinking that we now turn. The chapter proceeds by outlining the views or understandings of the pioneering critical systems thinkers. This is followed by an indication of new developments in this area. The overall aim of the chapter is to provide a 9

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brief exposition of ongoing intellectual efforts and endeavors in developing critical systems thinking as a distinct area of study and practice. Of course, intellectual ideas that germinate into a distinct area of study come from many sources. The sources I am referring to here are necessarily selective, based more on those I think have taken active part in promoting critical systems thinking as an area of research and practice. After these brief outlines of what critical systems thinking is all about, the last section of the chapter also outlines what critical social theory is all about. Focusing specifically on Habermas's (1984a, 1987b) work on The Theory of Communicative Action, Chapter 13 returns to critical social theory in greater detail.

2.2 Pioneering Work in Developing Critical Systems as a Distinct Area of Study and Practice

Thinking

2.2.1 "Liberate" and "Critique": Flood's Understanding of Critical Systems Thinking Flood's (1990b) Liberating Systems Theory is the first book in a series of texts published under the rubric: Contemporary Systems Thinking. In his series preface, he argues that traditional systems thinking literature has generally been exceptionally insular, narrowly focusing on specific systems themes, and being almost totally oblivious of the wider social contexts in which such systems operate. One of the major aims of the series is therefore an attempt to transcend this insularity by broadening the horizons of systems agenda in a more authentically holistic manner, the very aim that triggered the birth of the systems movement. The series thus aims at moving systems thinking from a monological preoccupation with its ill-defined egocentric "systems" problems to a more open dialogue with all relevant cultural and social theory disciplines. It is partly against this renewed vision for the systems movement that the intent of Flood's Liberating Systems Theory can be appreciated. Specifically, the book's advocacy of a complementarist approach to theory and practice is an appeal to a return to the spirit of the original aims of the project of systemism: holism in place of reductionism, complementary diversity instead of fragmentation, unities instead of totalizing isolationism. The fundamental objective of Liberating Systems Theory is human emancipation. As such, the book is a welcome and valuable contribution to the growing literature on both critical social theory and critical systems

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thinking. For its emancipatory mission, the book advocates a unique strategic path: the crossing of Habermas's "critique" with Foucault's "liberate." To many readers this would seem a heroic if not almost impossible task, given the strong opposition between the two thinkers on fundamental issues concerning the relationship between society, critical reason, and history. However, just as Habermas himself has appropriated valuable insights from social thinkers one would hardly call his intellectual allies (e.g., Weber), the book seeks to appropriate what it considers best from Foucault and Habermas. In this attempt to cross Habermas with Foucault, Flood makes perhaps one of his most significant contributions to social theory. The traditional line of critique has generally been the questioning of the coercive institutionalized mechanisms manifest at the macrolevel. Foucault, however, seeks to extend (and complement) this limited view of a "carceral" society by drawing our attention to the everyday "micro-physics" of power and to the idea that certain knowledges become subjugated and silenced out of dominant discourses. Liberating Systems Theory thus seeks to draw upon the strengths of the Habermasian "critique" with those of Foucaulvian "liberate": seeking complementarism not only between critiquing dominant ideologies and power (the "present"), and liberating subjugated, drowned, and silenced knowledges (the "absent"), but also between understanding the forces of institutionalized "macro-powers" (the dominant "structures"), and those of Foucaulvian "bio-powers" (the everyday micropolitical "processes"). The Habermas-Foucault crossbreed in critical theory is a clear demonstration of the book's commitment to a complementarist vision of social theorizing and methodology. In addition, however, the book makes cogent arguments against possible alternative inquiry styles: pragmatism, isolationism, and imperialism. This is a significant contribution, not only to systems thinking, which has been characterized by a strong propensity to isolationism (e.g., the tug of war between hard and soft systems approaches), but also to social theory, where the challenge of practice has tended to be generally neglected. In social theory, the problem of interparadigmatic commensurability is a case in point. Proponents of incommensurability theses have, for instance, argued that paradigms are neither true nor false (because their underlying absolute presuppositions are questions, not answers), or that paradigms are equally true or false (because they reflect different forms of life, which are incommensurable). Commensurability proponents, on the other hand, have been either those who are foundationalists and embrace the "no-theory-neutrality"

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thesis (i.e., "rationalists"), or those who embrace the "no-theory-neutrality" thesis, are nonfoundationalists, but claim that certain categories (like labor, and communicative interaction) have a universalistic status in a quasi-transcendental (not absolute) sense. This is the Habermasian "relationist" position, which the author takes. But the significant contribution the author makes is not merely by remaining at the paradigm level of the commensurability thesis, but by drawing its implications for practice. This is the idea of complementarism in terms of theoretical (interparadigmatic) commensurability and methodological incommensurability. The author's insight about methodological incommensurability is a reminder that, at the level of practice, rational choice among competing methodological approaches is possible, given the diversity of human interests and, concomitantly, the disparate problem situations one has to face. The concepts liberate, critique, complementarism, and emancipation represent the key issues and concerns in the book. The goal is human emancipation; the discursive means are the twin tasks of "liberate" and "critique" with respect to the theoretical and methodological legitimacies and limitations of knowledges; the overall strategy is complementarism, the spirit of being critically open and rationally conciliatory. Focusing on these key issues and concerns. Flood begins by arguing for a general conception of Liberating Systems Theory (LST), a conception that envisions the need for cognitive illumination (epistemological reconstruction) and ethical commitment (emancipatory criticism). He then goes on to forge a meta-unity of Foucault's interpretive analytics and Habermas's knowledge-constitutive interests. The author seeks to show the strength that comes from complementarity between Foucault's liberating rationality and Habermas's critical rationality. The former aims at strengthening resistance to subjugating and suppressive discursive and nondiscursive forces. The latter, on the other hand, seeks to weaken, undermine, and transform dominative structures of power and ideology. However, in his characteristic self-reflective manner, the author admits that, given the tensions and contradictions between Foucault and Habermas, only by making concessions could a meta-unity be achieved: "a meta-unity of critical thinking .. . that is itself open to critique" (Flood, 1990b, p. 51). A focus on the first specific conception of LST is about the liberation of systems theory as a discipline. In the Foucaulvian spirit, the aim here is not only to trace ruptures, discontinuities, and suppression of knowledges, as well as the rise of dominant discourses within the systems discipline, but also to release and articulate deprivileged discourses that may have epistemologically illuminatory a n d / o r emancipatory potential. The author's intent is to critique the natural tendency for systems thinking

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to be conceptually reflexive, deriding subjectively intended meaning, and clinging to the "impoverished notion that systems thinking has developed a set of self-contained and adequate concepts which are transportable across disciplines" (Flood, 1990b, p. 65). An argument is then developed that decries the "everyday contentlessness" of the concept "systems," arguing instead that the concept has "abstract richness," and "paradigmatic contentfulness." In abstract richness, the author introduces the first systems struggle in terms of analogical and ontological developments, a struggle that unleashed the discursive possibility for a rich diversity of systems metaphors (e.g., machine, organic, autopoietic, neurocybernetic, cultural, and political metaphors). In paradigmatic contentfulness, the author introduces the second systems struggle, which represented the first epistemological break from positivist shackles to interpretivism. The author's rich and illuminating analysis of five possible ontoepistemological positions (e.g., Close-Ontologist, High-Resolution Epistemologist, etc.) underscores the argument that the concepts of "system" and "complexity" are not tied to the realist/ positivist position; they serve as organizing structures that allow and promote understanding and debate among a diversity of perspectives. There is also what the author calls the "third" systems struggle, representing a "second" epistemological break from an emphasis on "systems science" ("the conventional ideals of nonreflective positivistic empiricalanalytic rationality") to "systems rationality" (an ideal that guides inquiry toward "a critically rational social practice in the face of incomplete knowledge and understanding" [Flood, 1990b, p. 163]). In reviewing four possible conceptions of the history and progress of systems thinking: linear sequential, structuralism, worldviewism, and genealogy, the author's argument is that naive views have generally been taken of the history of systems knowledge, and that if Foucault's archaeology (analysis of systems of knowledge), and genealogy (analysis of modalities of power) were applied, the problem of power would have to be faced. Power by nondiscursive subjugators would be seen as playing a crucial part in the rise and fall of different theoretical standpoints, methodologies, and ideas (discursive formations) in systems thinking. The author illustrates this with what he considers to be the unwarranted fall of General Systems Theory as a result of forces of subjugation. The second specific conception of LST views systems theory as a vehicle for liberation through a complementarist vision for systems inquiry. Contrasting three rationalities (positivistic, interpretivistic, and critical), the author argues that it is critique that constitutes the basis for an adequate epistemology for systems practice. Critique does not deny the fundamental importance of rationalities that are essentially concerned

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with the technical (control), and practical (communicative) interests; it only seeks to purify them of their suppressive, dominative, and constraining forces. As such, critique embraces their complementarist legitimacies, while seeking to disavow their epistemological and sociological limitations. For additional cited works of Flood, see the list of References at the end of the book. 2.2.2 Design, Debate, and Disimprisonment: Flood's Extension of Critical Systems Thinking to Total Quality Management In his book. Beyond TQM, Flood (1993) offers a powerful demonstration of how critical systems thinking can theoretically illuminate and practically guide our understanding and implementation of TQM. Given the current global euphoria about TQM, Flood's incisive critical analysis is, in my view, most timely indeed. The total and complementarist view of TQM as entailing the need for design, debate, and disimprisonment lifts TQM from the popular but miserably impoverished view of it as merely another marketing gimmick dressed in the new seductive dress fashionable since the late 1980s. Flood's three " D s " are essentially an innovative, homomorphic transformation of Habermas's three human interests (the technical, the practical, and the emancipatory). This insightful radicalization of the TQM paradigm should perhaps stand as one of the most notable contributions of critical systems thinking to the everyday world of sociocultural and technical life. 2.2.3 Interpretive Systemology: Fuenmayor's Understanding of Critical Systems Thinking Fuenmayor's (1985, 1989, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c, 1991) understanding of critical systems thinking lies in his interpretive systemology, an interpretive systems theory that is a never-ending construction. As Fuenmayor (1991, pp. 238-240) elaborates, the development of interpretive systemology can be outlined as founded on three iterative "theoretical bricks." First, there is a theoretical attempt concerned with the fundamental question of being, knowledge, and truth. In his words, this aspect "strives to explain the holistic and interpretive structure (not to be understood in static terms) of 'what-ever-is-the-case' together with its cognitive possibility." Second, there is the need to develop a social theory "which accounts for the nature of that which is social (socialness) and the possibility of its knowledge" (Fuenmayor, 1991, p. 239). Third, there is the need for a theory of organizations that links the "interpretive diversity within an organisation to the conflicts of power that encompass its dynamics . . . " (Fuenmayor, 1991, p. 240).

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In reference to Jackson's (1982) criticism of soft systems thinking as being noncritical and theoretically rootless, Fuenmayor (1985,1991) makes the distinction between the pragmatic use of soft systems ideas on the one hand, and interpretive systemology on the other hand. The latter, he argues, is founded on theoretical-interpretive phenomenology, and as such it does not need the eclectic addition of other approaches in order to be critical, for it is critical in its very marrow. It is also "imperialist" . . . [since] any coherent theory is "imperialist." Were it not so, it would lose its holistictheoretical character. (Fuenmayor, 1991, pp. 242-243)

2.2.4 Emancipatory Systems Thinking and Critical Systems Thinking: Jackson's Understanding of Critical Systems Thinking In a study of the origins and nature of critical systems thinking (CST), Jackson (1991a, 1991b) has traced the history of CST emergence in the 1980s, and its extraordinarily rapid development (relative to other strands of systems thinking) up to 1990. Jackson identifies five distinctive commitments upon which CST rests: (1) critical awareness, (2) social awareness, (3) a dedication to human emancipation, (4) complementarism at the theoretical level, and (5) complementarism at the methodological level. Briefly, according to Jackson, the first CST commitment, critical awareness refers to a concern with assumptions and values underlying actual or proposed systems designs, and with understanding the strengths and weaknesses as well as the theoretical assumptions of extant systems methods, techniques, and methodologies. The second, social awareness refers to "organizational and societal "climate" which determines the popularity, or otherwise, of particular systems approaches at particular times" (Flood, 1991a, p. 143). Human emancipation, the third CST commitment, seeks to pursue the maximum development of human potential in terms of the Habermasian triology of human interests: the technical, the practical, and the emancipatory. Fourth, CST is committed to the complementary and informed development of all the different strands of systems thinking at the theoretical level; and [fifth] it is committed to the complementary and informed use of systems methodologies. (Jackson, 1991b, pp. 184-185)

Whereas the five commitments, according to Jackson, define what CST entails, he makes a distinction between "emancipatory systems thinking" (EST) which he restricts to only the first three commitments as opposed to CST, which he defines as embracing all the five commitments. In his view, EST focuses particularly on coercive problem situations.

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whereas CST embraces all potential problem situations. As he elaborates, EST in dedicated to human emancipation, with a critical and social awareness, but fails to address the issue of theoretical and methodological complementarism. EST has thus concentrated on providing methodologies which, through critique and the engineering of particular social arrangements, can assist with the emancipation of human actors, putting them more in control of their own destiny. The domain of effective application of emancipatory methodologies is, therefore, 'coercive systems/ (Jackson, 1991a, p.l42)

And, as such, EST is a systems approach with a specific, limited, methodological domain. CST, on the other hand, is concerned with a broader, more general emancipatory project. It takes a complementarist view of the nature of all systems methodologies, privileging neither hard nor soft systems methodologies, nor even critique itself, but putting them all to work according to their particular legitimacies and limitations within the Habermasian framework of three knowledge-constitutive interests. In Jackson's (1991a, p.138) words: Critical systems thinking, resting upon Habermas' theory of human interests as mediated through a system of systems methodologies, can adequately support a complementarist vision of the future of systems thinking and management science, at both the theoretical and the methodological levels.

2.2.5 Power, Ideology, and Control: Understanding Critical Systems Thinking The focus of my work has been on the centrality of the phenomena of power, ideology, and control in critical social theory in general, and in CST in particular. My overall research inquiry has been directed at developing a critical understanding of how these phenomena are of crucial importance in the arduous march toward emancipation through the tripartite processes of enlightenment, empowerment and transformation. 2.2.6 Critical Systems Heuristics: Ulrich's Understanding of Critical Systems Thinking Critical Heuristics of Social Planning: A New Approach to Practical Philosophy is Ulrich's (1983) major work and contribution to critical systems thinking. The book advocates a critically normative systems approach, insightfully drawing on the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant that has informed both systems philosophy and contemporary practical philosophy, albeit in different ways.

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17

Ulrich's concern is with the orthodox systems philosophy, which is underwritten by functionalist reason ("systems rationality") and is therefore objectivistic and conservatively regulative (cf. Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Habermas, 1987b; Oliga, 1988). The consequence is a one-dimensional view of reality in which the only valid form of knowledge is that gained through empiricist methodology (scientistic-positivistic belief in subjective, instrumental reason). Ulrich seeks to redeem systems rationality from its impoverished, one-dimensional technocratic consciousness (cf. Horkheimer, 1974). For this purpose, he turns to contemporary practical philosophy, the central concern of which is the problem of practical reason. The paradigmatic contrasts between practical reason and systems rationality are that the former views reality in terms of ''our world of society" where through the interactive mode of communication (processes of dialogue) we seek to establish legitimate interpersonal relations based on the validity claim of normative rightness (i.e., ethically justified intersubjective consensus). Systems rationality, on the other hand, views reality in terms of ''the world of external nature" (including an "objectivated" social world) where through the cognitive mode of communication (processes of monologue) we seek to represent empirical facts based on the validity claim of "objective" truth (Habermas, 1979a, 1979b; Ulrich, 1991). Ulrich's redemptive task entails that he takes a critical look at both systems philosophy and practical philosophy. Going back to Kant's critical philosophy, he finds both systems and practical philosophies individually wanting if an attempt is to be made to develop a methodology for improving the rationality of social action. In his view, such a methodology needs to be simultaneously system-based and critically normative. As he puts it In order to reflect and debate systematically on the normative implications of systems designs, we shall need both the ideal of practical reason as a critical standard against which to examine the instrumental rationality that our decision-making tools may produce, and the systems idea as a critical reminder to reflect on those implications of our design which reach beyond the limited context of application that we are able to consider for all practical purposes—i.e., their whole systems implications. (Ulrich, 1991, p. 247, emphases in the original).

This, he argues, calls for the need to forge a systematic link between systems philosophy and practical philosophy, such that systems philosophy does not neglect "Kant's lesson that practical reason cannot be reduced to (or derived from) Value-neutral' theoretical-instrumental reason, but must be grounded in a critically reflected interest" and practical philosophy does not neglect "to take into account Kant's demonstration

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of the critical significance—and, indeed, unavoidability—of the systems idea" (Ulrich, 1991, p. 247). The idea of Kant's system idea is that there exists an "existential dilemma" between the quest for comprehensiveness (in antithesis against orthodox scientific dogma of reductionism) and the impossibility of achieving such comprehensiveness, given the inherent polarity between, on the one hand, the very concept of system as those vast tracts of modern society that are uncoupled from communicatively shared experience in ordinary language, and coordinated instead, through the [steering] media of money and power (Habermas, 1987b; Pusey, 1987, p. 107, emphasis Pusey's), and, on the other hand, the concept of "lifeworld" as the symbolic world of shared meanings that make ordinary social interaction possible, with structural components (i.e., institutions, normative structures, and social practices) that make social reproduction possible. Ulrich argues that the systems dilemma is not insurmountable. The systems approach "must bother to take into account that which is not systemic in its nature and hence cannot be rationalized in the terms of systems rationalization" (Ulrich, 1991, pp. 245-246, emphasis in the original). In other words, systems rationality must take into account practical rationality of the lifeworld by unfolding its one-dimensionality into a two-dimensional understanding of communicative action. To understand the critical significance of the necessity for this unfolding, Ulrich turns to the linguistic, or Language-pragmatic turn of practical philosophy, as exemplified particularly in the monumental work of Habermas, culminating in the latter's Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas, 1984a, 1987b). The "linguistic turn" marks a paradigm shift from the "subject-centered" philosophy of consciousness (with its monological preoccupation) to the philosophy of language. In his theory of communicative action (TCA), Habermas has argued that reason, imprisoned in the modern subject, could only express itself instrumentally as functionalist reason. This is subject-centered reason. But reason itself, as reflected in its communicative form, is not so imprisoned or victimized. It is in this communicative reason that rational social action and human emancipatory potential lie. Habermas has identified three forms of action orientation: (1) instrumental action in a nonsocial action situation, (2) strategic action in a social action situation, and (3) communicative action. The first two forms are oriented to achieving success, either through direct intervention (instrumental action), or through influencing decisions of opponents (strategic action). In either case, action is imposed by one party over the other. It is only communicative action that, by its very nature, precludes such imposition, because both parties are rationally motivated to reach an under-

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Standing and mutual agreement, where the only arbiter of disputed normative validity claims is "the peculiarly unforced force of the better argument" and not power (instrumental actions) or deception (strategic actions). Thus founded on a pragmatic logic of argumentation (i.e., discursive form of rationality), communicative action has implicit within it a validity claim that is in principle rationally criticizable and therefore generalizable to the interests of both those involved, and those affected but not involved. Building upon the Habermasian classification of action orientations into instrumental, strategic, and communicative actions, Ulrich seeks to ground systems practice in practical philosophy, using a parallel threelevel taxonomy of systems practice: operational systems management, strategic systems management, and normative systems management (see Ulrich, 1991, pp. 253-264). More generally, it is from the insights from contemporary practical philosophy with its paradigm shift to the philosophy of language that Ulrich develops his critical systems heuristics (CSH) methodology (see Flood and Jackson's [1991a, pp. 197-222] account of CSH in terms of its philosophy, principles, and methodology). In summary, the essence of Ulrich's contribution to CST lies in focusing upon reason, norms, and ethics by doing the following: 1. Pointing to the systems dilemma inherent in the very idea of "the systems idea," and how the dilemma can be surmounted. 2. Pointing to the implications of the new language paradigm in contemporary practical philosophy, specifically: a. The need for those involved in making plans, proposals, and decisions to make transparent to themselves the normative content of those plans, proposals, and decisions. b. The need for ordinary citizens who are affected by decisions in 2a above, but are not involved, to engage planners in rational discussions through the polemical employment of'boundary judgements" that seeks to unmask the inevitable lack of comprehensiveness (the systems idea), the ethical inadequacy (the "moral idea"), and the undemocratic nature (the "guarantor" idea) that potentially enter the nonreflective, dogmatic presuppositions of planning and systems design. 3. Arguing that critical heuristics, especially in terms of 2b is an attempt to provide a critical solution or remedy (a methodology) that can be used by the ordinary affected citizens, as opposed to the Habermasian "discourse" ethics and discursive argumentation which presuppose "competent" speakers. In this way, critical heuristics can empower the "social rationality" of the affected to confront the "systems rationality" of the involved.

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2.2.7 The Merida ''Stillborn'' Critical Systems Thinking Manifesto In February 1990, a week-long symposium was scheduled to be held in Merida, Venezuela. Six of CST-devoted thinkers were scheduled to be in Merida for the symposium: Flood, Fuenmayor, Jackson, Schecter, Ulrich and myself. The symposium took place; but unfortunately, Jackson was, at the very last minute, unable to come to Merida; but he still managed to submit his contribution to the symposium. The main purpose of the symposium was to chart out the future direction of a concerted research effort in CST. The following is a summary of the research program as outlined in Merida. The research program focuses on five distinct levels of critically motivated action: The metatheory, the theory, the practice, the politics of science, and the politics of strategy. Level 1: Metatheory 1.1 Development of critically normative epistemological frameworks 1.2 Study of problems of commensurability between different paradigms 1.3 Critical examination of metatheoretical foundations of control and systems methodologies 1.4 Expansion of frontiers of systems thinking without eclecticism Level 2: Theory 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4

Development of emancipatory theories Development of critical social theories of control, power, and ideology Emancipation of subjugated knowledges and systems thinking Development of a joint theory for CST as well as for social theory

Level 3: Practice 3.1 Translation/operationalization of epistemological frameworks for development of heuristic tools for critically normative systems practice 3.2 Development of emancipatory methodologies and methods for critical social practice 3.3 Engagement in emancipatory reflective practice Level 4: Politics of Science 4.1 Dialogical debates for fostering a dialectical milieu 4.2 Joint research projects Level 5: Politics of Strategy 5.1 Development of research programs for advancement of systems approach and improvement of academic curricula 5.2 Use of micropolitical processes for the advancement of the cause of CST

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Unfortunately, the Merida CST Manifesto (fuller details of which are available from any one of the six LST core groups (or the LST Groups, as we were then collectively known), has remained stillborn as members failed to agree (on second thoughts?) on certain fundamental issues about the meaning and future action program of CST.

2.3 Some New Developments

in Critical Systems

Thinking

2.3.1 Diversity Management: Flood and Romm Flood and Romm (1995,1996a, 1996b) are developing a reconstruction of our understanding of complementarism, a new position under the rubric of diversity management. This reconstruction seeks to resolve the present theoretical and methodological issues that continue to cast doubt on the feasibility of the very idea of complementarism. For this, they argue in favor of a metatheory that operates somewhere between critical modemism (of the Habermasian type) and postmodernism (of the Foucaulvian type) in the interest of forging a unity in the consciousness of a speaking and acting subject who, in the diversity of action complexes, simultaneously cherishes the moral-practical form of rational existence and the "aesthetics of existence." Therein lies the challenge for CST. Flood and Romm (1995, p. 480) summarize the meaning of "diversity management" in these points: Diversity Management is about theory in action. A choice has been made to promote the optimistic and demote the pessimistic aspects of modernism and postmodernism. Pessimism avoided, however, could become oppressive totalising theory or naive relativism respectively. Optimism comes in the form of argument and diversity, also respectively. This statement needs to be qualified carefully. In any circumstance there is always choice and action (even in the form of "inaction"). Because there is diversity there is choice. Since we cannot escape choice, every effort must be made to ensure that choice is made thoughtfully, through argument. Argument, however, is not the standardised tool of validation control suggested by modernist rationality. Argument is carried out in the light of the following point. Choice-making is locally decideable, temporally ephemeral, and widely informed. Because Diversity Management is a theory, it must take into account wider ongoing theoretical debates. Because Diversity Management is theory in action, it must also take into account wider matters of contemporary concern. The standard of measurement is the ability and chances people have to make choices, and the meaningfulness of those choices to people involved and affected by them.

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23.2 Discordant Pluralism: Gregory Gregory (1996) seeks to reconstruct the idea of complementarism, presently taken as the way forward in dealing with the critical issue of the rich but perplexing diversity of theories and practical applications in systems science. The argument is that since complementarism can be perceived as imperialist, the strategy of discordant pluralism (a particular form of pluralism) offers a route out of the impasse. However, as discordant pluralism presupposes a dialogue between actors holding conflicting perspectives, the tasks and challenges for CST lie in suggesting ways of making participants in an antagonistic situation see the need for adopting a critically reflexive stance in discourse. The strategy of discordant pluralism, Gregory argues, shows the way forward as it incorporates the "constellation" metaphor that is sensitive to the differences, otherness, and alterity of alien paradigms or traditions, but [which] has to be coupled with a critical appreciation in order to answer ethical questions about the rightness or legitimacy of a particular perspective. (Gregory, 1996)

2.3.3 Methodological Pluralism: Midgley Midgley (1992) sees the issue of methodological pluralism as essential for the continued legitimation of systems science. In his view, the traditional view of complexity focuses upon the "natural world" of object relations and thereby excludes complexities of moral decision making and subjectivity. However, these realms of complexity are not independent of one another. Indeed, he argues, our ability to cope adequately with many of the problems we are currently facing, especially global problems, depends on being able to understand the systemic relation between all three. Thus, if our inquiries are going to have any legitimacy in tackling some of the major issues of today, we must indeed embrace methodological pluralism. 2.3.4 Schecter's View of Critical Systems Thinking Schecter (1991) defines CST as constituted by three commitments: critique, emancipation and pluralism (i.e., complementarism). In his assessment, the CST contribution to the field of systems sciences can be summarized under seven important dimensions: 1. CST has brought more theoretical depth to systems science. Discussions of metatheory and social theory in systems science are much more

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common now than they were at the dawn of the 1980s, partly as a result of this new movement. 2. CST has produced insightful, challenging critiques of earlier forms of systems thinking. These critiques have not only identified the limitations of the earlier approaches, but have also discovered hidden potential in them. 3. CST has put issues of power and human emancipation on the agenda of systems science. This is an urgent necessity if systems thinking is to make a serious contribution to the improvement of the human condition. 4. CST has contributed a pluralist framework with powerful potential for the complementary development of all the different systems approaches. This is very important, because no single approach can be sufficient to match the complexity of the problematic situations found in human systems. 5. CST has produced some strong original work in metatheory and social theory. 6. CST has put its commitment to emancipation into action with the community Operations Research movement and with emancipatory methods such as critical systems heuristics. 7. CST has championed a commitment to careful, critical, self-reflective thinking. In a field that aims at comprehensiveness but is often trapped in a tight conceptual web of it own making, this is perhaps the most important contribution of all (Schecter, 1991, p. 224).

2.4 Some Critical Views on the Critical Thinking Research Program

Systems

2.4.1 Critical Management Science: Mingers's Understanding of Critical Systems Thinking In reviewing Mingers's (1992) thinking on CST, we can perhaps do no better than summarize his assessment of developments in CST and the direction he suggests future research should take. Mingers starts by looking at various strands of critical systems thinking, or critical management science (CMS), as he prefers to refer to the critical paradigm within Operations Research (OR) and systems (Mingers, 1992, p.l; cf. also Dando and Bennett, 1981). He refers to the works of CST writers, such as Flood (1989c, 1990a, 1990b), Flood and Jackson (1991a), Jackson (1985, 1990, 1991b), Jackson and Keys (1984), Mingers (1980), Oliga (1988, 1989a, 1989b), Rosenhead (1987), Ulrich (1983, 1987),

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Willmott (1989), and interestingly, to someone outside the CST stable, Richard Laughlin (1987), a critical social theorist in accounting. Mingers reviews intellectual CST/CMS developments that found both the technical OR ("hard" systems thinking) and the practical management science ("soft" systems thinking) as having severe theoretical and practical limitations in human emancipatory terms. On this understanding, CST/CMS aims and efforts are, in his view, laudable; but that clear systematic, practical methodological steps still need to be developed. Indeed, in his view. various attempts at developing a critical methodology have so far produced no genuinely successful result. This is not surprising as it is an exceedingly complex task. Such a methodology would need to reconcile many conflicting pressures. First, it must overcome the subjectivism and relativism inherent in the interpretivism of the practical interest without returning to the naive objectivism of technical management science. Second, it must properly embody an emancipatory intent and yet not be so idealistic as to be impracticable. Third, it must deal effectively with the issue of power, both as coercive power constituting and maintaining oppressive structure, and as enabling power, helping those who wish to bring about change. . .. Finally, of course, it must be practicably usable by, or at least on behalf of, ordinary citizens in their everyday life. (Mingers, 1992, p. 8)

And in more specific comments about the work of CST/CMS intellectuals, Mingers comes to the following conclusions. First, that Jackson and Keys' work on the system of systems methodologies is useful but ultimately inconsistent in its current form, and more directed towards "enhanced" OR than critical OR. Second, that there are a few critical methodologies but that these suffer from weaknesses—particularly in addressing the problem of power. Third, that there are theoretical conceptualizations of power which have the potential to be operationalized in practical methodologies. It is hoped that this will be an important area for future development. (Mingers, 1992, p. 9)

In a critical exchange between Jackson (1992) and Mingers (1992), mainly because of Mingers' attack on Jackson and Keys' (1984) paper, Jackson's rebuttal, for our CST/CMS wider interest, takes the following view in defense of the contribution so far made by CST: To make his case M i n g e r s . . . has to ignore Flood and Jackson's Creative Problem Solving (1991a), which claims to offer a methodology based on critical systems thinking, and to rather dismiss Ulrich's monumental achievement. Critical Heuristics of Social Planning (1983). In fact, of the four tasks Mingers sets [for] a critical methodology, . . . I would want to argue that Flood and Jackson (1991a) have had a reasonable stab at the first and second, Ulrich (1983) has

Critical Systems Thinking

25

made considerable progress on the last, Oliga (1990c) sees as his main concern to address the third-power as a coercive and also enabling force. (Jackson, 1992, p. 731)

In his counterrebuttal, Mingers (1992, p. 734) makes three points: (1) that Jackson's attempt to develop a Habermasian methodology is "no more than schematic in comparison with the detail of Laughlin's [work]"; (2) that he does not "feel as enthusiastic about Ulrich's work" as Jackson does; (3) that he regards "Oliga's work highly but [that] it is essentially a scholarly analysis of different views of power, not the practical methodology for which he [Mingers] was asking." In short, his argument is that the lacuna in current CST development at the practical level lies in its failure to articulate a feasible emancipatory methodology entailing commitment to some form of practical engagement in organizational/societal transformative action (Mingers, 1992, p. 8; cf. McCarthy, 1978).

2.4.2 Critical Systems Thinking: A Challenge or Dilemma in Its Practice?: Payne's Understanding In an important review article on CST, Payne (1992, p. 237) introduced his critical thoughts in these words: Emerging conceptions of critical systems thinking, particularly deriving from the pioneering contributions of Flood, Jackson, Oliga, and Ulrich, have appeared regularly in Systems Practice journal. Beyond the response that such work receives from readers having specific backgrounds or interests in management science or systems, further development of critical systems thinking may come from questions and concerns raised by academicians who do not consider themselves first or foremost, at least, to be systems theorists. The present article seeks to identify and comment upon an issue that seems relatively underaddressed in developing conceptions of critical systems thinking (CST). Assuming a role as a sympathetic critic who accepts much of the commitment and potential found in CST, the author tries to link the further development of CST to issues still unresolved in recent scholarly work derived from a critical or radical humanist paradigm and found in various sub fields of management and social science.

For his view on what the challenge for critical theory and CST is, I think I can do no better than extensively quote Payne (1992, pp. 238-241). Despite impressive early explorations of critical systems theory and potential models, Ulrich (1988a) acknowledges its limitations: In comparison with the instrumental and strategic strands of the systems movement, the critically normative strand has, of course, hardly begun to

26

Chapter 2 develop a basic array of well-defined concepts and practical tools. (Ulrich, 1988a, p. 159)

In Payne's words, Oliga (1990a) observes that, in contrast to soft systems thinking, which appeared at about the same time as a formal reaction against hard systems orthodoxy, the impact of critical thinking has been very slow to emerge. He suggests that this slower advent of CST may be traced to ideological factors and concludes that ''the cure it offers (the unmasking of ideological bias) is the very disease dreaded by the patient" (Oliga, 1990a, p. 33).

Continuing in his assessment of the challenge to CST, Payne argues that A huge challenge for critical theorists as potential organizational change agents is actually gaining opportunities to introduce applications of critical or radical humanist thinking. Several authors interested in developing improved critical theory have commented on this and related challenges. We must honestly confront the gap that has always existed—and still exists—between the idea of such a critical theory of society [as developed by Habermas] and its concrete practical realization. . . . (Bernstein, 1976, p. 225) We are still vastly ignorant of the material conditions necessary for critique to play a role in the transformation of existing forms of social and political reality (p. 236) Critical social science promises to set (a group of) people free. But the knowledge, is not enough to fulfill this promise. There are serious limits on the ability of the critical science to engender rational social change. . .. (Fay, 1987, p. 208)

Elaborating on Fay's (1987) views on existing critical theory, Payne (1992, p. 238) says. Fay discusses the embodied, traditional, historical, and embedded nature of man, and he believes that existing critical theory needs to be augmented by theories or concerns about tradition and also the use of force. He specifically recommends (p. 213) the identification of which parts of a particular tradition are, at any given time, changeable and which are not changeable or are not worthy of change. Fay also proposes the development of an account of conditions and use of force in particular sociopolitical settings as well as the explicit recognition of limitations for the effectiveness of a critical theory in confronting certain types of force (Fay, 1987, p. 213). Concern about actual potential for initiating change is given by Gregg (1987), who cited Benhabib's view that critical approaches often ignore the contingency of the willingness and capacity of individuals and their culture to adopt such an ethical standpoint in the first place and the moral sagacity and political insight necessary to concretize the principle of such ethics in action or policy. (Gregg, 1987, p. 147)

Critical Systems Thinking

Turning to Flood, Payne (1992, p. 239) explains. As Flood (1991) has recently asserted, good systems ideas and models alone are truly not enough to generate enduring, positive change, since cybernetic technocratism and instrumental reasoning are deeply established in many organizations and institutions. The contributions of systems theorists such as Flood and Oliga appear important in helping describe social, political, and ideological forces resisting the introduction of CST. Whether reinforced by micropolitical forces according to Flood's descriptions (1990a) of Foucaulvian thought or seen through the more complex and detailed analysis of political/ ideological forces that Oliga (1990a) develops, a subversion of opportunities for influencing "discursive consciousness" and initiating more critical organizational forums very often exists.

Turning to Oliga, Payne (1992, pp. 239-241) elaborates, Oliga (1990a) explores Therbom's (1980) notion of the functioning of ideology in terms of a "subjection-qualification" dialectic. Ideologies operate as discourses involving processes of subjection (or the individual's subjugation to social orders favoring or disfavoring certain values) and qualification (or the enablement of individuals to perform societal roles such as being a change agent). Individuals come to recognize what exists and does not exist, what is good and bad, and what is possible and impossible. A second dimension of Therbom's analysis of the influence of ideology involves the question of the possible existence of a better alternative to the existing system or social order. Oliga develops a power-ideology matrix in characterizing individual responses to such a question about the possibility for an alternative system or social order. According to Oliga, if individuals have little or no doubt of both the system's ideology and the power of it supporters, intrinsic obedience occurs through individual belief in the "inevitability" of the system, their "deference" to the ideology and power of the system, and their "resignation" to change effort. If individuals have some doubt of either the ideology or the power found in the existing system, contingent obedience occurs through individual "accommodation" or pragmatic acceptance of the system due to some compensatory payoffs from it, their "representation" of the system aS having some legitimacy or normative standing, and their "fear" of the system's sanctions and their displacement from it. Only if both the ideology and the power of the system are doubted will potential "legitimation crises", "dissent," and "transformative action" occur. In both Oliga's intrinsic and his contingent obedience cases above, the stability tendencies of the system are dominant.

However, Payne (1992, pp. 240-241) warns. Unfortunately, Oliga's explanation does not, in itself, explicitly advise us on the initial dynamics for potentially challenging individual perceptions of inevitability or accommodation, confronting the appropriateness of deference or representational views of the system, or suggesting ways of overcoming individual resignation or fear. The crucial "make-or-break" challenge for CST consultant appears to be how to gain early legitimacy and support from a critical mass of organizational leaders or stakeholders so that CST momentum can be established.

27

28

Chapter 2

Continuing, Payne (1992, pp. 240-241) elaborates: Oliga's (1990c) has described existing systems theory and practice as dominated by a conservative orthodoxy and suggests that though critique, in terms of a process of enlightenment, empowerment, and emancipation, such conservative theory and practice can be liberated. He supports Flood's (1990a, 1990b) view that a liberating task requires a two-stage program. The first stage represents the educative enlightenment function of liberation: the second stage, the empowerment and emancipatory functions (Oliga, 1990c, p. 470). Oliga describes (1990c, p. 469) educative enlightenment as entailing the formulation and exposition of theories in critique of ideologies and present coercive structures of oppression, and in conceptions of a better alternative, the good life of rational self-clarity and collective a u t o n o m y . . . . and empowerment as entailing the validation of critical theory through therapeutic processes of critical self-reflection on the basis of which those suffering from ideologically trapped self-understandings can acquire the resolve, the will, the power to transform their present self-estranged and oppressive forms of life....

In Payne's view: However, true opportunities for initiating educative enlightenment or empowerment may often seem an unrealistic possibility given the strong political/ ideological forces that Oliga himself describes as existing in most organizations. Without previous examples of productive empowerment through critical forums (actual models of CST in practice) or unqualified support for early initiatives toward this type of change from many top managers, even committed critical systems theorists as educators or consultants face a difficult task in actually initiating a "contracting" process leading to CST.

Furthermore he believes that critical or emancipatory notions of system thinking, if such approaches were undertaken, could, no doubt, often produce substantial and "miltipUer-effect" change in an organization's culture and climate. This change, though having a very powerful potential, will be very slow and uncertain in coming without forms of professional intervention or initial efforts by which organizational leaders become convinced to initiate modes of discursive rationality with which they are presently unfamiliar. Even after largely successful adoptions of interpretive, critical, and emancipatory dialogues in work organizations, the potential for regression is present and threatening in the "power and control needs" of certain influential managers and professionals.

Voicing his overall doubt on the practical efficacy of current emancipatory endeavours, Payne says that Oliga (1990a) has recommended ideological unmasking through educative enlightenment, but such unmasking by public—and private—sector managers and professionals is fraught with fear, anxiety, and uncertainty concerning

Critical Systems Thinking

29

both personal and public consequences. Perhaps nothing is as discomforting to most top managers as fear of potential "loss of control'' and anarchy. Ackoff (1990, pp. 439-440) recognizes obstructions to change also in such managerial and professional attitudes as their love of power, their views of the relahve incompetence of others compared to their own abilities, their doubts about democratic processes within hierarchically structured organizations, and their satisfaction gained from the security of being in subsidized bureaucratic monopolies. To begin to overcome or reduce such personal and organizational obstacles to change, it appears that consultants advocating CST need more politically sensitive intervention and communication tools. Consultants should also be aware of ethical implications in their efforts to convince organizational members to unmask when ideological sanctions and political risks for personal harm still exist.

In essence, Payne sees CST as perhaps too much tied to the field of management systems or sciences, and not paying adequate attention to ideas and issues raised in other social science fields that draw their insights not only from Habermas, but also from other critical theorists like Apel, Bernstein, and others; intellectual fields such as the organizational communication field (e.g., the work of Deetz, 1983), public administration and policy analysis (e.g., the works of Dryzek, 1987; Forester, 1983, 1985; Torgerson, 1986), business ethics (e.g., the work of Payne, 1991), postmodern paradigms (e.g., the works of Burrell, 1988; Clegg, 1990; Rao and Pasmore, 1989), and an awareness of, and an effort toward undertaking, a pragmatic communicative process in the interest of the need for human and social emancipation at the organizational level (cf. Grahame, 1985). And drawing insights from Bradshaw-Camball (1990), Farr (1991), Flood and Jackson (1991a), Gray (1989), Harrison (1970), Kumar and Thibodeaux (1990), and Torgerson (1986), Payne concludes, and again I quote extensively: From the perspective of at least one academician outside the field of management systems and sciences, the accomplishments of Flood, Jackson, Oliga, and Ulrich in developing a critical or liberating systems theory are certainly worthy of praise and encouragement. The strong acknowledgement and concern regarding the implicit and explicit values assumptions that drive systems methodologies and practices and that are found in CST are welcomed, particularly from an academician who has had some systems planning and engineering experience in industry. The tendency of professionals to "compartmentalize'' methods from their underlying values assumptions and their social consequences has been described in the management and business ethics fields (e.g., Carr, 1968). (Payne, 1992, p. 247)

Continuing, Payne elaborates, A pluralist or complementarist approach to possible contributions from functionalist, interpretive, critical, and postmodern social paradigms appears to offer creative challenges to systems theorists and professionals. Using similar philosophical roots as do CST theorists, academicians from other fields in the

30

Chapter 2 management and social sciences disciplines may offer potential interdisciplinary insights for future theory building. Of particular interest to systems theorists might be social science theorists who are influenced by critical and postmodern paradigms and who are examining topics of organizational strategy/ policy analysis, organizational politics and change, and business and publicsector ethics. Also worth possible exploration are research and consulting approaches that build upon Lewinian action research techniques. Use of the "participatory action research" concepts of Whyte (1989), the more interpretive features of "action science" (Argyris and Schon, 1989), or other approaches for the initial and sensitive stages of the "social contracting process" between the CST consultant and key client groups might be described in much more detail than previously in systems journals. Such useful "contracting" information might be very valuable for the learning potential of CST advocates and allow a CST community of inquiry for management systems and sciences to emerge (Payne, 1992, pp. 247-248)

In his view (Payne, 1992, p. 248), At its current stage of evolution, CST appears to have several unresolved issues that need to be overcome for it to influence systems practice more profoundly. Since preventing an "expert-driven" approach is an idea informing the basis of CST (Flood, 1990b, p. 180), CST consultant must explore their "expert status" in the change agent roles which they seek to enact. Flood and Jackson themselves, on the next-to-last page of their new book on total systems intervention, suggest that such issues present a major dilemma. What should we do as managers, planners, decision makers or consultants when all of the evidence we have highlights coercive forces at work? Obviously this would be a matter of strategy and conscience. We could refuse the work since we might be obligated to concede our interests to those in power. On the other hand, we might take on the job in the hope that some progress can be made toward our ideals, and that something is better than nothing. (Flood and Jackson, 1991a, p. 244)

Focusing specifically on the paper's central concerns, Payne (1992, p. 248) had this to say in his conclusion: "Further work on CST might well take this 'matter of strategy and conscience' as a point of departure in case studies exploring the actual strategies used and the ethical choices made by change agents in coercive organizational cultures." Perhaps the issues explored in this article reflect a myopic and "instrumental" concern for the development of CST, but such concern may well be natural for those committed to critical and emancipatory potentials yet who have been frustrated with their slow emergence in organizational practice."

2.5 General

Comment

As already indicated in the Introduction, the aim of this chapter is to provide a brief exposition of what critical systems thinking is all about.

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31

against the background of the broader critical social theory. My general opinion of these views will be discussed in the concluding section of Chapter 13.

2.6 Critical

Social

Theory

In this section, I will provide a brief outline of what critical social theory is all about. Fay's (1987) work provides perhaps the most relevant starting point. With only a passing comment on Fay's view of critical social theory, specifically with regard to the political aspect of critical theory, I defer a fuller discussion to Chapter 13. Fay (1987) makes a distinction between critical theory and critical social science for two reasons. First, he feels that critical theory has tended to be invariably identified with the Frankfurt School, especially with the names of Horkheimer, Marcuse, Adorno, and Habermas, when in fact there are many other sources of critical theory, such as Laing, Becker, Dinnerstein, Unger, Brown, and others. Second, he argues that even if admittedly critical theory has had its most sustained expression by the Frankfurt School, the School has in fact pursued two different sorts of theory under the rubric of critical theory. One is the theory of society, a substantive neo-Marxist theory of late capitalism; the other, a metatheory of social science (a philosophy of science). Fay argues that these two strands of critical theory are distinct since, without contradiction, one could agree with the Frankfurt School's metatheory of social science without agreeing with their theory of society. Unfortunately, in his view, the two categories have been conflated and confused simply because they have been expounded by the same influential social theorists of the Frankfurt School. As a way out of these two difficulties. Fay proposes that the metatheory of social science be understood as critical social science in contradistinction to the critical theory or critical social theory because these terms have both been stigmatized as "counterscience" because of their perceived moral and subjectivistic nature. Of course. Fay disagrees with this unwarranted stigmatization of critical social science in general, and in seeking to demonstrate its scientific character, he begins by offering the following definition. By ''critical social science" I mean an endeavor to explain social life in general or some particular instance of it in a way that is scientific, critical, practical, and nonidealistic. By ''scientific'' 1 mean the provision of comprehensive explanations in terms of a few basic principles which are subject to public evidence. By "critical" I mean the offering of a sustained negative evaluation of the social order on the basis of explicit and rationally supported criteria. By "practical" I mean the stimulation of some members of society identified by the theory to

32

Chapter 2 transform their social existence in specified ways through fostering in them a new self-knowledge to serve as the basis for such a transformation. And by ''nonidealistic'' I mean a theory which is not committed to the claims either that ideas are the sole determinant of behavior (idealism I), or that emancipation simply involves a certain sort of enlightenment (idealism II), or that people are able and willing to change their self-understandings simply on the basis of rational argument (idealism III). (Fay, 1987, p. 26)

Fay's basic scheme for critical social science that is at once critical in intent and fully developed in content is envisioned to be a systemically unified complex of theories comprising the following four essential elements with 10 subtheories: I. A theory of false consciousness that: 1. Demonstrates the ways in which the self-understandings of a group of people are false (in the sense of failing to account for the life experiences of the members of the group), or incoherent (because internally contradictory), or both. This is sometimes called an "ideology-critique"; 2. Explains how the members of this group came to have these self-misunderstandings, and how they are maintained; 3. Contrasts them with an alternative self-understanding, showing how this alternative is superior. II. A theory of crisis that: 4. Spells out what a social crisis is; 5. Indicates how a particular society is in such a crisis. This would require examining the felt dissatisfactions of a group of people and showing both that they threaten social cohesion and that they cannot be alleviated given the basic organization of the society and the self-understandings of its members; 6. Provides an historical account of the development of this crisis partly in terms of the false consciousness of the members of the group and partly in terms of the structural bases of the society. III. A theory of education that: 7. Offers an account of the conditions necessary and sufficient for the sort of enlightenment envisioned by the theory; 8. Shows that given the current situation these conditions are satisfied. IV. A theory of transformative action that: 9. Isolates those aspects of a society which must be altered if the social crisis is to be resolved and the dissatisfactions of its members lessened;

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33

10. Details a plan of action indicating the people who are to be the "carriers" of the anticipated social transformation and at least some general idea of how they might do this. (Fay, 1987, pp. 31-32) In Fay's view, the most notable social scientific theory which fits this critical scheme in its fully developed form is "Marx's theory of capitalist society if it is suitably construed" (Fay, 1987, p. 33). Other theories may be critical in intent, but not comprehensive enough in content to pass the standards of his critical scheme. Referring specifically to Habermas's (1975) theory in Legitimation Crisis, he finds that theory wanting as regards transformative action, because Legitimation Crisis lacks a detailed plan of action. In Fay's (1987, p. 32) words, "Thus, it is no accident that one of the most frequent criticisms of Habermas is that his theory has no bearing on our actual political life, that it is academic and Utopian in the bad sense of these terms." Fay's (1987) Critical Social Science is a book that indeed deserves serious attention, devoted as it is on the values and politics of critical social science and, simultaneously, on an incisive critique of its limits in bringing about complete emancipatory change. Fay's critical social science sees the critical ontology of human beings as inherently ambiguous and conflictual, marked by the relentless tension between illumination and voluntarism on the one hand, and concealment and dependency on the other. In his words, A proper critical social theory is one which possesses a stereoscopic vision which recognizes every situation as one both of gain and loss, of change and stasis, of possibility and limit . . . Without it, critical social science is likely to degenerate either into tyranny or quietism—neither of which is the appropriate response to a world such as ours beset with oppression (Fay, 1987, p. 215).

Given this dialectical view of human existence and historical, social progress, it seems to me that Fay is incoherent in his critique of Habermas's critical social theory. Any serious reading of Habermas cannot come to the conclusion that Habermas's theory stands accused of either tyranny or quietism. In my view, it is Fay's sub-theory no. 10 above (a detailed plan of action) that is likely to lead to tyranny such as we have witnessed in Marxist-inspired, but non-critical revolutions that have taken place in the 20th century. We defer a fuller discussion of Habermas critical social theory to Chapter 13, and a revisit of Fay's critical ideas in Chapter 14.

II Metatheoretical

Concerns

What Are Social Order and Human Freedom and Happiness?

3 Forms of Social Order and Their Sustaining Worldviews 3.1 Forms of Social

Order

The way social life goes on reflects diverse and complex forms of social arrangement or organization. The notion of social order is an attempt to abstract from this complex diversity by capturing what is perceived as the essential, underlying stable pattern of ongoing social activities. Three such stable patterns have been identified as constituting three models of social order (cf. Streeck and Schmitter, 1985; Willmott, 1984): first, the market model, in which order is maintained on the basis of free market competition; second, the community model, in which it is through spontaneous solidarity and conformity to agreed social norms that order is maintained; and third, the state (including the associative) model, in which order is maintained through hierarchical control. Table 3.1 summarizes the salient, defining characteristics of these institutional bases of social order.

3.2 Sustaining

Worldviews

Each of these forms of social order has a corresponding worldview that articulates its distinctive and ideal features. Briefly, individualism is a particular worldview that articulates as ideal a form of social organization based on unregulated market competition and concomitant rational (economic) behavior. In this form of social order, the guiding principle is that of dispersed market competition among individuals acting independently on the basis of private (subjective) utility maximization as the dominant form of rationality. Private consumer preferences are assumed to represent in aggregate the means of reaching social decisions. The only major source of cleavage in society is seen predominantly in terms of the conflict of economic interests inherent in the exchange relations between buyers and 37

Chapter 3

38 TABLE 3.1 Typology of Forms of Social Order Form of social order

Community

Market

State

Association

Guiding principles

Spontaneous solidarity

Dispersed competition

Hierarchical control

Organizational concentration

Relationship between

Interdependent

Interdependent

Dependent

Contingently interdependent

Dominant rationality

Satisfying identity

Maximizing advantage

Minimizing risk

Satisficing interests

Decisions reached through

Unanimous consent

Consumer preference

Authoritative adjudication

Parity representation on and proportional adjustment

Major source of cleavage

Insiders versus outsider

Buyers versus sellers

Rulers versus ruled

Leadership versus membership versus state

Source: Adapted from Streeck and Schmitter, 1985.

sellers in their capacities as individual economic actors. However, given a perfect market economy, such conflicts, reflecting nothing more than the pursuit of individual preferences, resolve themselves automatically in a Pareto optimal (i.e., socially efficient) fashion (cf. Bohm, 1973, p. 13). Lukes (1973, pp. 88-93) describes this worldview as economic individualism, characterized by an emphasis on private property, free market competition and unfettered pursuit of self-interest. This atomistic view of market actors as "free" individuals, operating independently but rationally within the constraints of external market forces, points to a form of control based on the liberal principle of self-determination (Clarke, 1982). Thus, given that no actor can influence the overall situation, the neutrality of the market as an institution of rational economic exchange is guaranteed. Unitarism is the second alternative worldview that articulates as ideal the community form of social order, in which the guiding principle is that of spontaneous solidarity among interdependent members. Normative behavior defines the dominant rationality, and decisions are reached through consensual processes. Within the membership, harmony of inter-

Forms of Social Order

39

est is assumed to prevail, such that the only major source of cleavage is seen predominantly in terms of "insiders" versus "outsiders." Burrell and Morgan (1979) have described the "unitarist view" with regard to the issues of interests, conflict and power within organizations. The unitarist view takes the organization as a team, a cooperative enterprise united in the pursuit of common interests or goals. The view of harmony of interests implies that conflict is rare, transient, and alien, and only comes about as a result of deviants. As for power, the unitarist perspective assumes it away, focusing instead on the notions of authority, leadership, and control, all exercised for the good of the organization as a whole. Power is seen as a neutral or positive and legitimate force that enables management to structure, direct, and control the organization in pursuit of formal goals. Power is thus seen as integral, deriving from one source: the legitimate authority, leadership, or management (Wrong, 1968). Pluralism is the third alternative worldview that articulates as ideal the state (including the associative) form of social order. The guiding principle in this form of social order is that of regulation through either hierarchical control or organizational interest concertation, with the relationships between members seen as either dependent or only contingently interdependent. The distinction between the rulers and the ruled, or that between the leadership of the association, the membership, and the state provides the main sources of cleavage. Power is acknowledged as the medium for resolving conflicts, whether through adjudication, arbitration, or negotiation. But it is assumed to be intercursive, deriving from a plurality of sources. Such sources may be seen as diffuse and disaggregated, such that conflicts are resolved and behavior determined by the evershifting balance of power at the "political" marketplace. Or they may be seen as integrated such that behavior outcomes are not left to the "free" political forces of the "invisible hand," but are made subject to the influence of the human agency in which the "visible hands" actively guide policy choices and interest concertation.

33

Connective

Summary

Social order is a notion that refers to a stable form of social organization. It can be categorized in three alternative forms: the market, the community, and the state models. Corresponding to each of these models are particular worldviews that articulate their distinctive and ideal features: individualism for the market model, unitarism for the community model, and pluralism for the state model. The next three chapters elaborate

40

Chapter 3

on these worldviews, with the aim not only of uncovering their basic assumptions, beliefs, and concerns, but also of critically examining the possible ideological nature of those beliefs and concerns. In the latter endeavor, the concepts of power, ideology, and control are employed merely as resources, their problematic nature remaining the subject of Chapters 7 through 12. In the initial stages (Chapters 1 through 6), therefore, motivated definitions will be assumed, with power connoting "domination," ideology connoting "systematic concealment of social contradictions in the interest of some dominant group(s) in society," and control connoting "regulation of systems behavior in accordance with some dominant interests." In Chapter 13, the ideas of power, ideology, and control will be further problematized when we discuss the notions of the lifeworld and the system in terms of loss of freedom (colonization of the lifeworld by the system), and loss of meaning (cultural impoverishment, a phenomenon brought about by "negative" ideology).

4 Individualism and Social Order In order to develop a deeper understanding of the assumptions, beliefs, and concerns underlying individualism as a worldview, its social and intellectual roots are briefly explored. This is followed by a critical reexamination of those beliefs and concerns in order to uncover possible alternative explanations of ideologically suppressed accounts of the market model as an institutional basis of social order.

4.1 Social and Intellectual

Roots

Clarke (1982) has argued that the centrality of economic theory in social thought over the past two centuries is attributable to the fact that "the most fundamental problem that faces every individual is the problem of ensuring his or her own economic reproduction, for people must eat in order to live" (p. 6). And given that in any society, some form of economic interdependence exists, individual economic reproduction will depend on the reproduction of the social relations of production through which such interdependence is articulated. It is this dialectic between the need for individual economic reproduction and the necessity for the reproduction of corresponding social relations that defines the problem of social order as a concrete problem facing any particular society. Taking the case of (Western) capitalist society, Clarke provides an excellent analysis of its historical development in terms of the changing nature of the concrete problems of social order it faced and the corresponding intellectual responses to those problems, from Adam Smith to Max Weber. Our discussion of the roots of individualism is inspired by that analysis.

4.1.1 Social Roots The social processes within which a particular society secures its economic reproduction involve different forms of social control and regulation. In 41

42

Chapter 4

the precapitalist, feudal society of Europe, the extended household formed the basic economic unit, the reproduction of which depended on reproducing the social relations of kinship and patriarchal authority. Maintenance of social order was therefore secured through direct social regulation in the form of political (customary) and religious authority. However, as commodity production and exchange developed beyond the regulatory capacity of traditional (patriarchal) authority, a new economic interest group in the form of merchants began to emerge, posing a different problem of social order. Mercantilism thus defined the problem of social order in terms of economic reproduction of advantageous commodity exchange, which in turn required reproduction of social relations within a political community under the political regulation of State authority. The dominance of mercantilism during the 16th and 17th centuries however, represented merely a transitional period from the precapitalist feudal mode to the capitalist mode, characterized by commodity production on the basis of purchase and sale of labor power. The hegemony of the merchants, with their monopolistic restriction, regulation, and restraint, had by the first half of the 18th century become a fetter on the development of manufacturing industry (cf. Nabudere, 1977, p. 27). For the capitalist mode of production to emerge and be reproduced, however, Marx (1974) observed that two preconditions must be met: (1) Monetary capital must be accumulated in the hands of nonproducers having effective control over the use of means of production; and (2) the direct producers must be separated from their means of production so that they can function as wage laborers for the controllers of the means of production (cf. Taylor, 1979, p. 143). In the course of this emergence of the capitalist mode of production, mercantilism played a contradictory role. On the one hand, it was highly instrumental, through its primitive accumulation of monetary wealth, in enabling the realization of the first precondition. On the other hand, its monopolistic restrictions ran contrary to the requirements of the second precondition. These requirements dictated the need for unregulated competition, both in the markets for products and in the relations between the controllers of industrial capital and the emerging wage laborers. The emerging capitalist society required a redefinition of the problem of social order, a redefinition that was the inversion of that of mercantilism. The problem became one of reproducing not a political community but an economic community; reproducing not social relations of political regulation through state intervention but relations of free competitive exchange regulated by the hidden hand of the market. It is in this capitalism's triumph for a social order based on an unregulated market economy that the social origins of (possessive) individualism lie.

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4.1.2 Intellectual Roots As part of the complex totality of social practice within any given social formation, social and economic theories must be seen as discursive or theoretical responses to the problem of social order characterizing that society. In the new capitalist societies of the 18th century, the problem of social order became increasingly characterized by the conflict of interests that was inherent in exchange relations in which one party gains at the expense of the other. Classical political economy thus emerged and developed between the 17th and 19th centuries as a theoretical response to the political conflicts and social struggles of that time. For instance, the French Revolution and its aftermath had in both polar camps intensified widespread disbelief in the viability of capitalist society founded on unregulated economic conflict: On the one side, the conservative, dominant class feared that without a return to the traditional and political forms of social regulation, the unregulated economic conflict could only lead to revolution and anarchy as the propertyless mob challenged the sanctity and "rights of property" with their own "rights of man"; on the opposite side, the working class, the petty producers and their radical/socialist allies, also questioned the viability of capitalist society, seeing exploitation, expropriation, and inequality as the inevitable consequences of an unregulated economic conflict. At the outset, therefore, classical political economy sought to justify the viability of capitalist society. By developing an economic theory of capitalist society, covering production, exchange, and distribution, it sought to establish that beneath the superficial conflict of economic interests lay a more fundamental harmony. The theory of production revealed the identity of interest between capital and labor in the growing productivity of labor as a result of the extended division of labor and capital intensification (mechanization) of production. The theory of exchange reconciled the superficial conflicts of economic interests with the outweighing common benefits to every individual in the form of individual incentive and opportunity for self-improvement and overall social efficiency, all resulting from the unrestricted discipline of the hidden hand of the free competitive market. The theory of distribution, while not assuming any natural identity of interests, nevertheless reconciled the apparent distributional conflicts between land, labor and capital by positing a common interest in economic growth. For the purpose of our discussion, however, it is the classical theory of exchange that constitutes an important part of the intellectual roots to (possessive) individualism. The theory of exchange imposed a (political) commitment to laissez-faire in the regulation of economic relations on the basis of the liberal principle of individual self-determination.

44

Chapter 4 subject to the obligation to respect life, liberty and property. (Clarke, 1982, p. 109)

From this theory, four of the classical economic laws were derived. First, the law of self-interest stated that individuals tend to pursue their economic ends in a rational manner (such that in a world of perfect liberty, this would spontaneously result in social harmony and social progress). Second, the law of free competition stated that in the absence of market imperfections, which would be the only basis for political or moral intervention, free competition would secure prosperity and progress. Third, the law of supply and demand stated that market prices fluctuate around an equilibrium value in response to the interaction of supply and demand. Fourth, the law of international exchange stated that, given the law of free competition, both parties gain from international trade, although not necessarily equally. Whereas in classical political economy, individualism was clearly articulated only in the theory of exchange, neoclassical economics extended this articulation to the realms of production and distribution as well. This extension was a necessary development of the need once more to defend and justify the viability of capitalist society in the face of the collapse of the classical theory of distribution and the serious attacks on its principle of laissez-faire, from radical, socialist, liberal reformist, as well as reactionary conservative (romanticist) quarters. These problems for classical political economy reflected sociopolitical changes and realignment of relations between classes (particularly in Britain) from the middle of the 19th century (e.g., assimilation of land into capital; more fluid social structures, with an emphasis on hierarchy and meritocracy rather than social class; growth and increasing strength of trade unionism, the Great Depression of 1870s, accompanied by foreign competition and abandonment of free international trade; the creation of state monopolies, etc.). In the face of these historical developments, the shaky foundations of classical political economy became exposed. The classical wage-fund doctrine collapsed, and with it the classical economic law of wages and the deduction theory of profit. The so-called marginalist revolution of the 1870s (pioneered by Jevons in England, Walras in Switzerland, and Menger in Austria) however, was not an attempt to rescue the classical theories; rather, it was a reformulation of the problem of social order in capitalist state; a problem now seen in terms of the need for efficiency in the allocation of resources (and hence the need for a rigorous theory of price formation), rather than a concern with issues of distribution and class relations. At the center of marginalist analysis is the isolated, utility-maximising, individual endowed with given tastes, skills and resources making rational decisions in conditions of scarcity. The analysis asks how this typical individual would behave, on the assumption that the

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individual will seek to satisfy a desire for the most complete satisfaction of needs possible. (Clarke, 1982, p. 157)

According to the marginalist theory of price formation, (1) in exchange, the price of a commodity corresponds to its marginal utility, which is a diminishing function of its supply; (2) in production, the price of any factor of production (land, labor or capital) corresponds to its marginal productivity, which is a diminishing function of its supply, and (3) under appropriate assumptions, the interaction of aggregate demand and supply results in a unique set of stable equilibrium prices that clear all markets by equalizing demand and supply. In its theory of price, marginalism offered a theory of rational choice, price formation reflecting individual rationality of economic agents, with free competitive market exchange serving optimally to reconcile the conflicting interests of those individuals and thereby resulting in allocative efficiency and hence social rationality of capitalist society. As an analytical model of that society, marginalism abstracted from any particular social, historical, or institutional arrangements and therefore held its economic laws as "natural" or "positive," neither implying nor imposing any moral or political judgments, and therefore "value-neutral." The marginalist model was an ideal against which the imperfections of the real world were measured. In contrast to the classical (Ricardian) labor theory of value and its associated theory of distribution, marginalism completely dispensed with the notions of social classes, distribution, or equity. Instead, marginalism's utility theory of value could be applied with complete generality, regardless of the nature of the factor of production under consideration. Revenues accrued not to social classes, but to factors of production corresponding to their individual marginal productivity (or their contribution to production and hence to final utility). Thus the classical wage-fund doctrine, according to which wages were determined by sharing out a fixed amount among the whole working class, had to be rejected. Similarly Ricardian "embodied-labour" theory of value and its associated deduction theory of profit had to be rejected. The classical theories of wage and profit had already met with strong criticism on empirical grounds, but now they were rejected by marginalism on analytical grounds. Building on the classical doctrine of laissez-faire, marginalism thus provided the strongest intellectual roots to (possessive) individualism.

4.2 Individualism

as

Ideology

We can identify three ideological pillars that sustain and reproduce individualism in capitalist society: utility as the basis of value, self-interest

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Chapter 4

as the basis of rational behavior, and free market competition as the basis of social efficiency.

4.2.1 Utility and Value Tracing the history of value theory along two competing themes, that is, value based on socially necessary labor (production-side valuation) versus value based on subjective utility (demand-side valuation). Tinker, Merino, and Neimark (1982) have demonstrated that "the social struggles in each historic period (were) manifested in, and stimulated by (those) two generic concepts of value" (p. 175) and that both concepts shared a common theoretical mission, namely to simultaneously explain existing production and exchange relations and to prescribe how such relations ought to be structured. Thus, whereas utility theories of value naturalize the existing social order into eternal categories of "fixed factors" of production (i.e., land, labor and capital), the labor theories of value highlight the fact that a social order may be recreated, enhanced, and developed. The ideology of utility as the basis of value must be seen as essentially rooted in an attempt to conceal the fundamental contradiction of capitalist production: that between capital and labor over the production and appropriation of surplus value. Despite marginalism's pretension about the scientific generality and neutrality of its utility theory of value, the historical materialist origins of the utility theory betray its ideological mask. As Tinker et al. (1982) illustrate, the "Canonist (labour) theory of value" of the feudal period, emphasizing the producer-cost, was overthrown by the rise of mercantilism. The "mercantilist (utility) theory of value," with its emphasis on the purchasers (consumers), sought to legitimate utility (the demand side), since that was in the bargaining interest of the merchants against the primary producers. But this conventional price approach of mercantilism was in turn rendered obsolete by the rise of capitalism. Smith's (1976) "commandable labour" theory of value, Ricardo's (1971) "embodied labour" theory and Ricardian socialists' deduction theory of profit, were all refuted by marginalism's utility theory of value. The latter must therefore be seen as a product and legitimation of the more developed forms of capitalism. Ostensibly, the central concern of marginalism's utility theory of value was to develop a rigorous theory of price formation and an explanation of how a competitive economy simultaneously/optimally solves the problem of production and income distribution. But even in its own terms, marginalism has been shown to be fallacious on logical grounds: As a theory, it is unable to offer an explanation of price formation without

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being tautological (see, e.g., the review of the so-called "Cambridge Controversies" by Harcourt, 1969).

4:2.1 Self-interest and Rational Behavior The dogma of self-interest underlies economic rationality. Rational behavior requires only that the individual have a set of preferences and act consistently on those preferences, on the assumption that individuals seek to maximize the satisfaction of needs. Economic rationality purports to exclude all social and subjective value considerations. Thus in regard to rational behavior, no assumptions are made on how individuals actually behave, nor on how they should behave, nor on what the actual content of individual needs and preferences are or should be. "Homo economicus" is an abstract individual, concerned only with rational choice in the face of natural scarcity of resources and technological constraints of production. But the illusion of value-neutrality is only possible because a peculiar set of values are already built into the marginalist framework of concepts and assumptions (cf. Hyman and Brough, 1975). The utility functions that are maximized are not ethically neutral notions; they legitimate selfishness, acquisitiveness, and private gain in the interest of the dominant group in society. The ideological mission of the doctrine of rational behavior based on self-interest must be seen as fundamentally aimed at legitimating capitalist accumulation by exploitative means in a socialproduction context. The real problem of private appropriation of the social product is ideologically suppressed. The intellectual roots of the self-interested rational behavior go back to Bentham's philosophical hedonism, a utilitarian thesis that happiness (pleasure) is the ultimate human good; but a thesis that has been rejected for its naturalistic fallacy and its neglect of moral (deontic) criteria as a valid basis of and orientation for social action (cf. Weber, 1968). As a theory purporting to appraise the ends pursued by mankind, utilitarianism was not only logically tautologous, but also empirically fallacious (cf. Mydral, 1953). For instance, can the " e n d s " pursued by mankind and the "means" to do so be clearly differentiated and hierarchically ordered? Is it valid to assume that the only reason for social interaction and activity is the selfishness, the private gain, and the private interest of each as an individual? Is, for instance, an individual's occupation or employment reducible simply to Bentham's felicific calculus of pleasure and pain, to the exclusion of moral, political, religious, or aesthetic considerations (cf. Lockwood, 1958)? It may not be unreasonable to suggest that the economic doctrine of self-interest as a basis of rational behavior is perhaps one of the most

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irrational and insidious ideological claims in legitimating capitalist accumulation logic. 4.2.3 Market Exchange and Social Efficiency Whereas the doctrine of self-interest established the basis of rational behavior at the individual level, that of free market competition established the basis of rational (optimal) behavior of the economy as a whole, and hence social efficiency. Since every individual is presumed to be "free" to exchange or not to exchange the resources at his/her command, the decision to exchange can only imply that there is a prospect for attaining a higher level of individual satisfaction. Thus, according to marginalism, the institution of free market exchanges reflects nothing more than the medium or neutral technical instrument for translating individual rationality to social rationality. But can the assumptions of "free" individuals, "neutral" markets, exchanges of "equal" with "equal" all be sustained without a critical examination of issues concerning the initial distribution of resources/ wealth and hence asymmetry of power? Can the socially created institutional imperfections in the market (e.g., monopolies, cartels, political lobbies, etc.) be ignored? As Marx (1976) argued, exchange could not be analyzed in abstraction from the social relations it articulates. Individual needs, resources, and preferences were nothing but the expression of the relations of production and distribution, and exchange was thus a reproduction of those unequal relations in capitalist society. Consumption choices were not an expression of subjective tastes but social constraints imposed by the status of wage labor. Scarcity was not just a natural phenomenon, but more often than not an expression of the reproductive requirements of the accumulation logic. Distribution was not a matter of rewards to owners of (natural) private property, or a matter of marginal utilities and marginal productivities, but a reflection of the accumulation imperative. The assumption that the existing distribution of wealth and income in the economy can be taken as given implied that the concern of the Pareto optimality criterion of social efficiency was only with "local shifts from an existing position," leaving the status quo unchallenged and unchanged (cf. Cooper, 1980, p. 164). Indeed, the exchange relation envisioned in marginalist production-function analysis is not a relation between two (or more) human beings. Marx saw it as a mediated relationship in which the relationship is effected not directly, but through the medium of money (Clarke, 1982, p. 52). The individuals concerned assess their capacities not in their own terms but in terms of money representing the

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commodities they possess. In such a system of exchange, human qualities are reduced to things, commodities to private property. Thus human activities do not orient themselves to the needs of others but "to a thing that is the private property of the other" (Clarke, 1982, p. 53). In this alienation of private property, social relations become commodified and naturalized. In marginalist terms, all capitalist economic institutions represent perfect expression of individual rationality and thus property, exchange, money, division of labor, and the separation from the means of production represent not forms of historically specific social relations but technical, and ultimately, natural instruments of rational market exchanges.

4.3

Summary

Individualism is an ideology that conceives of social order as predicated on individuals maximizing their private (subjective) utilities through the market as a neutral institution of rational (economic) exchange. Thus society achieves efficient allocation of resources on the basis of marginal utilities of private commodities exchanged. The maintenance of social order, and hence control, is merely a question of self-regulation, since free market competitive forces guarantee the rewards of rational (economic) behavior and the sanctions of irrational behavior. But such a conception of control is a distortion of social reality. First, the initial distribution of wealth is falsely posited as natural and private property. This ignores the fact that the institution of private property is specific to the capitalist mode of production, which is historical rather than natural; and that private property represents alienation of the products of labor because of the contradictions of the capitalist social relations of production. This means that control is organized by means of power arising from unequal distribution of wealth, and as such the market is not neutral but a reflection of social (dominant) interests. Moreover, the ideology of free competitive exchange falsely posits marginal utility theory of value as the natural basis of competitive exchange, denying the labor theory of value. But because value is fundamentally determined by socially necessary labor, it cannot be neutral. Individualism is an ideology that commodifies and mystifies social relations, all in the interest of reproducing capitalist relations of production and domination.

5 Unitarism and Social Order This chapter follows the same pattern as that of the preceding chapter. After a brief exploration of the social and intellectual roots of unitarism, a critical reexamination of its underlying beliefs and concerns is undertaken.

5.1 Social and Intellectual

Roots

5.1.1 Social Roots The social roots of unitarism can perhaps be traced to the "primitive commune/' the primeval natural group based on "common ties of blood, language and custom," and which included "the family, the family enlarged into a tribe, or by the inter-marriage between families, or the combination of tribes" (Marx, 1973; cf. Melotti, 1977, p. 28). The characteristic of the primitive commune is the communal ownership of property or land, the individual members having no property but only possessions, the latter being particular fractions of the communal property assigned to individuals only in their capacity as immediate members of the commune. The commune in thus the substance of which the individual is a mere accident (Marx, 1973). The relationship between the individual (I), the commune (C), property or land (L) can be schematically represented as I ^^ C -^ L. This dependent relationship between members typifies the "Asiatic commune." In an inversion of this relationship, typified by the "Germanic commune," all property (land) is private property of autonomous, individual householders, the commune existing solely through the assembly or agreement of its members. The relationship thus becomes I -> L -^ C. An intermediate form of commune allows the coexistence of private property and communal property, the latter being necessary for interdependent communal tasks (e.g., war or defense of communal land against other clans). The ancient, Graeco-Roman or "classical commune" typifies this form, which may be represented as C ^> I -> L. 51

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Notwithstanding the differences in the form of property relations, the commonality between these three types of primitive communities was the predication of the existence of a commune on common interests or agreement, all born of members' common ties of blood, language, custom, ancestry, or common past and history. The primitive commune was thus a microcosm of social order in society, based on common norms and shared values. Although man's historical development fundamentally transformed most of these primitive modes of existence (e.g., into feudal societies), the persistence of the Asiatic commune and its development into the Asiatic mode of production is of particular significance to unitarism as a worldview. The Asiatic mode of production presupposes that the individual does not become independent of the commune, because the geographic and climatic nature of the surrounding evironment dictates the need for large communal tasks of drainage and irrigation beyond the capacity of single village communities. Because of this necessity for cooperation, a supervisory organ develops on a far higher level, over the village communes. In time this organ becomes the State, but personified as the despot, the "father of many communities," initially performing necessary functions, but later playing increasingly lordly and exploitative roles in exchange for their surplus labor (cf. Marx, 1973; Melotti, 1977). This subjugation of the original Asiatic communes to a higher "unity" in the form of the State (S) brings about the following new form of property relations: S

i In this form, not only does the State superimpose itself on the productive communities, which are thereby exploited, but also begins to see itself as the real owner of property or land. As Marx (1973) noted, unlike the naked, shameless, directly brutal exploitation under capitalism, the exploitation under the Asiatic mode of production (as in all precapitalist modes), although masked by patriarchal, religious, and political illusions, was nonetheless real. If in the above schema, we replace the superimposed state (S) with today's management (M) as the representatives of ownership interest, the formal parallel between the Asiatic mode of production and the unitary view of modern organizations (and institutions) in capitalist society (C) is obvious and striking. In particular, the accounting "entity" notion is a remarkable reproduction of this schema: The productive entity owns property (assets) but is subjugated to the authority and claims of external ownership interests, and the individual producing members of the entity appear as a mere accident.

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5.1.2 Intellectual Roots Developing Marx's (1973, 1976) concept of "social formation," Althusser (1969) and Althusser and Balibar (1970) have argued that "social practice" is a complex unity of four different practices, namely, the economic, the political, the ideological, and the theoretical, all aimed at reproducing a given social order. The theoretical practice works on ideologies as raw material, transforming them into systems of scientific knowledge. As such, the theoretical practice represents intellectual responses to the problem of social order in a given social formation. Given the centrality of value consensus in the unitarist social relations and social order, a theory of normative or moral regulation becomes of primary intellectual concern in unitarist thought. A systematic articulation of such intellectual concern goes back perhaps to Smith's (1976) theory of moral sentiments, according to which unmoderated "self-love" or selfishness led individuals to seek their ends by antisocial means. Such selfishness could be the consequence of either inadequate moral restraint or ignorance, which manifested themselves in the lack of adequate sense of "propriety" in one's own conduct and "sympathy" for the well-being of society. Smith's moral order was however to complement, not to challenge, the priority of the economic order based on moderated self-interest. The intellectual concern with moral order was motivated by the need to theorize the viability of capitalist society as a unitary system, notwithstanding its fundamentally individualistic basis in self-interest (cf. Clarke, 1982). Smith's scepticism about the viability of a capitalist system based solely on the principle of self-interest was vindicated by the late 19thcentury intense reformist struggles that opposed the absolutist claims of the classical laissez-faire principle. Among these diverse reformist schools, Comte's (1853) positive sociology was highly influential in articulating the unitarist perspective. Although not questioning the classical theory of production, he sought reforms that would regulate the conflicts of interests inherent in the social relations of distribution and exchange. Whereas self-interest was necessary for industrial progress, it was moral regulation ("social-love") that was required to qualify self-interest at the point at which the latter became subversive of social harmony and general well-being. Moral order depended on extending "positive" knowledge to the social domain. Comte claimed that it was on the basis of scientific knowledge of human interdependence that social-love would come to supplant self-love. The failure of classical political economy to withstand the reformist criticisms led, among other reasons, to the rise of marginalism. Margin-

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alism established itself self-consciously as an abstract, deductive, positive science, concerned only with the ideal rationality of economic institutions of capitalist society. It therefore abolished from the new science of economics the classical theory of distribution and with it the concept of "class." It is this theoretical vacuum left by economics that Weber (1968) sought to fill with the complementary science of "society" or "sociology." The unitarist concern of Weber's sociology was the need to develop a typology of organizations and that of social action, in terms of the value-orientation of action and the ends to which such action is directed. Thus ethical and moral values were not less important than the abstract ideal of economic rationality. It is in the further development of such unitarist concerns that Parsons (1937) formulated his structural functionalism. The Parsonian (1951) structural functionalism firmly established the notions of functional imperatives as prerequisites for systems survival and the mutual interdependence of systems structural elements (Buckley, 1967; Merton, 1949). Parsons saw four distinct functional imperatives or problems that must be met if equilibrium and systems survival are to be maintained. These constitute the Parsonian "AGIL"' scheme: adaptation to external environment; goal attainment; integration of systems parts to establish control, maintain coordination, inhibit deviancy, and avoid disturbance; and latency or pattern maintenance concerned with actors' motivation. Parsonian functionalism takes the AGIL imperative functions as given and seeks to identify systems structures that serve these functions. It is a concern with the processes of normatively structuring members' individual motives in the interest of furthering and ensuring social stability. In these integrative processes, power is seen as a neutral and positive force for the viability of the system as a whole.

5.2 Unitarism

as

Ideology

It can be argued that the two fundamental claims upon which unitarism as a worldview relies are ideological: the claim of value consensus and common interest, and the claim of power as a neutral or positive force. 5.2.1 Value Consensus and Common Interest The reality of organizational life contradicts the unitarist assumption of members' willing cooperation on the basis of a common interest. On the one hand, the social organization is viewed as essentially unitary, engaged in a cooperative enterprise, the viability of which is in the interest of

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all members. On the other hand, the willing cooperation of individual members is seen as problematic, such that the task of "coaxing" them (Beer, 1966, p. 225; by providing inducements perceivable to be greater than their contributions) into participation and "better" performance becomes crucial. Indeed, Barnard (1938) thought that the managerial task of "indoctrinating" participants and consciously promoting and "manipulating" their cooperation was one of the key executive functions (notwithstanding the essentially cooperative and unitary nature of the organization; Burrell and Morgan, 1979, pp. 148-149). The ideologies of value consensus and common interest suppress many critical questions. For instance, what is the origin of this consensus? Is it valid to reify society as the origin of consensus? Alternatively, if it is the members themselves who constitute the source of such consensus, then is the answer not tautological or entailing an (infinite) regress that can only be broken by positing harmony of interest among the members concerned (cf. Hyman and Brough, 1975)? Again, what is the real content of the so-called common interests? Radicalizing Blau and Scott's (1963) principle of "who benefits?", we can begin to inquire into the identity of the interest groups for whom social/organizational activities are functional. Similarly, does not the notion of "dysfunctions" play a partisan role in defining what constitutes a "problem"? Can the exercise of power to resolve such "problems" be neutral, even positive? It is to this last question that we now turn. 5.2.2 Power as Neutral or Positive Force

Wherever productive activities are undertaken on a social rather than individual basis, human social systems exhibit modes of work organization characterized by division of labor and specialization, because only in that way can maximum potential from cooperative effort be realized. At the most general level, the division of labor relates to the divorce of mental from manual work, conception from execution, planning from operation. From this general dichotomization of work, we get the corresponding division between management and labor. The unitarist view of management is essentially cybernetic, in the sense of "steersmanship" (Beer, 1966, p. 225; Weiner, 1961). Rather than exercising power, management is seen to be merely guiding the organization toward the achievement of common goals and interests. And to that end, the exercise of authority and control is seen as a managerial prerogative, an essential process for ensuring that members perform functions that are in the interest of the survival of the organization. Thus issues about power are ignored. Otherwise, "(p)ower in this sense is little more than a neutral

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resource which oils the wheels of the system as a whole" (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 203, emphasis mine). From such a conservative perspective, it becomes understandable that "cybernetics is about control, which is the profession of management" (Beer, 1966, p. 398, emphasis mine). The seemingly necessary managerialist control and domination is legitimated and naturalized without any apology. But is there anything that is inherent in this mode of work organization that makes one group dominate over the other? We argue that the managerial dominance and coercive control over the labor process is a feature specific to the capitalist mode of production. Our critique of contemporary management is based mainly on the work of Braverman (1974). There are important critiques of Braverman's work (cf. Elger, 1982; Littler, 1982; Penn, 1982; Wood and Kelly, 1982). Nevertheless, we consider the thrust of such critiques as only relating to the technical and practical levels of interest rather than the emancipatory level (cf. Habermas, 1972). Such critiques must also be related to the wider issue of the limitations of localized radicalism (Littler and Salaman, 1982; Tinker et al., 1982). It is an essential feature of capital as a social relation that in distribution it must expropriate the labor product through appropriation of surplus value; and in production, it must expropriate the labor process through the separation of labor from the means of production. It is also an historical feature of contemporary capitalism that although the production moment is characterized by a continual intensification of the process of labor skills expropriation through new and ever-changing technologies, the exchange moment seeks ever-new ways of realizing surplus value. The twofold result is the alienation of labor, not only from its product, but also more fundamentally from the labor process in human production, and in this lies the root of social antagonism between labor and capital. But the expropriation process is always mystified, made to appear natural and inevitable, since only one side of the underlying social phenomenon is abstracted and presented as reality. Labor power is abstracted from living labor and commodified (Colletti, 1975). The relations of the capitalist mode of production are transformed into a fetish; capital, for instance, becomes the source of profit and labor the source of wages. As Marx wrote, the distorted form in which the real inversion is expressed is naturally reproduced in the views of the agents of this mode of production. (Marx, 1975, p. 453)

Similarly, contradictions arise when through reified abstractions, the "other" side is repressed and that which is their very essence is denied (e.g., the separation of "use-value and value," "private labour and direct social labour" and between "particularized kind of labour and abstract

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57

human labour" (Colletti, 1975). Labor thus becomes alienated when "the private and social aspects of (it) which are intimately connected, (since they are aspects of the labor that the individual accomplishes in society), are given a separate representation and existence; the private or concrete aspect in the commodity's 'use-value' and on the other hand the social aspect, with another existence of its own separated, and hence abstracted from the former—as the commodity's ' v a l u e ' " (Colletti, 1975, p. 27). It is against this background of labor alienation that coercive control becomes necessary for the very existence of capital. The problem becomes one of "managing" the labor force. The precapitalist mode of production was characterized by independent producers, each having immediate and direct control over his/her own work. In the early periods of capitalism, primitive accumulation was achieved through appropriation of labor product via exchange rather than production. Even during early industrial capitalism, outwork was the dominant mode of production and through piece work and contract system (prevalent up to the middle of the 19th century), the worker became a willing accomplice in his own exploitation (Braverman, 1974). But with greater concentration and, subsequently, centralization of capital, the capitalist, out of necessity created by his own alienation process, assumed direct control of the labor process in an attempt to exact the greatest useful effect of labor. However, with the advent of joint-stock companies that enabled capital to be centralized to an extent previously unknown by transcending the limits hitherto set by personal wealth of individual capitalists, there came the necessity for someone or group to manage the labor process on behalf of the individual capitalist or owners. Modem management therefore owes its origin to the practical necessity of having a "representative" of capital in the labor process. And as joint-stock companies grew into modern corporations, severing the direct link between the capitalist and productive capital (i.e., the capitalist-labor process), management became not only a representative of capital but also a means of transcending the limits that may have been set by personal capability and knowledge of individual capitalists in organizing and controlling the labor process. With the rupture of the direct link between the capitalist and productive capital and thus in the direct and personal unity between owner and manager, capital transcends its limited and limiting personal form and enters into an institutional form (Braverman, 1974, p. 258). From management as a social category (since it need not be drawn from the capitalist class) can, in one important sense, be conceived as "virtual" capital in an institutional form, just as ownership is capital in a personal form. And thus, in the capitalist mode of production, management can (but need

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not necessarily) take the social form of class domination and labor alienation. The idea of power as a neutral or positive force in capitalist organizations must be seen as potentially, and perhaps more often than not, illusory.

5.3

Summary

Unitarism is founded on a number of ideologies that have been challenged. First, the ideology of consensus of goals is an attempt to abstract from the contradictions of capitalism as an exploitative and dominative mode of production built on antagonistic interests between the forces of production. Second, the ideology of harmony of interests (even if the absence of common interests is acknowledged) is likewise an abstraction from structural (latent) contradictions of capitalism that reflect at the organizational level dialectical contradictions in the labor process. Conflicts are thus falsely defined as transient and merely the result of individual members' deficiencies and failure to conform to given norms and values. The ideology of harmony of interests reinforces and supports the ideology of neutral power. By appealing to functional imperatives for the viability of the system as a whole, unitarism attempts to naturalize what are in effect historical, social relations of domination and exploitation. As in Chapter 4, the discussions in this chapter were intended to look at the social and intellectual roots of unitarism. Under late capitalism, these issues develop into new thematic issues. Chapter 13 recasts these problematic issues in a new framework.

6 Pluralism and Social Order The social and intellectual roots of pluralism can be traced to the same sources as those of individualism and unitarism. The superimposition of the state upon the original Asiatic commune provides one illustration. There is no need, therefore, to pursue further such an exercise in this chapter. The next section provides a brief elaboration of two important variants of pluralism (i.e., the "traditional" pluralism and the "liberal" corporatism) in order to highlight their basic assumptions and concerns as a particular worldview of social order. The chapter concludes with a critical reexamination of those beliefs and concerns.

6.1 Differentiated

versus Integrated

Pluralism

The use of the term pluralism and its clear theoretical boundaries, especially in relation to corporatism, is by no means settled in political studies literature. Martin (1983, p. 87) has observed that in relation to "liberal corporatism," the literature is rich with contrived synonyms. There is clearly some overlap between the two when writers refer to the same notion as "pluralist corporatism" and "corporate pluralism." Indeed both Crouch (1983) and Martin (1983) talk of a continuum between pluralism and corporatism, although Crouch sees a sharp, distinctive contrast, whereas Martin sees the "continuum (as) centred on pluralist relationships, with corporatism as one extreme" (p. 99) and, in fact, argues that not only have neocorporatists failed to demonstrate the distinction between pluralism and (liberal) corporatism, their own writings are "suggestive of a more intimate continuity than they openly admit" (p. 99). More recently. Crouch and Dore (1990, p. 1) comment that ''ism" words and their equivalents in other languages, like "shugi" words in Japan, always give difficulties. Most of them can stand both for ideology ... and also for a category of analysis . . . of some actual social reality, (emphasis in original)

59

so

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They suggest that one way of dealing with this double-barreled connotative problematic is to disaggregate, that is, to move from the macro to the micro. This requires defining a social phenomenon first in abstract terms of the density of social relationships or arrangements in the overall macro (economic) system, before one proceeds to seek and adduce evidence of whether a particular society falls under a particular "ismcategory." This approach, they suggest, would more adequately deal with the question of whether most capitalist democracies are witnessing "creeping corporatism." Thus in the case of corporatism, they offer a definition, not of corporatism, but of a corporatist arrangement as follows: An institutionalized pattern which involves an explicit or implicit bargain (or recurring bargaining) between some organ of government and private interest groups (including those promoting 'ideal interests'—'causes'), one element in the bargain being that the groups receive certain institutionalized or ad hoc benefits in return for guarantees by the groups' representatives that their members will behave in certain ways considered to be in the public interest. (Crouch and Dore, 1990, p. 3)

Mishra (1984) sees the distinction in terms of differentiated or "disaggregated pluralism," which corresponds to the traditional concept of pluralism and "integrated pluralism," which corresponds to corporatism as generally conceptualized by neocorporatists. He sees corporatism as "a pragmatic approach to the integrative problems of the political economy of advanced capitalism" (p. 102). In the context of a theory of the welfare state, he contrasts an ideal type of the pluralist or dijferentiated welfare state (DWS) with an ideal type of the corporatist or integrated welfare state (IWS). Table 6.1 highlights the distinctive features of each. Whereas Mishra (1984) focuses on important distinctions between disaggregated and integrated pluralism. Crouch (1983) sets the distinction in a wider context of a continuum from "authoritarian" corporatism to "contestation" (Figure 6.1). The continuum has "poles that place opposed weights on the two aspects of intermediation: discipline of members in favor of a general interest and representation of their particular interests" (pp. 456-457, emphasis mine). Pole D, authoritarian (state, dictatorial, etc.) corporatism represents the case of zero representation but maximal discipline of members in favor of the general interest (compare Nazism, fascism, etc.). Pole R, contestation, represents zero discipline but maximal representation of members in favor of their particular interests: a case of total laissez-faire and even antiregulation (compare liberal capitalism). Inclined toward pole D, integrated pluralism represents

61

Pluralism and Social Order

Differentiated

(Pluralist)

TABLE 6.1 Welfare State versus Integrated

Differentiated (pluralist) welfare state 1. Economy Regulation of the economy form the demand side. Government measures of "pump priming/' deficit financing, fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate or inhibit demand.

2. Social welfare Relatively autonomous realm seen as distinct from the economy. State provision of a range of services seen as 'socially' oriented with little explicit linkage with reference to the economy.

3. Polity Characterized by interest-group pluralism. A free-for-all or market model of the pohty and societal decision-making process. Free collective bargaining in the industrial area. Pursuit of sectional interests through organized groupings, parties and parliament. Exercise of economic power without social responsibility. Parliamentary forms of government. Full civil political liberties.

(Corporatist)

Welfare

State

Integrated (corporatist) welfare state 1. Economy Regulation of the economy from both demand and supply side (e.g., profits, investment, wage levels, inflation, labor market conditions). Regulation and consensus-building (with or without statutory instruments) across wideranging economic issues. 2. Social welfare Not seen as a realm autonomous of the economy and economic policy. Interdependence and interrelationship between the social and economic recognized and institutionalized. Functional relations and tradeoffs between the economic and the social policy making. 3. Polity Characterized by centralized pluralism. Bargain between peak associations or representatives of major economic interests over a broad range of economic and social policies. Interdependence of economic groups recognized and institutionalized in the form of class cooperation and social consensus. Major economic power grouping assume social responsibility. Parliamentary forms of government. Full civil and political liberties.

Source: Adapted from Mishra, 1984, pp. 102-103.

a political structure within advanced capitalism, which integrates organized socio-economic producer groups through a system of representation and cooperative mutual interaction at the leadership level and of mobilization and social control at the mass level (Crouch, 1983, p. 453, quoting Schmitter and Lehmbruch, 1979, emphasis mine)

Again, (C)orporatism is best regarded as a strategy pursued by capitalism when it cannot adequately subordinate labour by preventing its combination and

62

Chapter 6

Representation (R)

Discipline (D)

Authoritarian corporatism

Liberal or bargained corporatism

Pluralism: Bargaining

Contestation

FIGURE 6.1 A Continuum of Men\bership Discipline (D) and Representation (R) (Adapted from Crouch, 1983, p. 457)

allowing market processes to work. If liberal capitalism operates through individualism and the rigorous separation of the economic, political and ideological (or normative) spheres, corporatism entails the opposite. Subordinates and other economic actors are organised, and order is secured by the hierarchical control of organisation, (p. 454, quoting Crouch, 1979, emphasis mine).

Differentiated pluralism, however, leans toward Pole R, representing a "system of overlapping competitiveness, shifting combination, multiple allegiance, spontaneous generation and organizational slack . . . " (p. 459, citing Schmitter, 1982). The contrasting distinctions between differentiated and integrated pluralism, in their ideal typical forms, can now be summarized in terms of the following antinomies: competition versus collaboration, interest concertation versus pressure politics, representation versus hierarchical discipline and control, and particular interest versus general interest. Central to the distinction between differentiated and integrated pluralism is its implication for their theories of the state. As differentiated pluralism leans toward contestation, it conceives of the state as facilitative and essentially the passive recipient of group pressures. It does not favor state intervention or regulation; rather, "free-for-all or market model of the polity and societal decision-making process" is preferred (Mishra, 1984, p. 103). Where bargaining has taken place with the state, the disaggregated associations do not become involved in policing any such voluntary agreements and restraints on their members; they are left to the good sense of the members (Crouch 1983, p. 458). Disaggregated associations thus exercise economic power without social responsibility. Integrated

Pluralism and Social Order

63

pluralism, on the other hand, conceives of the state as interventionist and regulative. There is a tripartite collaboration between capital, labor, and the state. In the process of bargaining, the participating groups accept, in exchange for securing their interests, joint responsibility for the order and progress of the system as a whole and undertake to help guarantee members' compliance.

6.2 Pluralism

as

Ideology

The pluralistic concerns for either the "particular" interests (differentiated pluralism), or the "general" interests (integrated pluralism) are both ultimately ideological. In the first case, the pursuit of particular interests is justified on the assumption that ultimately it results in overall social efficiency, given that power is diffusely distributed throughout society such that the situation of an ever-shifting balance and locus of power guarantees the optimal working of the "invisible hands" of the political market. But, this pluralistic view of power has been shown to misrepresent the reality of political decision making, when, minimally, the "two-dimensional" view (Bachrach and Baratz, 1963), and, more "radically," the "three-dimensional" view (Lukes, 1974) of power are considered. In the second case, the "general" (or public) interest can be critiqued in the same way as was earlier done with the "common" interest under unitarism. In addition, the illusion of the general interest must be seen as essentially an attempt to rescue the ideological doctrine of "particular" interests in the face of mounting integrative problems of advanced capitalism (e.g., the problem of growing strength of trade unionism and increasing labor militancy). The real underlying concern is still the pursuit of particulars (private), exploitative interests, but now ostensibly in the name of the general interest. Thus, the "inviolable" doctrine of free competition now gives way to collaboration, and representation of sectional interests gives way to membership discipline and control, provided such sectional interests as are secured for the dominated groups through bargaining processes do not threaten the crucial interests of the dominant groups. And the passive, facilitative view of the state gives way to an interventionist and regulative view, in the false name of the state as the neutral guardian of the general interest. A theory of the state as guardian of the general interest falsely assumes autonomy of the state from the economic and social spheres. As Jessop (1982) has argued, such a view is untenable, based as it is on a misconception of the form and functions of a state. Jessop has outlined a theory of the state in capitalist societies that highlights this misconcep-

64

Chapter 6

tion (as well as other misconceptions that either view the state as simply an instrument of capital or inadequately theorize its "relative autonomy"). He sets out four guidelines for the construction of a nonreductionist, nonsubsumptionist theory of state in these terms: Firstly, the state is a set of institutions that cannot, qua institutional ensemble, exercise power. Secondly, political forces do not exist independently of the state: they are shaped in part through its forms of representation, its internal structure, and its forms of intervention. Thirdly, state power is a complex social relation that reflects the changing balance in a determinate conjuncture. Fourthly, state power is capitalist to the extent that it creates, maintains, or restores the conditions for capital accumulation in a given situation and it is non-capitalist to the extent that these conditions are not realized (p. 221).

This is an approach that articulates the political, economic, and ideological spheres, arguing against either reducing one to the other or treating each as autonomous. But Jessop's fourth guideline needs to be treated with care. While it is undoubtedly the case that the outcomes of specific cases cannot be prejudged, it is nevertheless questionable to say that in the cases where the state fails to maintain conditions necessary for capital accumulation, it becomes noncapitalist. The overall situation must be taken into account (a method of articulation) before such a judgment can be made. As Willmott (1984) argues, "because the state embodies and contributes to the dynamic balance of class forces, it inevitably overrepresents the interests of capital" (p. 21), without having to be merely its instrument.

6.3 Reflective

Summary

Pluralism is an ideology that articulates the state model of social order, defined in terms of interest groups acting interdependently to attain their conflicting interests. Social order is maintained through intercursive regulation whereby conflicts are resolved through the use of power that derives from a plurality of sources. Differentiated pluralism emphasizes the diffuseness and disaggregated nature of such intercursive power, and a preference for conflict resolution through external market forces rather than political regulation. Integrated pluralism, on the other hand, lays emphasis on the integrated nature of intercursive power, which is seen as deriving from organized interest groups (such as the state, capital and labor). Conflicts are resolved either by direct state intervention or through negotiations between organized interest groups in corporatist forms of representation.

Pluralism and Social Order

65

The doctrines of "particular" interests and "general" interests have both been critiqued as ideological. The former abstracts from the power structure and structural conflicts of capitalism, posing the problem as simply one of economic efficiency in the allocation of societal resources. A similar abstraction is made under integrated pluralism. The concern is with institutionalizing methods of conflict resolution, based on the ideology of "the general interest." Under such an ideology, the state is taken as autonomous and hence a neutral guardian of the general interest. But, whereas the state is not a mere instrument of the capitalist class, it is nevertheless not autonomous. The state reflects a condensation and crystallization of social relations of power of both class and nonclass forces, where nonetheless the interests of capital are overrepresented. The ideologies of political unity, state neutrality, and the general interest reflect a false apprehension of the nature of social conflicts under capitalism. In Chapter 13, we take up again the role of the state's bureaucratic power in Habermas's two-level concept of society (i.e., the "lifeworld" and the "system" perspectives).

Ill Enlightenment and Empowerment Toward Self-Clarity and Self-Will: Must We Remain Helpless and Ignorant of Ourselves?

7 Power and Interests From Domination to the Power of Knowing You Are Not Powerless 7.1

Introduction

The concept of power is central to social inquiry, yet it is highly varied and enigmatic. There is a wide-ranging and competing variety of subjectivist, objectivist, and relational conceptions of power. The first part of the chapter examines this problem in an exegetical but critical manner. The aim is to develop a critical conception of this social phenomenon. The second part of the chapter seeks to probe the nature of three types of systems approach in terms of their underwriting assumptions about power in society. The intent is twofold: (1) to uncover the ideologically suppressed truths about the noxious forms of power, and (2) to develop a penetrative understanding of how the mystified "truths" in ideological conceptions of power contain hidden meanings that have the critical potential for the empowerment of human agents and social systems. In social inquiry, the concept of power is highly problematic. In his now well-known contribution to the theory of power, Lukes (1974) admitted that his own view of it was "ineradically evaluative and essentially contested" (p. 9). More recently. Knights and Willmott (1985) have remarked: "Among sociological concepts, few are as central to social inquiry, yet as varied and ambiguous, as that of power" (p. 22). This phenomenon forms the focus of this chapter, which is divided into two main parts. The first part, comprising sections 3 to 5, is exegetical. Ten conceptions of power are all critically examined. The purpose is to develop an argument for a more adequate view of this enigmatic social phenomenon. Section 6 of the chapter constitutes the second main part. Here the aim is to probe the nature of three systems approaches in terms of their underlying assumptions about power in society. The three approaches are the positivist and the structuralist hard systems approaches, and the 69

70

Chapter 7

soft systems approach. The "diagnostic" tasks are undertaken, however, with a critical intent: educative "enlightenment" in the interest of empowerment. 7.1.1 Conceptions of Power: An Overview An approach to a discussion of the widely varying conceptions of power needs some logical structuring. In this respect, the works of Therborn (1982) and Robson and Cooper (1989) serve as important points of reference, as they explicitly address the issue of ordering power analysis in some logical and coherent way. Therborn's analysis distinguishes three major approaches, namely the "subjectivist," the "economic," and the "dialectical materialist" conceptions of power. The subjectivist approach focuses on the subject (be it an individual or collectivity) exercising power. It seeks an answer to the question: Who has power? The economic approach focuses on the quantity of power as capacity to achieve goals. It therefore seeks an answer to the question: How much power is available to get things done? The dialectical materialist approach focuses on the capitalist mode of production, particularly in terms of its social contradictions, its historical reproduction and evolution, and the possibility of its transformation. The pertinent questions become: What kind of society is it? What are the effects of the state (power) upon this society? In Therborn's framework of power analysis, three perspectives seem to circumscribe the different ways in which power may be conceptualized, namely, (1) a conflictual, zero-sum, negative view: power over whom, (2) a harmonious, synergistic, positive view: power to accomplish a common goal, and (3) a conflictual, negative, and essentially critical view: oppressive and exploitative power, which needs to be exposed and radically changed. Robson and Cooper add a fourth perspective to Therborn's framework: The "analytic ojf relations of power." This perspective views power as inherently tied to knowledge and seeks to study the specific means and technologies by which power comes to be exercised. The framework of analysis adopted here draws on and extends those of Therborn, and Robson and Cooper. Although acknowledging that the four perspectives reflect four different worldviews, this framework first seeks to incorporate additional perspectives, some of which represent new, insightful developments. Second, and for purposes of parsimony, the framework attempts to classify these widely varying perspectives or conceptions of power at a level of abstraction that can adequately highlight their fundamental assumptions about human nature and society, and the

Power and Interests

71

nature of the relationship between the individual as an agent and society as a structural phenomenon. I take it that these fundamental assumptions point to three overarching views of power as a social phenomenon. These may be summarized as subjectivism, objectivism, and "relationism." As for both Therborn, and Robson and Cooper, subjectivism is here taken as a distinct perspective. Objectivism, in this framework, subsumes both the "power t o " perspective and the so-called historical materialist conception of power, which I prefer to call Marxian structuralism. The relational approach includes four additional perspectives (rational agency, negative, positive, and contingent relational conceptions of power), besides Robson and Cooper's "analytic of relations of power." Within each of those three fundamental assumptions about the nature of the social world in relation to power, different perspectives exist. The subjectivist approach conceives of power as possessed by agents (individuals or collectivities). Power is a subjective capacity to realize one's interests, but is dependent on other factors. Within this approach, what may be collectively grouped under "power and conflict" views is the most common approach to power analysis. It conceptualizes power as essentially and logically tied to conflict, whether such conflict is overt, covert, or latent; in this case, the implicated sectional interests are taken to be actual or potential bases of mobilizing agents in struggle. The objectivist approach conceives of power either as transformative capacities of social systems as cooperative enterprises, or as capacity (to dominate or resist) located in social structures. Two contrasting approaches, both well-established and widely influential, dominate the objectivist tradition. The first, discussed under "power and functionalism," conceptualizes power positively as a generalized, integrative capacity arising from the transformative capacity of individuals harmoniously working in cooperation. The only relevant interest is the "common" interest or the collective goal of the system as a whole. On the other hand, the second, discussed under "power and Marxian structuralism" (in the tradition also known as Althusserian structuralism) is a tradition that views power basically in antagonistic class terms. Power is the capacity of a class to fight for its objective (real) interests. Such capacity is seen as determined both by the structure of a given social formation and by the way the class is organized in struggle. The relational approaches conceive of power as a relational phenomenon: a property of interaction among social forces involved. Under this approach, we examine briefly five different lines of development, including the approaches I take as the more illuminating views of power. The first, "power and micropolitics" focuses on the exercise of power, both in ongoing everyday situations and in specific arenas of struggle. In this

Chapter 7

71

case, power is seen as the medium through which such processes take place. The second line of development may be termed "power and negative relationism." This approach focuses on power as a medium for securing or defending sectional interests. The third line of development, "power and positive relationism," conceptualizes power as a creative, productive, transformative potential embodied within the interdependency of social relations. The fourth, discussed here in terms of "power and rational agency" is not yet part of mainstream thought, but reflects the most fundamental view of power at the individual level of analysis. It focuses on "a priori" natural interest of every individual to become a rational (self-determined) agent. The fifth line of approach, "power and contingent relationism," is the view argued for in this chapter. Pitched at the social level of analysis, it is the counterpart of the rational agency view. Although recognizing the relational nature of power, it seeks, however, to eschew the position that the nature of this relationism is one that necessarily leads to the pursuit either of sectional interests or of collective interests in situations of interdependence. Figure 7.1 summarizes the locations of these widely varying conceptions of power.

POWER

1. Subjectivism Power and conflict

1.1. Pluralism view

1.2. Elitist view

2. Objectivism

1.3. Radical view

2.1. Power and functionalism

3.1. Power and micropolitics

3. Reiationism

3.2. Power and negative relationism

2.2. Power and Marxian structuralism

3.3. Power and positive relationism

3.4. Power and rational agency

3.5. Power and contingent relationism

FIGURE 7.1 Concepts of Power (Adapted from Oliga, 1990c, p. 456)

Power and Interests

7.2 Subjectivist

73

Conceptions

of

Power

7.2.1 Pluralist, Elitist, and Radical Views The subjectivist conception of power is "possessive" and negative. It is individuals or collectivities who possess power, the capacity to bring about a desired outcome. The approach therefore views power in terms of a "capacity-outcome" model. Power is treated as logically tied to conflicts. This implies that in the absence of conflicts, however empirically verified, the presumption is that there is consensus on the existing sociopolitical values, preferences, and institutional practices. Lukes's (1974) contribution provides a good account, in terms of which three different subjectivist views of power can be contrasted. The first view, the pluralists' "one-dimensional" view of power, defines power in terms of an individual's successful attempt to secure a desired outcome through processes entailing the making of decisions on key issues over which there is an observable (overt) conflict of subjective interests (Dahl, 1958). The elitists' "two-dimensional" view of power extends the first view by including non-decision-making, whereby decisions are prevented from being taken on issues and potential issues over observable (overt or covert) conflicts (Bachrach and Baratz, 1963). It is, however, the "threedimensional" view, Lukes argues, that goes beyond the merely behavioral (individual) focus, by including social forces and institutional practices as sources of bias mobilization, control over political agenda through ideological processes of preference shaping and selective perception, and articulation of what count as social problems and conflicts, and latent conflicts representing "a contradiction between the interests of those exercising power and the 'real' interests of those they exclude" (Lukes, 1974, pp. 24-25). Situated in the conflict-theory tradition of radical Weberianism, as typified in the subjectivist-oriented work of Rex (1961), Lukes's radical view provides an insightful critique of the "decisionist" and the "nondecisionist" views: their unwarranted, wholly one-sided voluntarism as well as their indefensible tying of power inherently to conflict (cf. Giddens, 1984, p. 256; Robson and Cooper, 1989). But the radical view is itself subject to serious criticism, chiefly because it is still wedded to the subjectivist preoccupation with the problem of subjective interests (Giddens, 1984, p. 257; Hindess, 1982; Knights and Willmott, 1985, p. 29; Robson and Cooper, 1989). These issues concerning subjective interest and capacity conceptions of power are further addressed in the later sections of the chapter.

74:

73 Objectivist

Chapter 7

Conceptions

of

Power

7.3.1 Power and Functionalism The functionalist conception of power is positive and "relational" in the weak sense of the term; that is, although it conceives of power as a property of a social system constituted as a set of relations enveloping its members, nevertheless the active role of human beings as individual members is all but absent. Power is defined as a generalized transformative capacity, a systems or societal medium for regulating social relations in the pursuit of collective goals or "common" interests (Parsons, 1967). This view of power is positive in that it takes power as legitimate, functional, and integrative in nature, exercised for the benefit of all members. Power becomes, in fact, synonymous with "authority" (cf. Robson and Cooper, 1989). The strength of the functionalist approach to power lies in its relational view, albeit in a weak sense. It recognizes the nature of power as an expandable property of social systems, in which members interact, with potential synergistic outcomes (Giddens, 1984, p. 258; Knights and Willmott, 1985, p. 28; Robson and Cooper, 1989). This is an important alternative view to conflict theorists' commitment to a zero-sum model of power under all circumstances (cf. Giddens, 1984, p. 15). But, in my view, it is not an advance over the conflict theorists; it is just as one-sided as the other, albeit in a more optimistic mold. Indeed, the basic problem with the functionalist view of power is its overarching unitarist assumptions: goal consensus, harmony of interests, and power as a neutral or positive force. These will be critically examined later. However, one problem that functionalism shares with subjectivism is the view that power is intrinsically related to interests: harmonious interests in the case of functionalism, and conflictual interests in the case of subjectivism. It is undoubtedly true that power often implicates interests, antagonistic or harmonious. But to assume that this is of the essence of power as such is to overlook a fundamental feature of human agency. The agent's knowledgeability is always bounded, with the result that action may produce unintended consequences, just as it may be an outcome of unacknowledged conditions. As Giddens (1984, p. 27) puts it, " H u m a n history is created by intentional activities but is not an intended project." If, as we shall see later under "Power and Rational Agency," power is a prior condition for action, the bounded knowledgeability of human agency implies that interests, as preferences, objectives, or concerns that are or would be acknowledged by agents in particular circum-

Power and Interests

75

stances of conflict or harmony, are not immanent in action. Hence, they cannot be immanent in power. 7.3.2 Power and Marxian Structuralism In the Marxist tradition, Althusserian structuralism (typically associated with such works as those of Althusser, 1969,1971; Poulantzas, 1973,1975; Therborn, 1980, among others) has been of tremendous influence in the analysis of power. This is perhaps due to the yawning absence of a direct and rigorous focus on the concept of power, particularly from the radical humanist tradition, which has generally preferred to address instead the issue of ideology. There are of course alternative views of power in the tradition of radical structuralism that merit serious attention. They will be referred to in subsequent sections as and when appropriate. The Marxian structuralist conception of power is possessive and negative. It sees power as an effect of institutional structures characterizing a particular mode of production. Althusserianism conceives of society as a "totality," a structured whole with causal priority over its elements. Human action and history are therefore fundamentally determined by the character of the social formation in which they are located. Individuals are not subjects in the activist sense portrayed in subjectivism; they are bearers or supports of predetermined relations of production. As agents occupying socially determined and pregiven positions, individuals make history but under structurally constrained conditions. From this position, Marxian structuralism defines power as the capacity of a class to realize its specific objective interests (Poulantzas, 1973). The thrust of this view of power is to oppose both the functionalist and the subjectivist positions (Therborn, 1982). The functionalist view is based on the unwarranted assumption that the synergistic benefits from cooperation flow equitably to all members, given the harmony of their interests based on goal and value consensus. Marxian structuralism problematizes this assumption. It questions how a particular kind of consensus comes to exist and how it is maintained. It seeks to understand how power may be used to further not collective goals but sectional interests. The subjectivist position is similarly seen as unwarrantedly preoccupied with only interpersonal relations of power, neglecting in the process the impersonal, structural bases of domination and exploitation. Even Lukes's three-dimensional view of power is seen, in the final analysis, as preoccupied with the search for the subject of power, be it a unified elite or various elites and leadership groups. The search is for a relation of power over others, a relation that remains obscure not only to the op-

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pressed but also to the oppressors themselves. Marxian structuralism critiques the subjectivist position for its glaring neglect of the fact that the structural, societal reproductive effects significantly account for power relations in concrete social formations. However, although Marxian structuralism marks an important advance over subjectivism and functionalism, it too can be criticized for a number of inadequacies. The relationist conceptions of power, which now follow, will highlight some of the important aspects of those inadequacies.

7A Relational

Conceptions

of

Power

7.4.1 Power and Micropolitics Conceptions of power in "micropolitics" terms are a reaction against global conceptions of power relations, which neglect the issue of how power is exercised in specific arenas of struggle or in everyday situations. They seek instead to locate power either in specific conditions of particular struggles or in the limited field of "social strategies." These two relocations represent two different views of power. The first may be termed "differential conditions" (see Hindess, 1982; Minson, 1980), and the second, "the analytic of relations of power" (Foucault, 1972, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981; Giddens, 1982; Minson, 1980; Robson and Cooper, 1989). The first view is suspicious of the very notion of power to the point of dismissing it as totally irrelevant in explaining human conduct. The second view is relational but cynically naturalizes power as a historically necessary, structural feature of the modern age. The "differential conditions" view is opposed to totalizing perspectives or "a priori" judgments about power as capacity or attribute belonging to particular agents. Instead it is the differential conditions, advantages, and means of action in specific arenas of struggle that should be investigated. Specifically, Hindess (1982) has argued against what may be summarized as two broad approaches to power analysis: the "capacityoutcome" view and what might be called the "capacity-conditions-outcome" view of power (p. 498). The first approach parallels the "onedimensional" view of power; the second, the "two-dimensional" and "three-dimensional" views (Oliga, 1990a). Hindess argues that these conceptions unrealistically take the securing of outcomes as unproblematic, instead of predicating it on definite and specifiable conditions or means of action, which not only are not in the hands of "power-full" agents, but invariably confront obstacles and opposition.

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In the "analytic of relations of power," Foucault conceives of power, not as inherently repressive, a noxious expression of class domination in Marxist terms; power is immanent in all human activity. Power is the means by which all things happen. In the modern age, however, power has acquired a new dimension. It has become what Foucault calls "disciplinary power," the crossing of power and knowledge. Disciplinary power is a new, more efficient and effective technology of power, whereby power is exercised through its invisibility. This means that in the p o w e r knowledge disciplinary matrix, [K]nowledge of the individual is made visible while its power, effects of this knowledge, remains invisible to the subject. Power and knowledge have thus combined to produce the individual as an object of knowledge under increasing forms of subjection. (Robson and Cooper, 1989, p. 102)

Individuals experiencing this invisible power acquiesce in it and their acquiescence is an essential part of this new technology (Giddens, 1982, p. 220). A similar focus on "micro-politics" of power is evident in Minson's (1980) discussion of Foucault's (1972, 1977, 1980) conception of power. According to Minson, there are three elements in Foucault's conception of power that contest Marxist concepts: "his attack on global conceptions of social relations; his relocation of such categories in the limited field of 'social strategies'; and lastly his attack on 'possessive' conceptions of power and concomitantly his emphasis on the determinants and effects of the 'technical' forms of implementing policies and strategic programmes" (Minson, 1980, p. 36). According to Foucault, power is assumed to be diffused throughout society at all levels, just as practical, everyday life knowledge is. Power is thus a process tied closely to practical knowledge through the general tactic of disciplining human bodies for social purposes. He therefore challenges the idea of truth or pure knowledge, because actual knowledge in society is a political activity, the product of power and its disciplinary techniques. This is the idea in Foucault's concepts of "will-to-truth" or "will-to-knowledge," which explicitly echo Nietzsche's concept of "willto-power." For both writers, knowledge cannot be divorced from power. Minson (1980) sees Foucault's and Nietzschean contribution to the concept of power as being the recognition of the effects of micropolitics in terms of the exercise of power rather than in the Marxist notion of its possession in sources located in specific political forces. But he argues against both possession and exercise notions of power; in fact, he rejects the very notion of power, arguing that the concept of power itself lacks any explanatory force or theoretical significance. As he argues, rendering

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power as an attribute with a causal efficacy means that the outcomes of (power) struggles must be either deducible in advance or else beyond explanation. In his view, "[P]owers'' might be conceived as differential advantages (or disadvantages) regarding the possibility of social agents being successful in realizing certain objectives, particularly, wherever the compliance and support of other agents is a prerequisite, (p. 24)

Undoubtedly, Minson's "differential advantages" and Hindess's "differential conditions," are notions that are insightful in power analysis. It must be the case that in specific instances of struggle, the outcomes depend on the specific resources each contestant is able to draw upon. These specific resources may not be specifiable in advance. Nevertheless these views all share a number of untenable elements in their analysis of power (Oliga, 1990a). First, outcomes of struggle are seen as simply dependent on heterogeneous, interdependent, possible tactics and strategies, or on conditions and means of action available in specific situations of action. Second, their alternative explanatory categories are all simply taken as given. This naturalistic conception betrays an uncritical view of surfacelevel appearances. The possibility that such parameters of struggle may be ideologically structured is ignored. There is thus the danger of preoccupation with enactment of the game, to the exclusion of the ground rules of the game itself, rules that circumscribe, structure, and bias potential outcomes (Oliga, 1990a). One cannot but wonder what in the first place the social struggles are all about in such uncritical conceptions of power. How do Minson's "advantages" and Hindess's "conditions" become "differential" in the first place? And is it justifiable to reject the concept of power simply because its scope for definite outcomes is not invariantly determinate, except "ex post," in specific instances? Obviously, and in a nontrivial sense, one may choose not to exercise power, even if its successful outcome were in no doubt; similarly, one may choose not to obey, regardless of the consequences (Oliga, 1990a). That social struggles are possible and do take place implies the existence of conflicts arising out of various forms of domination, and the latter would not be possible without power (Giddens, 1984; Hyman and Brough, 1975; Oliga, 1990a). A focus on levels of analysis would point to the possibility of the exercise of power being grounded in domination (or "meta-power"), the prior capacity to be able to exercise power at all (cf. Clegg, 1975; Weber, 1968). In regard to Foucault's notion of disciplinary power, and notwithstanding its major insight concerning the intersection of power and knowl-

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edge, we see a number of difficulties with it. First, in Foucault's power analysis, the subject is "decenterd"; history is made without a subject; it is "punishment," "discipline," "surveillance," and power itself that seem to constitute the real agents of history. As Giddens (1982, p. 222) argues, this is a consequence of Foucault's "genealogical method," which perpetuates the structuralist confusion between history without a transcendental subject and history without knowledgeable human subjects. Disavowal of the first (transcendentalism) does not mean rejecting the second (human agency). The second clearly relates to Marx's famous dictum: "Men make their own history; but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past" (Marx, 1994, p. 187). This "decentring" of the subject also ignores the fact that it is the active subject's existential anxieties concerning self-identity that in part sustain and reproduce asymmetrical relations of power (Knights and Willmott, 1985, p. 42), A second major difficulty with Foucault's power analysis is its neglect of a serious and penetrative account of the state. A view of power as a ubiquitous phenomenon, and talk of the "state in general" as its manifestation on a large, unchallengeable scale can only foster a widespread sense of acquiescence in the historical inevitability of power (Giddens, 1982, p. 224). 7A.l Power and Negative Relationism When power is conceptualized in relational but negative terms, as in Giddens's (1976) formulation, the interdependence of social relations and their transformative capacity is acknowledged, but only in terms of securing or defending sectional interests (Knights and Willmott, 1985, p. 31). The transformative capacity is seen primarily in negative terms, as power "over others" and not "with others." Giddens's notion of a "dialectic of control" is, however, of tremendous importance in illuminating the relational nature of power. It expresses the idea that, in general, all sanctions, no matter how oppressive they may be, require some form of acquiescence from the "power-less"; so much so that even the threat of death may not succeed unless the individual so threatened has no "desire" to die. In more general terms, this means that the "power-full" are never fully independent of the "power-less", a fact which implies that the "power-less" always have some power and hence some control over the "power-full." Thus, while power relations in social systems reflect simultaneously relations of autonomy and dependence, subordinates are never totally dependent, no matter

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how severe the autonomy-dependence imbalance is. As Giddens (1982, p. 199) pithily puts it, "An agent who does not participate in the dialectic of control ipso facto ceases to be an agent." While undoubtedly the strength of this approach lies in its insight deriving from the relational nature of the dialectic of control, the necessarily conflictual view of this relationism paradoxically renders it one-sided and thus incapable of providing a penetrative account of the motives that lead to agents being necessarily locked into the dialectic of control. That agency logically entails power is indisputable, indeed tautological. However, agents do not get immersed in the dialectic of control merely in the awareness that they are agents: that they are capable of "making a difference." There must be some motive for wanting to make that difference: One motive, for instance, may have something to do with the psychological impulse to secure one's identity. It is this issue that is the concern of the next approach to be discussed: the positive, relational view of power. 7.4.3 Power and Positive Relationism Knights and Willmott (1985) provide a relational but positive conception of power, both as a critique and extension of Giddens's negative formulation. The existential significance of interdependence as an endemic feature of social relations, they argue, is central to an understanding of how power connects to the agent's social identity, with positive or negative consequences for the potential for transformative capacity in the form of collective power. The interdependence of social relations between the powerful and subordinates is theorized as entailing two moments. Power represents the structural moment, characterized by existential and social contradictions. These contradictions engender a problematic sense and experience of "world-openness," uncertainty, and anxiety. Self and social identity represents the existential moment, characterized by the social psychological anxieties concerning one's ontological security in such an open, precarious world. The tension between the structural and existential moments leads to manifest social conflicts wherein individuals engage in identity-securing strategies. Typically, the powerful seek to occlude the fact of interdependence by monopolizing valued resources; subordinates, on the other hand, seek to deny that interdependence by resisting, becoming indifferent, or becoming totally but strategically dependent. The consequence is nothing more than an illusion of independence on both sides, an illusion premised on merely instrumental, self-interested, reciprocal forms of cooperative participation.

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Ultimately, the situation is caught in a double paradox. First, whereas the fact of interdependence is in principle seen as inevitable for social life, it is typically subverted in search of illusory independence. Second, the identity-securing strategies, intentionally deployed to resolve the problematic experience of anxiety and security, negate the possibility of that very solution. From this insight. Knights and Willmott see Giddens's formulation as limited, concerned as it is with structural (power) moment to the neglect of the existential (identity) moment: The mediating social psychological processes remain untheorized. Their alternative theory powerfully elucidates the extremely important point that it is the social practices and self-understandings of subordinates, no less than those of the powerful, that sustain and reproduce the very structures of domination in society (cf. Fay, 1987, p. 120). The implication is clear: A preoccupation with identity-securing strategies subverts the transformative potential inherent in the social relations of true interdependence. Whereas Giddens's relational theory of power is critiqued for failing to theorize agents' identity-securing motives, the weakness of functionalist theory is seen to lie in its erroneous assumption that such motives are inherently nonindividualistic and therefore lead to cooperative behavior in which the potency of interdependence is unproblematically realized. However, there is one difficulty with this formulation of Knights and Willmott (1985). They rightly point out functionalism's erroneous assumption "that the practical benefits of interdependence follow naturally from the principle of synergy" (p. 28). However, for their own theory, they fail to go a step further to problematize the principle of synergy itself as entailing both productive and distributive issues. Interdependence per se is not inherently positive for all agents. The character of a particular form of interdependence must surely be an important question. This issue is further referred to in the discussion of the contingent, relational approach. 7.4.4 Power and Rational Agency

The agency view of power is "relational," positive, and existential. Human agency presumes power. Without power, subjectivity, and hence action, is not possible. For instance, in Nietzsche's (1966, 1968) concept of "willto-power," power refers to the ontological conditions of possibility for rational agency. The securing of self-identity implies the subjective capacity ("the feeling of power") to experience oneself self-reflectively as a causal, self-determined agent in an experiential, historical world. Similarly, in elaborating on the notion of human agency, Giddens (1984) observes that action logically involves power. Action implies the

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capability of an individual to make a difference to a preexisting state of affairs or course of events. "An agent ceases to be such if he or she loses the capability to 'make a difference/ that is, to exercise some sort of power" (Giddens, 1984, p. 14). Giddens calls this transformative capacity the most all-embracing meaning of power: Power is logically implicated in action and is logically prior to subjectivity. Robson and Cooper (1989, p. 92) similarly maintain that "power is inextricably involved in the practical activities carried out in the enactment of everyday life." This view of power as the basis of praxis (Giddens, 1976; Knights and Willmott, 1985) has not attracted the attention it deserves in the literature. This is perhaps because it is seen as more focused on the human teleological capacity to transform nature and self, rather than directly on the transformation of the structures of social relations. But this is to miss the most important insight from Giddens's (1984) structuration theory, that the constitution of agents and social structures are not two independent phenomena. They represent not a dualism, but a duality in which structure is a medium as well as an outcome of action. However, as the discussion of power in rational-agency terms relates primarily to the individual level of analysis, a complementary focus is required at the aggregate or social level of analysis. This is the task of the next section. 7.4.5 Power and Contingent Relationism In the discussion of various conceptions of power up to this point, an attempt has been made to highlight the basic concerns of each view. Much of the time, those concerns served not only to illuminate the strengths of a particular view, but also to draw attention to the limitations of alternative, competing views. As far as possible, the order of discussion here has sought to reflect the progressive abandonment of a number of those limitations that have come to light, and the simultaneous incorporation of newer developments and insights, particularly as reflected in the relational views of power. Thus, as the last approach among these competing views, the contingent, relational conception self-consciously draws on the insights of preceding views, while attempting to avoid their obvious limitations. In the first place, this is an approach that is relational in the strong sense of the term. Some relational conceptions (e.g., both negative and positive relational views) have tended to see power as the effect simply of relations between opposed groups of agents, such as the powerful versus subordinates. As such, the significance of structural constraints has been either deemphasized or only weakly implicit.

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On the other hand, other relational conceptions, such as those associated with functionalism and micropolitics, have emphasized the relational effects primarily at the structural level. In those formulations, the agents have been either largely dependent on differential conditions and advantages confronting them, or "decentred,'' or reduced to "cultural dopes." In the contingent, relational view, power is seen as the property or effect of a real articulation between structure and subject, between structure and action (Giddens, 1984), between structural constraints and conjunctural opportunities (Jessop, 1982), a relationship in which each pole implicates the other: an essentially dialectical relationship. As Fay (1987) elaborates, the "dyadic" as opposed to the "monadic" conception of power means that structural forces of power are grounded in and constituted by the self-understandings of all agents involved. Second, the approach is contingent, but in a critical sense. It conceives of power as having a positive as well as a negative potential. Viewed negatively, power reflects the oppressive and exploitative effects of relations of domination, as often evidenced in manifest situations of antagonistic sectional or self-interests. Viewed positively, power reflects either (1) the creative, productive transformative capacity deriving from synergism but abstracted from issues of distributive conflicts, or (2) an emancipatory potential, an enablement, a process of empowerment in which an oppressed group comes not only to gain enlightenment about its situation, but also to acquire a resolve and the will to act in concert for its emancipation. Whereas the first positive sense is merely concerned with the productive issue—the whole is greater than the sum of the parts—the second sense is deeply concerned with the distributive issue. From a critical point of view, the productive dimension of interdependence, although globally or systemwide positive, can be highly negative for some particular groups or regions of the social system, in which case, it would not be legitimate to conflate the productive and distributive dimensions of the potency of interdependence in such a way that interdependence becomes in and of itself inherently positive. Knights and Willmott's earlier discussed formulation constitutes a powerful "self-estrangement" theory. But the authors seem to have ignored the productive-distributive distinction. This is perhaps due, in part, to their taking the initial asymmetrical state of interdependence as simply given. But an emancipatory strategy of, for instance, the Gramscian "war of manoeuvre" may very well find it more appropriate to focus on the immediate possibility of dismantling such asymmetries of interdependence than getting immersed more deeply in them. Similarly, the Gramscian "war of position" strategy might well accentuate the subversion of interdependence, not because the activists involved are laboring

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under an illusory sense of independence for self and social identity, but because of the influence of new enlightenment and empowerment to act in concert for their independence. Notwithstanding the implications of the dialectic of control, not all independence-motivated strategies are ipso facto illusory. Besides, it is also important to remember that concepts such as interdependence, independence, and the like, are not absolute but relative to the different subjectivities or identities, and relational systems in which an agent may be involved. The "interdiscursive" and nonunitary nature of human agency cannot but confound the very real issue of trying to cope with the problem of ontological insecurity, a problem that is simultaneously existential and historical. In summary, a contingent, relational conception of power is first relational in a dialectical sense. It is therefore antistructuralist and antisubjectivist. Power cannot be explained from a knowledge of structural constraints alone, in neglect of the particular agents involved. Nor can it be explained simply as a pregiven quantum, property, or attribute of particular agents, who exercise it in a zero-sum manner. It is the effect of structural and conjuctural forces in a given situation. But it is not indeterminate as claimed by, for instance, Hindess (1982) and Minson (1980). It can be analyzed at different levels of generality, from highly abstract levels (least determinate) to specific, concrete situations (most determinate). Such an analysis would involve looking at two issues in order to determine the overall balance of forces: first, an analysis of the practices and self-understandings of particular agents involved, and second, an analysis of the relationship between those agents in terms of the structural constraints and conjuctural opportunities they confront (cf. Jessop, 1982). The second aspect of this approach is that it is contingent in a critical sense. On the one hand, while acknowledging that power is not inherently noxious, oppressive, and exploitative, the approach nevertheless holds that power can be noxiously exercised; the approach is therefore critical of situations characterized by structures of domination. On the other hand, while acknowledging that power can be positive and enabling, the approach denies that it is inherently positive.

7.5 Conceptions

of Power: A

Summary

In discussing various conceptions of power, two dimensions seem to define their differences in terms of their underlying fundamental assumptions. The first is the nature of interaction between forces of power. Two types of relationships have been identified: (1) a monadic, one-way relationship, in which power is either located in one group of agents to the

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TABLE 7.1 Conceptions of Power and Their Fundamental Assumptions Forces active or having primacy in power relations Structures Agents

Nature of interaction Monadic

Relational

Subjectivist 1. Pluralist 2. Elitist 3. Radical 4. Negative relational 5. Positive relational

Agents and structures

6. Althusserian

7. Functionalism 8. Micropolitics 8.1. Differential conditions 8.2. Disciplinary power

9. Rational agency

10. Contingent relational

exclusion of others (e.g., subjectivist conceptions) or is an effect of one source: structures of domination (e.g., Marxian structuralism); (2) dyadic or relational views, in which power is seen as a property or effect of various forces involved. The second dimension is a view of the nature of forces deemed active or as having primacy in the relations of power. There are three possibilities here: agents as having primacy, structures as having primacy, or an articulation of agents with structures. The two dimensions produce a matrix in which various conceptions of power can be located, as in Table 7.1, which provides a schematic way of looking at each conception of power in terms of these dimensions. In Chapter 13, we revisit the concept of power, but from the distinction between the "lifeworld" and "system" perspectives of society as a whole.

7.6 The Concept

of

Interest

Interest may be broadly defined as a comparative advantage among alternative situations, actions, or events in relation to the conditions of existence of an agent, a group of agents, a social system, or a particular society (cf. Jessop, 1982). There are therefore self- or individual interests, sectional interests, and common or collective interests, if the concept is examined on the same "plane" of analysis. There are also "particular" as opposed to "general" interests, if the focus is on levels of abstraction. And finally, there are subjective as opposed to objective interests. Objective interests

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relate to a particular subjectivity seen from the point of view of the particular position it occupies in a given context (e.g., the interests of labor in capitalist relations of production). Subjective interests refer to the subjects' acknowledged or expressed preferences, or their own views on their particular conditions of existence. It is clear that conflicts of interests can arise within and between individual agents, groups of agents, as well as between the social system as a whole and its members, as also between different societies. In particular, for an individual agent, there is the possibility of nonunitary, contradictory interests when certain conditions of existence are advantaged at the expense of others. This is because an agent is often cast in different relational systems and in different subjectivities or identities, relating for instance to social class, gender, race, nationality, and so on. This implies that an agent is often faced with dilemmas in conflicting and contradictory choice situations. It also implies that in collectivities, these dilemmas are likely to be seriously compounded. This view of the nature of interest as a concept points to the need for a relational approach. Interests must be assessed in relation to both structural constraints and conjunctural opportunities that agents are, or would be, faced with in a given context or situation. As such there is no notion of "absolute" interest totally abstracted from prevailing social structures and agents' practices and self-understandings. The discussions of ideology and power in the preceding sections of this chapter raised a number of issues implicating the notion of interest. These may now be summarized in terms of four problematics. First, is the concept of power logically tied to that of interest, as subjectivism, Marxian structuralism, and functionalism assume? The answer, as we have already seen, is in the negative. Agents' bounded knowledgeability precludes the possibility of interests being inherently connected with power. Second, is interest logically tied to conflict, as subjectivism assumes? The answer again is in the negative. Although conflicts imply a clash of interests, interest as such is simply a comparative advantage in a particular context; the advantage can, but need not, be opposed by other agents. Third, in situations of latent conflicts, in which subjective interests may not coincide with objective (real) interest, is it legitimate to attribute from outside objective interests to other agents? Here, the answer must be contingent. Lukes (1974) argued that such ascription can always be justified counterfactually. But this has been challenged as speculative, besides being paternalistic (Benton, 1981; Knights and Willmott, 1985; Robson and Cooper, 1989). Benton (1981) proposed a more direct approach in order to circumvent Lukes's problem of empirical justification (see also Hindess's [1985, p. 509] argument to the same effect). His proposal can

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be construed to be in effect a total inversion of Lukes's approach. Instead of appealing to the absent (hypothetical autonomy) to justify what would be present (real interests), why not use the present (situations of apparent consensus) to uncover the absent (real consensual objectives). This approach, I suggest, has a lot of merit, taken in the context of the interpretive tradition. There is no need to claim that one is looking for and has found hard, objective, empirical evidence. In my view, both Lukes and Benton are fighting a battle in which they are victims of their own making, given their empiricist aspirations. In a similar hermeneutic context, Jessop's (1982, p. 258) argument for a contingent approach seems highly persuasive. He rightly takes the position that an external (objectivist) interpretation that ignores the need for understanding the agent's different subjectivities is not legitimate. Interest ascription is only justifiable if arrived at through an "interdiscursive" argument that shows that an agent is irrational is pursuing a set of interests inconsistent with, or contradictory to, the subjectivity he is committed to. Jessop's approach relies not on empiricist appeals, but on interpretive understanding based on rational argumentation. As we discuss in Chapter 13, this view of interest is better articulated by Habermas's (1984a, 1987b) notion of expressive action in which an individual proffers sincerity and authenticity validity claims.

7.7 Toward

Empowerment

of Social

Systems

7.7.1 Connective Introduction Systems theory is presently dominated by a conservative orthodoxy, which not unexpectedly also permeates systems practice. It is through critique, in terms of its tripartite process of enlightenment, empowerment, and emancipation, that such conservative theory and practice can be liberated (see Flood, 1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c, 1991; Flood and Gregory, 1989; Flood and Jackson, 1988, 1991a, 1991b; Flood and Ulrich, 1990; Jackson, 1982, 1985, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1990, 1991a, 1991b; Jackson and Keys, 1984; Lowe and Oliga, 1981,1982; Oliga, 1986a, 1986b, 1986c, 1988, 1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1990a, 1990b, 1991a, 1991b, 1991c; Schecter, 1989,1991; Ulrich, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1988a, 1988b, 1991). In programmatic terms, this requires three necessary liberating tasks: first, the educative "enlightenment" task, entailing the formulation and exposition of theories in critique of ideologies and present coercive structures of oppression, and in conceptions of a better alternative, the good life of rational self-clarity and collective autonomy; second, the "empowerment" task, entailing the validation of critical theory through therapeutic processes of critical self-reflection on the basis of which those presently suffer-

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ing from ideologically trapped self-understandings can acquire the resolve, the will, the power to transform their present self-estranged and oppressed form of life; and third, the "emancipatory" task, entailing the selection of appropriate transformative strategies and actions aimed ultimately at the progressive realization of universal enlightenment and liberation (Fay, 1987; Habermas, 1974; Jackson, 1985; Oliga, 1988). This chapter focuses on the programmatic task of empowerment. As Flood (1990a, 1990b) has cogently argued and extensively elaborated, for systems theory, the liberation task requires a two-stage program. Systems theory should first be liberated "from [its] natural tendency towards self-imposed insularity" (Flood, 1990b, p. 13) from the wider social science theory, as well as from its "internal isolationist stances" (Flood, 1990b, p. 37). Second, such liberated systems theory should in turn be used to liberate systems practice. The first stage represents the educative enlightenment function of liberation; the second stage, the empowerment and the emancipatory functions. This chapter is an attempt to contribute to those liberation concerns and programs. As mentioned elsewhere (Oliga, 1991a), liberating systems theory from its present internal isolationist stances requires the view that the paradigmatic foundations of different systems approaches are not incommensurable (Flood, 1989a, 1989b; Jackson, 1987a; Oliga, 1986a, 1988). The implication for the future of systems problem solving, as Jackson (1987a) and Flood (1989a, 1989b) have argued, is for a "pluralist" inquiry method. Using a contingent, relational view of power developed in the preceding exegetical part of the chapter, this part seeks to probe the nature of power assumptions that underwrite three types of systems approach: the positivist and the structuralist hard systems approaches, and the soft systems approach. The intent is critical in both negative and positive senses. Not only must the systematic concealment of social contradictions be unmasked, but also any potentials for empowerment that an approach may have must also be highlighted. 7.7.2 Power and Positivist Hard Systems Approach In systems literature, critics have rightly accused the traditional management science of being functionalist and hence regulative (Checkland, 1978, 1981; Jackson, 1985; Spear, 1987). The positivist approach, wedded to a causal, nomological view of (natural) scientific explanation, is instrumentalist, with an overriding concern for the social engineering of human activity systems (cf. Fay, 1987; Weber, 1947). Thus, the approach is manipulative and hence dominative (Lilienfeld, 1978) and is not only conserva-

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tive, but promotive of the status quo (Hales, 1974; Hoos, 1972, 1979; Rosenhead, 1978, 1981, 1982; Rosenhead and Thunhurst, 1982; Thomas and Lockett, 1979; Tinker and Lowe, 1984; Whitley, 1974; Wood and Kelly, 1978). In terms of a contingent, relational view of power, the positivist hard systems approach is clearly predicated on the oppressive and exploitative relations of power, even though this is concealed under the ideology of economic individualism and its pernicious doctrine of free market competition as the basis of social efficiency. However, its fundamental assumption that an individual {homo economicus) is presumed to be "free" in relations of (economic) market exchanges closely parallels and echoes the rational-agency conception of power. Power is logically implicated in action; and human agency without power is contradiction (Giddens, 1984). Thus, in the positivist assumption of a "free" individual lies the potential for the critical function of empowerment. The audience of critical theory can be enlightened that the false (illusory) self-understanding they have of their (economic) freedom does in fact contain a truth, the hidden meaning that, as human agents, they would actually be free, were it not for the ideologically suppressed truths about the existence of power asymmetry and its consequence in oppression and domination (cf. Fay, 1987). 7.7.3 Power and the Structuralist Hard Systems Approach The structuralist hard systems approach has been attacked for having a conservative bias and authoritarian tendencies (Jackson, 1987a; Lilienfeld, 1978; Thomas, 1980; Ulrich, 1981). The approach is clearly underwritten by a functionalist view of power, which while being ideological in supressing the obnoxious aspects of power, nevertheless contains a truth, the hidden meaning that power as a relational concept has the potential of a transformative nature. This derives from the fact that interdependence, which in principle is inevitable for social life, dictates the need for various forms of cooperative participation, with great potential for synergistic outcomes. This very synergistic potential can also be, in a distributive sense, the source of collective, creative, and transformative capacity, the source of collective power against forces of oppression and domination. It is from this kind of penetrative perception of the double significance of the functionalist conception of power that the possibility for educative enlightenment derives. In this regard, the "dialectic of control" notion (Giddens, 1976, 1984) under "power and negative relationism" points to the possibility of undermining the present oppressive structures of power and domination, given the enlightenment that the "power-full" are never

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fully independent of the "power-less," and, in consequence, that the "power-less" are never totally dependent, no matter how severe the autonomy-dependence imbalance is. Furthermore, the paradoxical problem of agents' identity securing strategies (Knights and Willmott, 1985) also points to the possibility of developing a more penetrative understanding that the reproduction and maintenance of structures of domination are no less a consequence of the social practices and illusory self-understandings of the "power-less" than that of the "power-full." In "enlightenment" terms, the functionalist conception of power must be seen as a doubleedged sword. 7.7.4 Power and the Soft Systems Approach In a separate paper (Oliga, 1991a), I have argued that the soft systems approach belongs, not to the historical, but to the naturalistic hermeneutic tradition, and that two notions are central to this tradition: the methodological notion of verstehen, and the theoretical notion of Weltanschauung. The ideological implications of verstehen are discussed in Chapter 8. Those of Weltanschauung (Checkland, 1981; Churchman, 1968) or "appreciative systems" (Vickers, 1970) are examined here. The soft systems approach is identified with the seminal works of Churchman (e.g., 1968,1970,1971,1979), Ackoff (e.g., 1974a, 1974b, 1974c, 1979a, 1979b, 1981a, 1981b) and Checkland (e.g., 1978, 1981). A most important and distinctive feature that is common to their individual methodologies is the view that there is no theory neutrality in social inquiry. The social world is perceived and constructed by people in terms of the particular world views or Weltanschauungen they hold. Therefore, in any particular problem situation, different decision makers will hold different points of view, assumptions, or Weltanschauungen (Churchman); in other words, different stakeholders will construct different definitions of what the problem is (Ackoff), or put differently, different actors will represent different "root definitions" of the problem situation (Checkland). As such, the problem for the soft systems methodologies becomes one of forging a consensus (an "objective" agreement) by means of an open debate (whether dialectical, interactive, or conceptually structured). The basic aim is to alleviate the present problematic situation by introducing desired and feasible changes that have been agreed on (Churchman and Checkland), or by designing an "idealised future" (Ackoff). As may already be apparent, these "soft" methodologies are essentially idealist; external, social structural influences and constraints are conspicuous by their absence. The approach has therefore been rightly attacked for neglecting issues concerning the present social structures of power asymmetry, class domination, and unequal intellectual resources.

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all of which systematically work in favour of facilitating, even reinforcing, the maintenance and reproduction of the status quo (Bryer, 1979; Jackson, 1982, 1987a; Jackson and Keys, 1984; Spear, 1987; Thomas and Lockett, 1979; Ulrich, 1983). Any alleviation the approach offers amounts to nothing more than social engineering; the status quo, with its fundamental social contradictions, remains unchallenged and unchanged (Jackson, 1982; Rosenhead, 1976). Furthermore, the approach neglects the possibility that social structures of domination shape, maintain, and reproduce certain ideologically trapped Weltanschauungen, such that the debates among actors may not be free from distorted communication. No attempt is made to distinguish between historically contingent and permanently fixed Weltanschauungen (Habermas, 1970a, 1970b, 1972; Jackson, 1982). In consequence, the soft systems approach is essentially regulative, even though by default. As Jackson (1982) has cogently argued, "It (soft systems thinking) does not pose a real threat to the social structures which support the Weltanschauungen with which it works" (p. 28). The soft systems approach, located as it is in the interpretive paradigm, is not explicitly committed to the sociology of regulation. As Burrell and Morgan (1979) rightly point out, the ontological assumptions of the paradigm have no direct interest in the metaphysical (ethical) issues of order versus conflict. The paradigm takes social order as given and unproblematic. The only important issue requiring attention is an understanding of the social world "as it is," in terms of ongoing processes of subjective meanings and intentionality. It is on account of these fundamental ontological commitments that the approach becon\es regulative by default. Thus, although both hard and soft systems approaches are polarized in their ontological assumptions (and only superficially in their epistemological assumptions), there is a fundamental affinity in their functionalist view of power in organizations. For critique, and in the interest of developing a more penetrative understanding in the interest of educative enlightenment and empowerment, the critical suggestions already made for the structuralist hard systems approach apply with equal force to soft systems methodologies.

7.8

Conclusion

A critical inquiry into the nature of power as a social phenomenon necessarily confronts a diversity of enigmatic, if not paradoxical, issues that are interrelated in complex ways. Is power a subjective capacity to produce a desired outcome against other individual wills, or an objective force that constrains human freedom of action, or both of these simultaneously.

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or none of these at all? Is power a positive, integrative, transformative capacity of a unitary system or a negative, repressive, and coercive force employed by antagonistic interest groups, or contingently one or the other? Is power a monadic, zero-sum phenomenon, or a dyadic, relational phenomenon of interdependence, however asymmetrical the nature of such interdependence may be? Is knowledge immanent in the notion of power? This chapter critically examines these diverse issues by unfolding 10 faces of power, including the Lukesian three classic views of power. This is done by probing into the fundamental assumptions underlying three subjectivist, two objectivist, and five relationist conceptions of power. The 10 conceptions include the pluralist, the elitist, the Lukesian radical, the functionalist, the Marxian structuralist, the micropolitics, the negative relationist, the positive relationist, the rational agency, and the contingent relationist view. This chapter argues for a contingent, relational view of power. The relational nature of this view derives from a focus on both the self-understandings of the agents involved in a power relation and the structural constraints and conjunctural opportunities they confront in a particular, concrete situation. And it is contingent in a dialetically critical sense; that is, coercion is not seen as immanent in power, yet power can be noxiously exercised; or looked at from the other side of the coin, power is not seen as inherently positive (for the good of all) yet it can be, in a distributive sense, a source of emancipatory potential, as much as a creative, transformative capacity in a synergistic sense. It is this contingent, relational view of power that holds hope for liberating systems from the present misconceived as well as ideological understandings of the power phenomenon in organizations. In systems theory, in particular, the chapter points out that both hard and soft systems thinking are indeed polarized in their ontological and (superficially) epistemological assumptions. However, beneath this veneer of cognitive opposition lies a fundamental affinity in their metaphysical (ethical) view of power. Both are essentially a partial and particular representation of power in organizations: a functionalist view of power. Hard systems thinking is functionalist by choice; soft systems thinking is equally functionalist, but by default. In the final analysis, the way we conceive of power constitutes the very basis of its maintenance or possible transcendence in organizations. Thus, the practical implication for systems methodologies is that efforts toward transcending the present noxious forms of power require, as a start, an enlightened and critically penetrative understanding of power, a dialectical view that recognizes both its potential for repression and coercion as well as, and especially, its potential as an enabling or "empowerment" force for emancipation.

8 Ideology From Mystification to the Power of Knowing That You Can Critically Reflect upon Yourself 8.1

Introduction

Conceptions of ideology exhibit an awesome diversity. From an exegesis of nine different conceptions, this chapter argues that it is the historical materialist view of ideology that reflects its specificity as a critical concept. From exegesis, the chapter moves to diagnosis, using the critical idea that it is the systematic concealment of social contradictions that defines the ideological dis-ease. Thus, the positivist hard systems approach is found to suffer from the ideology of economic individualism. The structuralist hard systems approach suffers from the ideology of sociological unitarism. The soft systems approach suffers from the ideology of naturalism, thereby laying itself open, by default, to ideological penetration, especially of the sociological unitarist type. In programmatic terms, this unmasking of ideologies in the interest of enlightenment is one of the necessary functions for the liberation of systems theory and practice. As with the case of power (Chapter 7), this chapter seeks to develop a penetrative understanding of how the mystified "truths" in ideological pretensions contain hidden meanings that have the critical potential for the empowerment of human and social systems. Larrain (1979) has aptly described ideology as perhaps one of the most equivocal and elusive concepts one can find in the social sciences; not only because of the variety of theoretical approaches which assign different meanings and functions to it, but also because it is a concept heavily charged with political connotations and widely used in everyday life with the most diverse significations, (p. 13)

The discussion in this chapter focuses in a significant and particular way on Larrain's (1979, 1983) invaluable work on the concept of ideology. 93

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That work has provided not only an admirably comprehensive account of the historical development of the concept through diverse theoretical formulations, but also a deeply penetrating analysis of the concept's diverse meanings, functions, and relationships, including their consequent methodological and political implications. However, although Larrain's detailed historical and critical analysis provides an authoritative backdrop to the discussion here, there are two important differences. First, whereas a historical emphasis provides valuable insights into the development and changing character of a concept, the approach here takes the view that each conception of ideology provides in its own right a distinctive view of the nature of man and society and the relationship between man and his social world. The chronological order of appearance of a given conception in an author's intellectual development is certainly interesting but not particularly germane to the problem of assessing the validity of the basic assumptions underlying that conception. Second, the ostensible intellectual affiliation of an author does not necessarily determine the character (critical or otherwise) of the author's conception or changing conceptions of ideology. The fact, for instance, that certain discourses are situated within the Marxist tradition does not mean that they are necessarily critical. The approach here focuses therefore on the nature of the author's conception, rather than the intellectual context of a given discourse. The enormity of the diversity with which the concept of ideology has been theorized is awesome. However, more significant is the fact that there does not seem to be much relationship between various lines of theoretical formulation. This chapter proposes a way out of this labyrinth by examining different conceptions of ideology in terms of three logically ordered, substantive questions, namely: 1. Is ideology a "naturalistic" or a "historical" phenomenon? 2. Is ideology mainly a product of subjective (individual or collective) and psychological factors, a product of objective factors, or a joint product of both? 3. Is the cognitive validity of ideology seen in essentially positive, negative, or contingent terms? From these questions, a classificatory implication for various conceptions of ideology can be schematically sketched, as in Figure 8.1. The first question leads to two contrasting views of ideology. The "naturalistic" conception views ideology as essentially rooted in human nature. This may take various forms. Ideology may be rooted for instance, in the psychical structure of the individual, in the innate predispositions of the human mind, in the nonlogical preconceptions or prenotions inher-

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IDEOLOGY

1. Historical

1.1. Dialectical

1.2. Subjectivist

1.3. Objectivist

Negative

Negative

Negative

Historical materialism

Critical theory

Dialectical materialism

2. Naturalistic

2.1. Subjectivist

2.2. Objectivist

2.1.1. Negative

2.1.2. Positive

2.1.3. Contingent

Psychologism

Weltenschauung

Class analysis

2.2.1. Negative

2.2.2. Positive

2.2.3. Contingent

Structuralism

Functionalism

Modes of production

FIGURE 8.1 Concepts of Ideology (Adapted from Oliga, 1991a, p. 103)

ent in the human intellect, or in the unconscious impulses, instincts, and human passions and desires. These forms are unhistorical; they express the universal character or essence of human nature. By contrast, the historical conception views ideology as produced and reproduced through human practice. As a historical phenomenon, ideology reflects the historical development of men's social relations; it is a social phenomenon that changes with the character of the society in which it is produced and reproduced. The second question concerns whether ideology is largely determined by consciousness (subjectivism), or by external, objective factors (objectivism), or is a dialectical phenomenon, in which both subject and object are

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simultaneously implicated. The subjectivist conception of ideology views it in terms of the role of consciousness in constructing a particular view of external reality. This means that it is the subject (be it individuals, classes, or political parties) who plays the decisive role in the production of ideology. The objectivist conception, on the other hand, sees the external reality (social structures) as the source of ideological consciousness. The dialectical conception views ideology as the product of the unity between consciousness and external reality, each of which nevertheless retains a distinction. The third question concerns the cognitive validity of ideology. A negative view implies that ideology has, in some sense, a distortive character that systematically prevents a valid apprehension of social reality or induces a false understanding of that reality. When tied to a historical view, the negative conception becomes critical in the sense that emancipation from dominating, historical forces through radical change is actively sought, or at least envisaged, as a possibility. The issue of (dominant) interests thus becomes of central concern. When tied to a naturalistic view, however, a negative conception sees ideological distortions as having little relationship to antagonistic class interests. A positive view, on the other hand, implies that ideology is, in some important sense, functional to the very processes of all individual and social life. A contingent view treats the cognitive validity issue as being of secondary importance. Ideology is seen predominantly as a common social phenomenon that envelopes all classes and political parties. The validity question is left entirely dependent on the character of the social origin of a given ideology. In and of themselves, ideologies are, in this view, seen as essentially neutral. Larrain has addressed a number of these issues with admirable detail. However the fundamental distinction between naturalistic and historical conceptions of ideology, although clearly evident throughout his book, has not been explicity discussed. And the validity issue has been discussed exclusively in terms of negative and positive conceptions of ideology. The contingent view has invariably been collapsed into the positive view. This, in my view, is unsatisfactory. There is an important difference between conceiving an ideology as necessarily functional or as contingently functional or distortive. There is one question that Larrain has raised as a separate issue: the relationship between ideology and science. While this can undoubtedly be a substantive issue in its own right, I prefer, on logical grounds, to treat it as necessarily implied in some of the conceptions deriving from the three questions posed earlier. Whether science is the antithesis of ideology or identical with it, or in dialectical relationship with it must be contingent upon the particular view of ideology one holds.

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The foregoing brief discussion was intended to provide an overall view of possible ways in which ideology has been conceptualized. The discussion therefore necessarily abstracted from any reference to specific theoretical formulations and positions evident in the literature. These will now be briefly surveyed, not for the purpose of discussing the individual formulations as such, but more as a means of illuminating what a critical concept of ideology means. The exposition therefore starts with a discussion of a line of critical concepts of ideology so that the uncritical nature of the other conceptions can be meaningfully contrasted. This chapter is divided into two major parts. The first part, comprising sections 2 and 3, is exegetical. It seeks to problematize the concept of ideology, rather than use it merely as a given resource. Section 4 of the chapter constitutes the second part, in which ideology, as a specific critical concept, is then used to probe the nature of systems approaches in terms of their underlying assumptions about the individual, society, and the relationship between the two.

S.l Historical

Conceptions

of

Ideology

8.2.1 Ideology and Historical Materialism Larrain (1979) has traced in detail the historical origins of the concept of ideology from Machiavelli and Bacon, via Hobbes, Holback, Helvetius, Condillac, de Tracy, and Napoleon, to Comte and Feuerbach. Although these developments firmly established the concept's negative connotation, they remained trapped at the psychological level of analysis. Each development saw ideology essentially as an autonomous, psychological distortion, even if accounted for in different ways, for instance, in terms of human passions, appetites, and interests or the need for princely deceit (Machiavelli), idols or false notions (Bacon), religious fear and ignorance (Hobbes), religious superstition, false notions, and preconceptions: the "priestly deceit" (Helvetius and Holbach), theological, and metaphysical prejudices (Condillac, de Tracy), irrational metaphysical imaginations (Comte), or natural "religious sentiments" (Feuerbach). Marx was the first to detect the fact that mental distortions were not autonomous psychological phenomena, but essentially related to the historical development of men's social relations—historical contradictions in society (Larrain, 1979, p. 33). From this fundamental insight, three important inferences about the concept of ideology follow, each of which is basic to Marx's theoretical and practical concerns. The first is the historical nature of ideology. Ideology is not inherent in human consciousness; it

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is a social product, a consequence of man's practice, but one that in turn influences that practice. The second inference is the dialectical nature of ideology. This is the resolution of the opposition between subject and object, the dualism that sharply but erroneously separates consciousness from external reality. In this separation, ideology is falsely conceived either in terms of consciousness distorting reality or reality deceiving consciousness. The dialectical conception maintains a fundamental unity between them, while simultaneously acknowledging a distinction between them. It is in this manner that Marx's historical materialism transcends the subject-object dualism. The doctrine of ontological idealism whereby reality is posited as autonomously created by consciousness results in the dissolution of the social world into the subjective world. The doctrine of mechanical materialism whereby consciousness is seen as a mere reflection of external reality results in the splitting up into two independent worlds what is essentially a unity, a relation mediated by human practice. The third implication from Marx's insight is the negative and critical conception of ideology. The historical contradictions in society imply antagonistic class interests and class domination. Ideology plays the role of concealing or legitimating the true relations (of domination and subordination) between classes, such that the structure of domination appears natural. Thus, a historical materialist conception of ideology can now be summarized in terms of its two central features. First, ideology conceals social contradictions. Second, the concealment is not accidental, in the sense of mere errors, but systematically related to some set of social, psychological, and cognitive interests of the dominant class (Warren, 1984, p. 541; Larrain, 1979, pp. 48, 210). For the relationship between ideology and science, the implication of this view is threefold. First, ideology is not the antithesis of science as falsehood is of truth. Four main reasons may be adduced for this. One, science does not exhaust truth; there are truths beyond the apprehension of science as it is presently developed. Two, ideology does not exhaust the range of possible errors of consciousness; there are errors that are nonideological. Three, the claims to knowledge in both ideology and science have a common origin; both claims are socially determined. In the first place, errors in science are not necessarily ideological. And, whereas ideology is necessarily trapped in a systematic concealment process, science is in principle directed to the penetration of the appearances of reality in order to reach and elucidate the real relations beneath the surface. Third, the relationship between ideology and science, under historical materialism, is not one of identity. In the first place, errors in science are not necessarily ideological. And,

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whereas ideology is necessarily trapped in a systematic concealment process, science is in principle directed to the penetration of the appearances of reality in order to reach and elucidate the real relations beneath the surface. Fourth, the relationship between ideology and science, under historical materialism, can be conceived only as a dialectical one, for three main reasons: 1. Although science cannot overcome ideology, it can contribute to an understanding of its nature by unmasking its deceptions and legitimations of social contradictions. 2. Notwithstanding the difference between them, science does not constitute a separate sphere immune from ideological penetration, given that it is the product of human practice in a historical, contradictory society. 3. Ideology can dress itself up as science in order to conceal its distortions and legitimate itself in the pretentious name of rationality. The historical materialist conception of ideology as presented here is admittedly only one way of interpreting Marx's fundamental insight. However, as Larrain (1979,1983) has persuasively argued, it is the version that best captures the truly dialectical nature of the historical materialist tradition, compromising neither the role of the subject of history nor that of objective circumstances under which history is made. There are other historical conceptions of ideology that may be equally critical (e.g., that of the Frankfurt School). However, because they see the ideological problematic as predominantly located within the subjectivist or objectivist end of the subject-object polarity, they are not considered here to be part of a truly balanced dialectical view of ideology. 8.2.2 Ideology and Critical Theory Critical theory has come to be distinctively identified with the Frankfurt School of social theorists. However, for our purpose here, and following Burrell and Morgan (1979), we can include also the "historicist" school of thought associated with the names of Lukacs and Gramsci. Both schools of thought are essentially subjectivist, the role of the subject (consciousness) and the significance of superstructural aspects of society being overemphasized. It is this orientation that distinguishes the critical-theory view of ideology from that of Marx's historical materialism. The Frankfurt school views ideology in advanced capitalism as rooted in science, technology, and more generally, instrumental practice. In its view, science, fused with technology, has become the new ideology. With

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science, reason has lost its autonomy and capacity to adjudicate between ends. With the disappearance of "objective reason/' "instrumental" or "technological" reason has become an instrument for the manipulation of means in the interest of dominating nature and hence men (Horkheimer, 1974, Horkheimer and Adorno, 1973). According to Marcuse (1964), technology itself has become domination because, by being a real, visible force in the technical progress in material production and ever-widening choice of consumption, its subjugating nature appears no longer oppressive but technically necessary and hence rational. Reason itself has become the vehicle of ideology and alienation. Domination is no longer dependent on political repression; it has become legitimate. Habermas (1971a) similarly sees ideology in advanced capitalism as now rooted in science and technology, which have become fused and increasingly manipulative. The new ideology means "technocratic consciousness" and depoliticization of the masses. By replacing the old ideologies of consensual norms of symbolic interaction (in liberal capitalism) by the logic of scientific-technical progress and purposive-rational action, technocratic ideology has become more irresistible and immune to criticism. This is because the potential for class struggle and conflict has been permanently emasculated as the masses have been depoliticized and the working class absorbed into the technocratic system itself. In the context of modern capitalism, the Frankfurt school's conception of ideology is highly pertinent and penetrative. It seeks to capture the ideological implications of the specificity of 20th-century capitalism, particularly in terms of changes that have taken place in the composition of the productive forces and concomitant changes at the superstructural level of society. However, in emphasizing the significance of these changes, the school may have unwittingly fallen into the trap of naturalizing human attitude to science and technology, and "expert culture," forgetting that ideology, even in its negative form, is rooted in the contradictions of social relations ("expertise"-based systematic immunization from criticisms) and not in the diverse and ever-changing forms it may assume. As Larrain (1979, p. 209) has cogently put it. One ought to distinguish science from ideology about science. The latter, not the former, is the basis upon which depoliticization arises. This ideology conveys the image of science as an all-powerful force which holds men in chains, precisely by stripping science of its connections with class decisions.

As we will see in Chapter 13, Habermas critiques his colleagues at the Frankfurt School for taking such an aporetic attitude to the dilemmas of modernity. Historical materialism, as discussed earlier, specified two conditions for ideology to be present: (1) the objective concealment of social contradic-

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tions, and (2) the interest of the dominant class. The Frankfurt school has made an important methodological contribution to this formulation in terms of the idea of "immanent criticism." This can be stated under three logically related methodological claims (Warren, 1984, p. 541-542). First, because ideologies relate systematically to dominant interests, those interests can be unmasked through ideological critique. Second, because ideological distortion is devoid of cognitive validity, it is possible and necessary to develop a defensible theory of truth to underwrite critique in its unmasking task. Such a theory of truth must be capable of providing a conception of reason and rational action as a basis for adjudicating the rationality or irrationality of certain forms of consciousness. Finally, because all knowledge is socially determined and therefore historical, critique must accept that its own truth is equally historically conditioned, such that it cannot have grounds for asserting a priori criteria of its own truth. Therefore, to avoid undermining its own claim to a relative rationality, a critical theory must resort to the method of "immanent critique" (Adorno, 1973; Horkheimer, 1974; Marcuse, 1964). In critical theory, immanent critique plays a double role. First, it is an attempt to uncover the gulf between what a social object purports or claims to be, or could potentially be (i.e., the object's own standards or criteria of adequacy and possibility), and its actual existence. The gulf shows the irrationality of the social object in its own terms. Immanent critique thus proceeds by examining the "conceptual principles," standards, or norms that the object itself has formed. Their implications and consequences are then unfolded, and an assessment is made of the correspondence between those implications and consequences and the reality of the object in its historical context in order to unmask the concealed falsehoods. The drawing out of such falsehoods or "negations" (Horkheimer, 1974) enables immanent critique to point to the limitations and closed-off possibilities immanent in the existing order. The aim is to transcend the social object's original image, using concepts and categories not imposed from without but immanent or intrinsic to that object. The problem for critical theory is that it is itself historically conditioned. As it is inescapably embroiled in tradition, how can it escape the charge of relativism? In its second role, the method of immanent critique provides an answer. Since immanent criticism, or in Adorno's (1973) terms "non-identity thinking" or "negative dialectics" proceeds "from within," rather than imposing alien evaluative criteria "from without," it avoids the charge of relativism in the nature of its own truth. It confronts the social object in the object's own terrain of norms and implied possibilites vis-a-vis the object's actual existence. The critique's ideological imputations to the object's social claims and pretensions cannot be rebutted by an appeal to the irrelevance of alien criteria of rationality. Of course, critical

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theorists like Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Adorno do not claim universality for the truth value of critique. Rather, they accept that critically justified truths are not justified for all time; although such truths are culture and time bound, and hence relative to specific and concrete historical contexts, they can nevertheless be considered as objective in the sense of being rational in the object's own terms. And the idea of taking the objects's own norms as criteria for rationality is precisely because they constitute ideological masks of the real, underlying, sectarian, dominant interests. The contribution of the Frankfurt school to our understanding of ideology is undoubtedly of tremendous significance. However, three cautionary points need to be noted. First, while deeply committed to the need for the rational transformation of society, free from contradictions, ideologies, and domination, the school nevertheless seems to confine its problematic to the emancipation of consciousness through critical self-reflection (enlightenment), perhaps inadequate emphasis is made in seeing emancipation as equally demanding attention to issues of empowerment and efforts toward transformative action. Second, although science, in the empirical-analytic sense, is held as the new source of ideology, critical theorists do not seem to emphasize the fact that it is science itself (now in the sense of critical theory) that they hold to offer a viable solution. Third, although the logic of immanent critique is theoretically compelling, the very danger stemming from the historical situatedness of every theorist cannot so simply evaporate. Confronting the social object in its own terms remains still a historical, hermeneutic exercise that must bear some of the theorist's values and influence, however little they may be. As we will see in Chapter 13, it is in recognition of these inadequacies that, in part, made Habermas take a "sociolinguistic turn." The earlier work of Lukacs (1971) and the work of Gramsci (1971) represent the historicist conception of ideology, when ideology is viewed in negative terms. Both writers overemphasized the role of superstructural factors within society and their part in societal transformation. Consciousness was seen as playing the crucial role in the production of ideology and in the overcoming of the capitalist society. For Lukacs, consciousness distorts and disfigures the social world through the false separation of objective and subjective factors. However, the resulting alienation in the form of "reification" can be overcome by the revolutionary class consciousness of the proletariat. For Gramsci, power and domination in capitalism rested less with political coercion and oppression than with "ideological hegemony" which, by infiltrating individual consciousness, insidiously worked to emasculate resistance and revolutionary potential. However, through "praxis," in the workers' everyday lives, alienation created by class hegemony would be overcome. Thus, the key to the

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restructuring and transformation of capitalist society lay in the revolutionary class consciousness of the working class. For both writers the dialectic between subject and object is central to their critical theory. Yet their conception of how ideology is produced and reproduced and how it can be overcome virtually ignores the significance of objective factors. Consciousness plays the determining role. The historicist school thus fails to transcend the "practice-consciousness" polarity, practice being taken as the product of man's free will, unmediated and unconstrained by any external factors. In Chapter 13, we revisit Lukacs and Gramsci in a broader discussion that critiques the subjectcentered philosophy. 8.2.3 Ideology and Dialectical Materialism The tradition known as "dialectical materialism" is chiefly associated with orthodox Russian Marxism, particularly with the names of Engels, Plekhanov, and Bukharin. These writers represent an extreme objectivist view of ideology, which, started by Engels, may be conveniently termed the Engelsian tradition. However, there is another line of development, originating from the work of Lenin and represented in the works of Althusser and Colletti, which although distant from the Engelsian tradition in important respects, shares its extreme, determinist view of human nature. It is on account of this commonality in according the determining priority to the material base over subjective consciousness and human will that dialectical materialism can be argued to embrace, for this purpose, Althusserian structuralism. Just as with the Engelsian tradition, "men do not make history" under Althusserian structuralism (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 343). The Engelsian tradition (see Marx and Engels, 1970, 1975) based its ideology problematic on the "base-superstructure" polarity. Engels's theory of reflection captures the essence of this conception. The mind is nothing more than a mirror reflecting the external world that exists independently of consciousness. Although Engels did not conceive of the superstructures as merely derivative, he was firmly of the view that production is the decisive factor that inexorably lead to capitalism's eventual overthrow. Although essentially subscribing to this determinism, Althusser (1969,1971), and Althusser and Balibar (1970) locate its source elsewhere. It is not economic necessity, economic predeterminism, or historical inevitability but particular historical "conjunctures" of contradictions and "overdeterminations" located in a given social formation that fundamentally determine human consciousness and action. As in the Engelsian

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tradition, although for different reasons, Althusserian individuals are not subjects of history but mere agents within a given mode of production. The dialectical materialist conception of ideology is essentially directed at critiquing the capitalist mode of production at the level of its deep-seated substructures. However, by viewing ideology as a necessary effect of those substructures, it runs the danger of naturalizing the concept. Indeed, in discussing ideology and functionalism, it will be seen that Althusser explicitly takes a naturalistic standpoint. The analysis here has taken the view that dialectical materialism represents a negative view of ideology. Larrain (1979), however, has taken a different view. As he argues, because under dialectical materialism, such as that represented by the Engelsian tradition, the relationship between base and superstructure is not restricted to distorted forms of consciousness, but logically embraces all forms of consciousness, no distinction can be sustained between the ideological and the nonideological. Indeed, this is borne by an explicit switch from a negative view of ideology to one that identifies it with a set of cognitions and theories expressing the interest of a class (cf. Lenin, 1975). There is bourgeois ideology as much as proletarian ideology, in which case, ideology loses all specificity as a concept. I take this argument to be both cogent and highly illuminating. However, two cautionary points need to be made. First, a position that apprehends ideology as a class phenomenon can be either positive (seeing ideology as a natural and necessary feature of all social life), or contingent (predicating the cognitive validity of an ideology upon its class origin). There are no reasons why it should invariably be positive, unless class distinctions are naturalized, which is certainly not the case in dialectical materialism. This last remark leads to the second point. Given the critical intent underlying dialectical materialism, (deterministic, even fatalistic though it may be) its position, viewed from an overall perspective, can only be described as negative with regard to ideology.

8.3 Naturalistic

Conceptions

of

Ideology

8.3.1 Ideology and Psychologism Two radically different psychological conceptions of ideology can be identified in the literature. The first strand, associated with the names of Freud and Pareto, sees ideology as rooted in the human psyche or intellect. Of course, each writer formulates the problem in a different way. But essentially, ideology is seen as a distortion of consciousness stemming from attempts to rationalize or conceal irrational behavior prompted by

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inner impulses, instincts, desires, or by psychological needs for ontological security. Thus, in Freudian psychoanalysis (cf. Larrain, 1979), psychological conflicts between unconscious inner impulses, desires, and appetites lead to the desire to find a logical, although distorted, explanation or rationalization. An internal contradiction receives a distorted solution. Ideology is therefore rooted in the psychical structure of individuals, and as such is immanent in human nature. Similarly, Pareto (1976) sees ideology as rooted in "derivations," the intellectual elements or attempts that seek to justify or conceal the irrational actions and beliefs ("residues") characteristic of most human behavior. Ideologies are thus "logical masks" concealing nonlogical behavior. The second strand of psychologism belongs to Nietzsche (1956,1968). But there are difficulties in discussing Nietzsche's concept of ideology. In the first place, he never provided an explicit, rigorous theory of ideology; he hardly ever used the word ideology. His concept of ideology can therefore be inferred only from those aspects of his writings that prima facie bear directly on ideology. This leads to the second difficulty. There are wide divergences in the manner in which different attempts at reconstructing his theory have interpreted his basic ideas and arguments. But this is also due, in no small measure, to Nietzsche's literary and discursive style, a style characterized by, and replete with, obscurities, ambiguities, complexities, subtleties, extremism, and an apparent lack of rigor in the formation and application of key and basic concepts upon which he builds his theories. However, one of the interpretations of Nietzsche that is sympathetic and yet critically penetrative is that of Warren (1984). The discussion here draws on Warren's reconstruction and insightful analysis of Nietzsche's concept of ideology. Central to Nietzsche's concept of ideology is his concept of "will-topower," which serves as a philosophical explanation of how human agency is at all possible. There are three conditions of possibility for rational agency. These are specified by the structure, the historicity, and the value orientation of the human condition. The first one is the "experiential" category of relations to the world. Human action is only possible in an experiential world, the world seen as a plurality of sensations. The second condition is the "interpretive" category of relations. Human practice implies the cultural-linguistic and symbolic apprehension of the world, seen as historical and not metaphysical. The third condition is the "self-reflective" category of relations. Individuals have a self-reflective motive to experience themselves as causal agents, as effective centers of power. The concept of the will-to-power therefore specifies the ontological conditions under which human agency or "willing" is possible. The will

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to power is not a will for power, but a "feeling of power/' a universal striving for self-constitution as a rational agent. Rationality in this sense means the practical achievement of self-identity by an individual in a historical world. It is when the achievement of self-identity in these terms is systematically subverted that we have ideology, a situation in which ideas operating in a particular historical reality mask self-reflective apprehension of the conditions of possibility for rational agency. Nietzsche demonstrated this through what he analyzed and diagnosed as the cultural crisis of European "nihilism." Nihilism referred to a situation in which there was disjunction between the experiential and the interpretive worlds, such that the world lost its value as a condition for agency. This was the consequence of long-term, systematic Christian-Platonic cultural distortion of everyday, mundane experience, action, and self-identity, such that the self-reflective motive of individuals to be self-determined agents lost its condition of possibility in experiential and interpretive practices. For Nietzsche, therefore, ideology is rooted in a distorted, external reality that subverts the conditions for rational agency. The individual psychological "feeling of power" or will-to-power becomes distorted and hence ideological, because it is illusory, a self-deception. In these terms, ideologies provide a vicarious "feeling of power," standing in the place of real, effective "willing." As Warren (1984) elaborates, there are two conditions for ideology, in Nietzschean terms, to be present: (1) self-delusion in relation to one's interest in being a rational agent, and (2) systematic psychological function in providing an illusory sense of agency in social situations that rule out action. The first condition means that interpretations are irrational and hence ideological if they conceal one or more essential conditions of agency. Second, interpretations are ideological if in a situation of "unfreed o m " (i.e., social situations in which the psychological need to experience oneself as a rational agent is systematically subverted and can find no expression in action), they systematically provide an illusory sense of rational agency, thereby serving to satisfy the psychological need for securing individual identity. This reading of Nietzsche's concept of ideology is highly insightful. Nevertheless, there are a number of difficulties with such a conception. In the first place, the ideology problematic is located not necessarily in social contradictions, but in any concrete, social situation of unfreedom, regardless of whether such unfreedom is a consequence of purely technical (man-nature), genuinely practical (man-man), or empancipatory (power/domination) constraints. Although it is undoubtedly true that each of these constraints can be a source of irrationality, thereby leading

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to self-delusion, not every form of irrationality can count as ideological; otherwise ideology loses specificity as a concept. The Nietzschean conception appears to be critical in intent, but in effect is emasculated of that intent by failure to discriminate between different forms of irrationality. Undoubtedly, Nietzsche acknowledges the historical context of human agency as a real source of constraint. And through his genealogical method, he seeks to explicate how illusions of individual interest in agency are historically sustained and real interests systematically distorted through cultural practices and ideals. Nevertheless, by abstracting that context from concrete dominative power relations, he neglects the most crucial and critical question concerning the need for the transformation of a particular (irrational) society as a necessary moment in transcending its specific ideologies. A preoccupation with the irrationality of the individual, divorced from the irrationality of the society in question, points to a failure to recognize the dialectical processes involved: It is the structure of domination that is both the condition and the outcome of irrational action (cf. Giddens, 1984). A similar criticism has been leveled by Warren (1984) against Nietzsche's preoccupation with reification of cultural practices, neglecting the fact that material practices can be just as equally reified. Habermas (1972) and a number of other writers have also argued (although Warren disagrees) that Nietzsche lacks a theory of truth, knowledge, or rational action adequate to distinguish ideologies from nonideological interpretations, and that this is why he is forced to distinguish between truth claims of ideas by having recourse to their lineage or genesis (how they were formed) and their function (the historical context of their emergence). Taken together, these criticisms show that ideology, in Nietzschean terms, is at best a quasi-critical concept, because it is devoid of any practical (emancipatory) intent (cf. Fay, 1987). In summary, whereas psychologism takes a negative view of ideology as a pathological state of the human mind, it is uncritical precisely because that distortion is naturalized directly or by default. Freud and Pareto see ideology as internally induced and ultimately inherent in human nature; Nietzsche sees it as externally induced, but by bracketing any attempt to inquire into the nature of underlying power relations and social domination, he ends up naturalizing the distortion as a vicarious psychological feeling of the universal "will-to-power." 8.3.2 Ideology and Weltanschauung In the historicist but positive tradition, ideology is seen as rooted not in the antagonistic, partisan interests of one particular segment (class) in

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society, but in society as a totality. Ideology is thus socially determined by society as a whole, or necessarily by each class in society. For instance, from an initial conception of ideology as innate predispositions of the minds of individuals, or preconceptions inherent in human nature, all of which were seen as theoretically false but intellectually functional for individual adaptive behavior, Durkheim (1964) came to see ideology more in terms of social predispositions, the natural, habitual bent inherent in the " m i n d " of society considered as a "collective individual." Ideology came to be seen as rooted in "collective consciousness" of society (Durkheim, 1976) and as performing a positive function, the necessary social function of expressing collective sentiments of a given epoch. A similar, positive, historicist view of ideology comes from Mannheim (1968, 1972), who conceives of ideology as Weltanschauung, a class worldview representing the global outlook or the general system of ideas, aspirations, and feelings that is both common and unifying to the class membership. However, in an attempt to transcend Marxist class theory, Mannheim overaccentuates the idea of Weltanschauung to the point where he is forced to introduce and argue for the concept of the "sociology of knowledge," the sociological interpretation from outside a particular thought system, which seeks to relate knowledge to its wider social context. From this view, which sharply contrasts with Mannheim's other contingent notion of ideological interpretation (referred to in the next section), all points of view become ideological in the positive sense of being necessary worldviews of a given class. This leads to the loss of all specificity for the concept: Ideology becomes universalized as natural, ahistorical, social determination of all knowledge, with no relationship to the social contradictions of a given society. Gramsci (1971) is also another proponent of the view that ideology is Weltanschauung. In this view, he contrasts "historically organic ideologies," defined as social cement unifying the social bloc, with arbitrary or "willed ideologies" that distort or disfigure the social world. 8.3.3 Ideology and Class Analysis Whereas the historical, subjectivist, negative tradition (critical theory) takes ideology as essentially distortive, and whereas the historicist but positive tradition {Weltanschauung) takes it as a functionally necessary feature of social life, the historicist, contingent view predicates the cognitive validity of ideology upon its class origins.In this view, ideologies are seen as positive or negative depending on the class interests to which they are allied. Goldmann (1964,1973) is somewhat ambivalent in his view whether ideology is a positive concept that is subsumed under Weltanschauung,

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or whether its cognitive validity is contingent upon its class origins. In the latter case, Goldmann defines ideology as a distorted worldview of a declining class. But this leads to the untenable implication that the worldviews of all nondeclining or ascendant classes are beyond ideology. In contrasting the theory of ideology to the sociology of knowledge, Mannheim (1972) sought to restrict the concept of ideology to the conscious deceptions and disguises of human interest groups (e.g., political parties). The cognitive validity of ideology or "perspective" was therefore contingent on how an interest group used ideology as a party weapon against its opponents. As I have earlier argued, the fact that all knowledge is socially determined does not imply that all ideas are necessarily ideological, nor that the ideological nature of knowledge is contingent upon its class origins. Both positions lead to the naturalization of ideology and loss of specificity as a concept. 8.3A Ideology and Structuralism Human consciousness is not directly accessible. It is only when it expresses itself in concrete forms that other human beings can have access to it. The variety of concrete forms (sounds, texts, signs and other forms of significations) can be subsumed under language, defined as a system of signification, including all meaningful material and discursive practices, and cultural phenomena. Because ideology necessarily works through consciousness, the significance of language becomes obvious. Structural analysis of language (including such cultural phenomena as myth, religion, totemism, and kinship) can therefore be seen as providing important insights into the concept of ideology. Here, we briefly refer to two influential lines of analysis: the semiological line associated with the names of Barthes and Greimas, and the anthropological line associated with the names of Levi-Strauss and Godelier (cf. Larrain, 1979). In semiological analysis (cf. Barthes, 1967,1972), a distinction is made between language, whose latent content represents the underlying structure of discourse, and speech, whose manifest content represents the practical level of human will. According to semiology, it is in language, the connotative, "mythical" level of rhetorical meanings, that ideology is rooted. The denotative level of speech, with its natural meanings, is assumed to be innocent. There is no doubt that such structural linguistic analysis is highly illuminating. However, like all undialectical thinking, it suffers from an overemphasis of one polarity in virtual neglect of the other aspect of the duality (cf. Giddens, 1984). Language is unwarrantedly privileged as the condition of intelligibility of speech, to the detriment of the practical

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functions of speech. The fact that speech as concrete human practice is both the outcome and the condition for the reproduction of language itself is ignored. Ideology cannot be reduced to meaning immanent in language as such. The basic difficulty with semiological analysis is that it is founded on an empiricist hermeneutics philosophy, which takes the historical nature of interpretation and meaning as unproblematic. A historical hermeneutics tradition, such as that associated with the ''semanalysis" approach of the Tel Quel journal, rejects those objectivist aspirations. Semanalysis proceeds on the more realistic assumption that it is not only language that is the signifier of meaning, but that the signified (the author, the speaker) are also signifiers. The crucial question becomes, not so much what a text abstracted from its producers means, but how it means. A text must be seen not only as a product, but also as a process of production. Ideology does not therefore reside merely in language, but in the textual production of meaning, in which both denotation and connotation are essentially implicated. The anthropological line of analysis locates ideology in the structure of cultural phenomena, such as kinship, totemism, religion, and myth. These "unconscious infrastructures" represent special forms of language with a universal built-in logic (or timeless underlying structure). The "conscious linguistic phenomena" are seen as merely contingent upon these infrastructures. As with semiological analysis, the anthropological tradition suffers from deterministic structuralism. Ideology rooted in social structures assumes an ontological essence prior to human thought and practice. Structures are thus reified as a collective-unconscious entity, an external force wholly outside human practice. The seemingly naturalistic character of structures, and hence ideology, is absolutized. 8.3.5 Ideology and Functionalism The functionalist conception of ideology focuses both on its universal nature and on the positive, functional role it plays in the conservation of the social system as a whole. Thus, Godelier sees ideology as representing all forms of cultural phenomena. Levi-Strauss's (1972,1973,1974) concept of myth as the equivalent of ideology similarly emphasizes the existence of innate cultural universals not dependent on concrete human practice. The distorting aspects of myths are not of any significant interest; rather, it is their logical pattern, their basic structure, that makes sense from a logical point of view. The issue of the potential distortive nature of myth and the related problem of solving social contradictions that it represents are set aside; instead, myth is simply seen as a particular kind of language.

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whose (positive) function is to provide a logical model capable of overcon\ing contradiction construed not as historical, but as a logical, universal problem of human nature. As such, ideology as myth is naturalized; it is no longer a critical concept concerned with historical contradictions, but a functional notion concerned with providing a system of logic in its own right. Similarly, in his theory of "ideology in general" Althusser (1975) roots ideology in the functional requirement of social cohesion. He hypostatizes ideology as a transcendental subject that systematically interpellates largely passive individuals. Thus, ideology becomes naturalized as a structural feature of any society, a necessary element in the cementing of social cohesion and unity. The functionalist conception of ideology is also evident in Therborn's (1980) view that ideology refers to that aspect of the human condition under which human beings live their lives as conscious actors in a world that makes sense to them to varying degrees . . . to conceive of a text or an utterance as ideology is to focus on the way it operates in the formation and transformation of human subjectivity. (p-2)

Although undoubtedly the thrust of Therborn's detailed and highly penetrative analysis and theorization of ideology is both dialectical and critical, his tendency, at the same time, to view ideology as essentially a medium through which all consciousness and meaningfulness operate contradicts this critical intent. As a universal medium, ideology becomes naturalized as a necessary aspect of human subjectivity. Ideology loses its roots in historical contradictions, becoming instead a functional requirement for the constitution of human subjectivity. 8.3.6 Ideology and Modes of Production Within the objectivist traditions, there are views that take the cognitive validity of ideology to be contingent on its structural origins. For instance, after reducing consciousness to its economic base, Lenin (1975) conceived of ideology as a set of cognitions and theories that express the interests of a class. Thus, there were proletarian ideologies, just as they were bourgeois ideologies. The falsity of ideology was not due to its ideological character, but contingent on its class origins and hence its (economic) structural origins. In this sense, it is the nature of a given mode of production upon which the character (positive or negative) of ideology is contingent. Although there is much truth in associating ideology with the character of a mode of production, the idea of "class ideologies" as such robs the concept of all specificity as a critical notion.

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8A Toward

Chapter 8

''Liberating

Systems

Theory''

8.4.1 Connective Introduction I have previously noted that critical systems thinking is a very slow "slowcomer" to systems science (Oliga, 1987b). It does now seem, however, that there is an emerging, powerful body that is beginning to articulate an interrelated stream of critical thought in the interest of liberating systems theory and practice. The purpose of this chapter is to contribute toward "liberating systems theory" (LST). In a sense, this chapter and my previous paper, "Power in Organizations: A Contingent Relational View" (Oliga, 1989b) should be seen as "daughter" works to my paper, "Power-Ideology Matrix in Social Systems Control" (Oliga, 1990a). Flood has pointed out that the idea of LST is a subtle one, having a double meaning: a theoretical as well as a practical meaning. The intent of the first meaning is both theoretical and methodological. Systems theory must see itself as an integral part of social science theory, which embraces both a theory of society and a theory of science; as such, it must actively seek dialogue with other social science disciplines by transcending its present insular proclivities. Furthermore, a view must be taken that the paradigmatic foundations of different systems approaches are commensurable, in which case the present internal isolationist stances become theoretically and methodologically untenable (Flood, 1989a, 1989b; Jackson, 1987a; Oliga, 1986a, 1988). Both the external and internal dimensions of LST are thus predicated on the denial of the thesis of paradigm incommensurability, identified with, for instance, CoUingwood's (1940) thesis that knowledge, truth, and reason only apply within a set of framework assumptions or absolute presuppositions having in and of themselves no truth-value, Kuhn's (1970) epistemological thesis of the incommensurability of paradigms. Winch's (1958) thesis that views of reality are a function of a particular worldview that manifests a "form of life" that is neither true nor false, but merely societally relative, and Quine's (1961) thesis that knowledge is a function of our value judgments, which are in turn governed by "entrenchments" that are not susceptible to rational criticism but merely represent acceptance or rejection of statements on the basis of their compatibility or incompatibility with items that we are least willing to forgo. Although the debate on theoretical incommensurability thesis is not within the scope of this chapter, it may suffice for the moment to note that a devastating indictment of the thesis is that if it were true, then it would logically presuppose its own denial and hence become self-refuting (cf. Beyleveld, 1975; Habermas, 1972). In these terms, the "pluralist" view, as recently

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articulated by Jackson (1987a) and Flood (1989a, 1989b), that the future prospects for management science need to be predicated on a theoretical commensurability but a methodological incommensurability thesis deserves serious debate. The intent of the second meaning of LST is practical. It is concerned with using "liberated" systems theory to liberate systems practice in its various manifestations. The focus here is on the need to "enlighten" and "empower" an ever-growing circle of hitherto ideologically mystified audience from a wide spectrum of coercive social contexts and problem situations (including "class," "status," "race," "gender," "creed," "age," and "nation-state"). Thus, the purpose of this part of the chapter is to highlight some of the ideological mystifications that occlude the possibilities for enlightenment, empowerment, and transformative action. In this task, the critical conception of ideology, which emerged from the preceding exegetical part of the chapter, will be used to probe the nature of three types of systems approach: the positivist hard systems approach, the structuralist hard systems approach, and the soft systems approach. The exploration will focus on the existence of systematic concealment of social contradictions, whether or not intended or acknowledged by those advocating or employing a particular systems approach. 8.4.2 Ideologies in the Positivist Hard Systems Approach The positivist hard system approach includes three main strands: the classical operations research, systems engineering, and systems analysis (Checkland, 1978). Jackson (1985) has synthesized and elaborated on the numerous criticisms leveled at the relevance of these methodologies to social systems. In essence, these methodologies are accused of being functionalist in nature. This functionalism is grounded in the overarching ideology of (economic) "individualism" (Lukes, 1973; Oliga, 1986d). In systems literature, the ideology of economic individualism or economic rationality has been expressed in terms of the inappropriate theory or model of reality implied by positivist hard systems methodologies. The implied functionalist/engineering model is seen as not being a valid representation of social reality. As Jackson (1985) puts it, "Social systems do not have an objective existence in the real-world and it is not easy to discover what objectives they should pursue" (p. 140). Thus, hard systems methodologies have been attacked for being wholly inappropriate to "illstructured problem situations in which the naming of desirable ends was itself problematic—and asking: if the hard methodology had been successful, what image or model of social reality would have been implied

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by that success?" (Checkland, 1981, p. 277). They may only be suitable for well-structured problems in mechanistic systems devoid of any human element (Ackoff, 1979a, 1979b, 1981a, 1981b; Checkland, 1978; Churchman, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1979). Their reductionist means-ends schema, with its pretensions that the essence of problem solving lies in the selection of efficient or optimum means to a specifiable desired end, is a gross distortion of the complexity of the social world (cf. Spear, 1987). The desired ends are assumed to be neutral and unproblematic, but only because the means-ends schema falsely abstracts from the reality of social conflicts and multiple perceptions by assuming or imposing the objectives of the system from outside. Optimization is assumed possible, but only because of highly abstract, grossly unrealistic, and simplistic assumptions made (e.g., unbounded rationality). It is these pretensions to a rational ideal that have been the subject of attack by many critics (e.g., Ackoff, 1974c, 1979a; Checkland, 1978,1981, Churchman, 1968; Hoos, 1972,1979; Jackson, 1985; Jackson and Keys, 1984; Rosenhead, 1978,1981; Spear, 1987). The essence of these criticisms in the systems literature is that the presuppositions of a rational ideal are epistemologically untenable. However, what most of these criticisms did not do was to relate their epistemological concerns to a theory of society. It is in the interest of the latter concern that this chapter explicitly discussed the ideological motives that are concealed and mystified by an apparent preoccupation with the technical issues of optimization, quantitative modeling, and the application of the scientific method as potentially demystifiable in the interest of empowerment. 8A3 Ideologies in the Structuralist Hard Systems Approach The structuralist hard systems approach includes general systems theory, organizational cybernetics, and sociotechnical systems theory (Jackson, 1985). While the positivist approach has much in common with the structuralist approach, both being functionalist and empiricist, it represents a set of methodologies best suited for mechanical-unitary, and not systemicunitary, problem contexts. The structuralist approach is better suited for the latter problem situations Qackson, 1985, 1987a, 1987b; Jackson and Keys, 1984). This difference of problem orientation parallels the distinction between the "rational"/"closed" and the " n a t u r a l " / " o p e n " conceptions of organization (cf. Scott, 1981). The implication is that whereas the ideology of (economic) "individualism" (Lukes, 1973) underwrites the positivist approach, it is the ideology of (sociological) "unitarism" that characterizes the structuralist approach (cf. Oliga, 1986d). In the mechanistic model

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of economic individualism, the human element is totally absent; homo economicus is not a real human being. He is an economic ghost, a transcendental ego, personifying the ideal of economic rationality. In the structuralist model of unitarism, account is taken of the complex nature of social systems, in which human behavioral influences are central. Homo sociologicus is no abstract individual but a real, "feeling" empirical ego. However, notwithstanding these improvements in orientation to problems of a social nature, the structuralist approach is open to a number of criticisms. Jackson (1985) has elaborated on these criticisms, including Checkland's (1972) attack on general systems theory as being "utopian engineering"; Morgan's (1982) view that (organizational) cybernetics is based on a conception of cybernetics as "technique," or steermanship in pursuit of predetermined ends, rather than "epistemology," the dialectical interplay between "figure" and "ground" (see also Oliga, 1986b); Ulrich's (1981) critique of Beer's (1979) "viable system model" as geared to the pursuit of "intrinsic control" and not "intrinsic motivation." In relation to sociotechnical theory, Jackson (1985) has pointed out that its central concern about the establishment of the systems "primary task" is founded on the assumption of a unitary goal (p. 141). Indeed, it can be argued that this assumption of unitarism is an esential pillar of social-structural theory. Observable, surface-level occurrences can only be seen as preordained effects or manifestations (albeit in different guises) of a (unified) coherent set of deep-structural laws and principles. The last section of this chapter seeks to show how an attempt can be made to demystify these ideologies in the interest of empowerment. 8.4.4 Ideologies in the Soft Systems Approach I have argued elsewhere (Oliga, 1988) that although the soft systems approach is underwritten by the interpretive methodological foundations, a distinction needs to be made between "naturalistic" hermeneutic foundations (as in Betti, 1955,1962; Dilthey, 1976; Weber, 1949) and "historical" hermeneutic foundations (as in Gadamer, 1975a, 1975b, 1980; Heidegger 1962, 1966). Jayaratna's (1986) Normative Information Model-Based Systems Analysis and Design (NIMSAD) framework can be read as pointing to a historical foundation for the soft systems approach. Indeed, such an interpretation is even more tempting when one notes Churchman's (1971) very important view that the process of dialectically developing systemic judgments and "objective" agreement is never ending, and Checkland's (1981) equally important view that in social systems, problem solving is iterative, a never ending process of learning. However, as I have argued to the contrary, the assumption that the possibility of an independent

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observer (analyst) arriving at "objective'' knowledge of the clients' Weltanschauungen (Checkland, 1981; Churchman, 1968) or "appreciative systems" (Checkland, 1981; Vickers, 1970) is largely unproblematic is not historical but naturalistic. As Jackson (1982,1985) has argued, soft systems thinkers, including Churchman (1968, 1970, 1971, 1979), Ackoff (1974a, 1974b, 1974c, 1979b, 1981a, 1981b), and Checkland (1978, 1981, 1985), share this pervasive assumption. Central to this naturalistic hermeneutic tradition are two notions: the methodological notion of verstehen (Weber, 1949), and the theoretical notion of Weltanschauung (Mannheim, 1968, 1972; cf. Durkheim, 1976; Goldmann, 1964, 1973; Gramsci, 1971). As a reaction against the empiricist ontology of "visibles," the notion of verstehen is immensely valuable as an interpretive method geared to understanding the cultural phenomena of the social world in terms of subjective meaning and intention (cf. Bleicher, 1980). Verstehen thus represents the interpretive paradigm's explicit ontological break with empiricism. However, its naturalistic orientation and its objectivist aspirations in the production of hermeneutic knowledge render it incapable of achieving an epistemological break with empiricism. It is this empiricist hangover that leaves soft systems methodologies open to ideological penetration. The "practical" interest underlying verstehen is subverted by the "technical" interest. No doubt, the technical interest is neither intended nor acknowledged by soft systems thinkers. Nevertheless, it circumscribes their whole methodological enterprise. Just as in the case of the hard systems approach, systems (social) control within the terms of present social arrangements is the ultimate goal. The only essential difference is the approach to such a goal. Whereas the positivist hard systems approach rules out of court any reference to human values and intentionality, and whereas the structuralist hard systems approach admits of the existence of such disparate values and interests but resolves the control problem by positing an ultimate, preordained (unitary) end, the soft systems approach admits of the existence of disparate, conflicting Weltanschauungen, but resolves the problem of control by positing the feasibility of bringing about a consensus on what the unitary goal ought to be. In ideological terms, the end result is essentially the same. The soft systems approach is equally open to ideological penetration, especially of the sociologicalunitarist type, even though admittedly by default, but precisely because it is underwritten by the ideology of naturalism. The soft systems approach is open to another, perhaps more pernicious, ideological penetration. This stems from the centrality of the theoretical notion of Weltanschauung in soft systems thinking, a notion deeply permeated by regulative ideologies. This second aspect of soft systems ideologies has been discussed in Chapter 7.

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Conclusion

Notwithstanding the enormous diversity with which the concept of ideology has been theorized, the concept is usually unproblematically employed in much of the social science discourse. For a chapter seeking to contribute toward the liberation of systems theory from ideology, the first task is seen as necessarily exegetical: a critical exposition of nine different conceptions of ideology, identified with historical materialism, critical theory, dialectical materialism, psychologism, Weltanschauung, class analysis, structuralism, functionalism, and modes of production. This chapter argues that any genuine attempt at liberating systems theory from ideological shackles must focus on the historical materialist conception of ideology, which does not compromise the role of the subject of history or that of objective circumstances under which history is made. It is this conception that does not rob the concept of its specificity as a critical notion. In these terms, this chapter is critical of both hard and soft systems thinking. The former is uncritically wedded not only to individualistic ideologies such as "utility" as the basis of value and "self-interest" as the basis of rational behavior, but also to unitaristic ideologies such as goal or value consensus (shared values and norms) and harmony of interests. The soft systems approach takes as unproblematic and uncritically employs such notions as verstehen and Weltanschauung, which expose it to ideological penetration, especially of the (sociological) unitarist type. For the liberation of systems theory, such attempts at unmasking ideological underpinnings of systems approaches constitute an essential part of the "enlightenment" task.

IV Transformation: Toward Individual Freedom and Happiness and Collective Autonomy and Responsibility Can We Not Shape Our Own Destinies?

9 Control and Social Order 9.1

Introduction

In this chapter, the concept of control is introduced from two perspectives: (1) a cybernetic viewpoint based on Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, (2) a broader organization theory viewpoint. This is followed by a critical view of it, in terms of social contradictions and conflicts that are essentially rooted in the problem of social order within and between societies and other distinct social groups.

9.2 Control: A Cybernetic

Viewpoint

9.2.1 Introduction: A Unitary View of Control Although control as a precept is of the essence of all empirical science, what distinguishes cybernetics as "the science of control and communication" is its attempt to offer a conceptual unity in the general theory of control across apparently diverse systems. In particular, Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety represents a significant cybernetic discovery about the unity of natural law in the regulation of any kind of system, be it animate or inanimate. But are the precepts derived from Ashby's Law of sufficient generality to encompass the social reality of human systems? This chapter argues that the control theory based on Ashby's Law, when applied to human systems, takes the nature of the control problem (the goals, objectives, or values) as nonproblematic. This can only be tenable under a more consensual model of social reality. An alternative conception of social reality sees conflict and contradictions as inherently pervasive in human systems such that an inquiry into the nature of environmental variety (or disturbances) becomes central to any general theory of control because such disturbances may not be neutral as to the nature of the desirable or given outcomes to be pursued. Wiener (1950) argued that it is through science that society counters the general entropic tendencies by organizing "temporary" enclaves of 121

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order. Lowe and Tinker (1976) have similarly argued that it is the need to predict, explain, and thereby control the state of the human condition that sustains all scientific activity. Thus science exists not within, but because of human needs (Lowe and Mclnnes, 1971). The enormous diversity of human needs, however, has inevitably led to a division of labor among the academic community, resulting in different empirical disciplines focusing on different aspects of mankind's scientific control problem. But control as a theoretical precept remains of the essence of all science, whether oriented to conservative or radical aims. What therefore distinguishes cybernetics as the science of "control and communication in the animal and the machine," to borrow from the subtitle of Wiener's (1961) book, is its attempt to offer a conceptual unity in the general theory of control across apparently diverse systems, whether these be mechanisms, organisms, or society. Wiener noted that there are extensive parallels between the operation of animal nervous systems and feedback control systems of machines (Young, 1969). It has been argued that just as geometry now provides a natural framework for terrestrial forms, so does cybernetics offer a framework for ordering all types of systems, thereby making it possible to develop a general approach for studying control processes, particularly in relation to exceedingly complex systems exhibiting a high degree of "complexity'' (Ashby, 1964; Beer, 1959; Lerner, 1972).

Beer asserts that the main discovery of cybernetics after a history of twenty-five years and indeed what gives it the right to be called a coherent science is that there are fundamental principles of control which apply to all large systems, the principles which have been discovered have been investigated in living systems (such as the brain), in electronic systems (such as computers) and social and economic systems too. This book is entirely concerned with the contribution which cybernetics, the science of control, can make to management, the profession of control (Beer, 1972, p. 17).

But can social reality of human systems be encompassed by such an approach, or is it only apparently possible to do so because of some underlying ideological presuppositions? This is one of the important questions in this chapter. In particular, we examine the critical assumptions underlying Ashby's conception of control and the implications of that conception on the ideas of environmental variety and requisite regulatory strategies. The next section briefly examines Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety in order to obtain an insight into its underlying assumptions.

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9.2.2 Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety In cybernetics, variety is defined as the number of possible states or elements of a system that can be distinguished by an observer (Ashby, 1964). It is also defined as a measure of the degree of complexity and hence uncertainty perceived in the system (Ashby, 1964; Beer, 1979). Because a binary classifier halves the uncertainty with which it is dealing, 2" possibilities can be distinguished by a minimum of n discriminators. Thus variety can be measured either as the number of distinct elements or the log to the base 2 of that number. In information theory, entropy, H, is the measure of variety shown by a probability distribution of a set of message signals forming a Markov chain, and if p, represents the probability of the zth element in a set whose n members show variety, a general expression for the average information content becomes n

1=1

This is also the measure of the variety of a system whose possible future states, n, are weighted by their probabilities of occurring, p,. In this formulation, information and variety are thus inseparable. It has therefore been claimed that like money, variety as a quantity measure makes unlike things commensurable (Beer, 1979). Relating the idea of regulation to the flow of variety, Ashby has formulated a rigorous quantitative law, known as the Law of Requisite Variety. This states that for control to be effective, the regulator, or control mechanism, must have the same amount of variety as there is in the system being controlled (Ashby, 1964). Put differently, the control mechanism must have a variety equal to the difference in variety of the controlled system under free conditions and when restricted to meet the control objective (Tocher, 1970). Figure 9.1, showing a simple payoff matrix with two players, R (regulator) and D (Environmental disturbances), can be used to illustrate the essence of Ahsby's law. A set of outcomes, £, is represented by score possibilities, a, b, c, d. An inspection of the matrix shows that if D must play first and R's target is a, R can always win. If b becomes R's target, it cannot always win and if c is the target, R can never win. In general, it can be shown that only variety in R (a, P, 7, 8) can cope with the variety due to D(l, 2, 3, 4, 5, ) and force down the variety in the outcomes, £(a, b, c, d, ). As Ashby (1964) picturesquely put it, "only variety can destroy variety." Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety is taken as representing a "profound" statement of natural law, "a statement of the natural attribute of

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^ \

R's

R

Xpptions

a

P

Y

5

1

b

d

a

a

2

a

d

a

d

3

d

a

a

a

4

d

b

a

b

5

d

a

b

d

D's Options

D

\

FIGURE 9.1 Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety: Payoff Matrix

systems which guarantees their self-regulatory powers. It is therefore seen to stand in the same relationship to management cybernetics as the Law of Gravity stands to Newtonian p h y s i c s . . . . Both laws inevitably assert themselves and may not be disobeyed" (Beer, 1979, p. 89). At the methodological level of analysis, the importance of Ashby's law lies in the precepts that can be derived from it in order to attain a desired or given level of regulation and control. In regard to viable systems, an important contribution has been made by Beer in elaborating three precepts for requisite variety: (1) requisite equational balance between amplification of regulatory variety and attenuation of environmental variety, (2) requisite channel capacity for variety transmission and (3) requisite transaction capability for variety preservation (Beer, 1979). These principles of organization seek to secure requisite variety in stabilizing the viable system toward "survival." In the field of managerial cybernetics. Beer's ideas about a "metasystem" and "meta-language" are an important extension of Ashby's law (Beer, 1966,1979). Briefly, every individual viable system needs to generate requisite variety to cope with proliferating internal environmental variety. However, issues concerning damping of intrasystemic oscillations, and taking a synoptic view of the internal as well as external stability of the system as a whole, can only be competently handled by a logically higher order system, the metasystem. The metasystem, by setting an "epigenetic landscape," allows a logically higher order of perception (meta-language)

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to take account of the disturbances external to the " m u d d y " boxes that are within the competence of operational management (of lower order viable systems). The lower order, viable systems constitute System One in Beer's logical (i.e., not command) hierarchy. Systems Two to Five constitute the metasystem. Whereas System One is generally preoccupied with self-regulating activities, the metasystem is concerned with the logically higher order activity of self-organization and hence overall cohesiveness and systemic viability. In terms of Ashby's Law, the divisions of labor between Beer's System One and his metasystem are based on a careful trade-off between maximum autonomy for System One in the interest of operational effectiveness and the minimal necessary metasystemic intervention for overall coherence and viability of the whole organization. Thus, Beer's concept of a metasystem introduces an important principle that self-regulation and local homeostasis can be self-defeating unless guided by a metacriterion for the overall systems synergy, adaptation, and autopoiesis. In the following section, as we examine the critical assumptions underlying Ashby's Law and how they relate to social systems, it will be necessary for such a theoretical evaluation to examine the alternative metatheoretical criteria within which the cybernetic control problem can be formulated. 9.2.3 Control and Ideology Every control action entails a set of objectives, goals or values. As Tocher (1970, 1976) noted, one of the necessary conditions for a precise control problem to exist is that there must be a criterion or objective on which the choice of action is based. At a general level, Ashby (1964) relates the idea of a control objective to the "survival" of the system. This means maintaining the system in those states wherein certain essential variables are maintained within assigned ("physiological") limits. In this formulation, Ashby maintains an exact relationship between the idea of "stability" of a set of mechanisms and "survival" in viable systems (organisms and social systems). However, there has been a growing shift from some of these classical cybernetic concepts because of their inadequacies in capturing the social realities of human systems (Geyer and van Zouwen, 1978). The old notion of stability as a static concept and as implied in homeostasis equilibrium is now giving way to the idea of a dynamic, floating equilibrium involving the process of "organizational closure." Beer has described the notion of "closure" as analogous to the "snake that is eating its own tail" (Beer, 1979, p. 260). Closure is a self-referential process that signifies that all the necessary and sufficient conditions for

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a system's "independent existence" at a given level of recursion are present. It is not the isolation of a system within an "adiabatic shell," as implied in the "open-systems" model of General Systems Theory. Closure defines system's identity. Thus viability is the ability to maintain a separate existence, to preserve one's living identity through the process of self-production or autopoiesis (Beer, 1979; Luhmann, 1986; Maturama and Varela, 1980; Mingers, 1989, 1995; Pask, 1978, 1981; Robb, 1989a, 1989b, 1991, 1992; Zeleny, 1980). Whereas for biological systems, survival as a control criterion may not be problematic, for human systems that criterion can subsume a multiplicity of objectives, each of which may be qualitatively different from different participants' points of view. After all, an important characteristic in defining any system is the purpose of that system; but this is a subjective phenomenon rather than a property of the system and cannot be independent of the system's participants or the observer. Except perhaps in the limiting case of system's "death," survival for human systems is an actor- or observer-dependent notion. It can be argued that at the structural level, there are two mutually exclusive perspectives on survival imperative: Either survival is predicated on morphostatic processes or on morphogenic processes (Buckley, 1967). Morphostatic processes tend to maintain and perpetuate the existing structures, whereas morphogenic processes are directed toward adaptive structural transformation (Maruyama, 1963). Morphostasis and morphogenesis represent, in essence, two mutually exclusive worldviews of social reality. Perceptions and interpretations of social reality can be conceptualized as falling into two categories: (1) the static conception, and (2) the dynamic conception of social phenomena (Allen, 1975). In the context of h u m a n systems, the static conception gives priority to qualities that make for stability and regulation, whereas the dynamic conception gives priority to qualities that produce change. The regulation model presupposes structure to be immutable and therefore confines its theories to an examination of superstructural factors. Such a perspective provides a framework that determines the form of social theories, in terms of assumptions made, concepts, and other analytic tools used, the nature of data given causal priority, and the conclusions reached. Because the existing social structure is assumed to be the "normal" order, the consensus base is beyond questioning; in fact, it is settled by assumption. Social problems are therefore defined in terms of infringements upon consensus: aberrations created by temporary but controllable maladjustments or permanent but ineffectual conflicts. More precisely, continuity of existing structures is articulated as the basis of societal values. This is necessary, given the power of forms and contents of consciousness by which behavior patterns can be

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controlled (Meier, 1976). For such an ideological position to be dominant in a society, there must be an institutional framework for the dissemination of that ideology, and this implies that only those ideas that are protective of those in control of power will be allowed and promoted (Allen, 1975). An alternative conception views social reality as a changing phenomenon. Pressures for movement of social change are seen as continuous and inexorable. Such movement has the capacity to produce qualitative changes in social relationships and as such entails a structural transformation process (Allen, 1975). The source, although not the origin, of these unremitting pressures for movement is located in the "concrete unity of interacting contradictions" (Lukacs, 1947), which defines the dialectical nature of social phenomena. For instance, according to Marx, the relationship between the distribution system set by the social relations of production and the forces of production constitutes the prime contradiction in capitalist societies (Marx, 1959). According to Lockwood (1964), such contradictions can be analyzed in terms of two types of integration within society: "social integration" and "systems integration." "Social integration" refers to social relations between members of society; integration weaknesses at this level therefore reflect the degree of conflict among social classes. "Systems integration," on the other hand, refers to the "extent of functional connectedness between institutional parts of the social order" (Lockwood, 1964). Weaknesses in "systems integration" reflect the contradiction between the forces of production and the social relations of production (Parkin, 1976). It is thus the lack of integration at both the "social" and "systems" integration levels that produces pressures for social transformation. Parkin argues that systems contradictions only become significant when there is a "power disequilibrium." This occurs when there is a high degree of incongruence among the society's "elite differentiation" or polarization allows the possibility of morphogenic processes taking place and social structure being transformed. Nevertheless, there are many institutional forces favoring morphostasis, given that it is in the interest of the dominant power holders to maintain the existing structures through protective and promotive forms as well as political and ideological means (Meier, 1976). Arguments have been advanced that the pluralist ideology forms a category distinct from the consensus and dialectical models discussed earlier (Allen, 1975). It is true that pluralism assumes a permanent diversity of values within a society and therefore admits of conflict. Nevertheless such diversity is reconcilable by assuming the existence or possibility of viable "coalitions" but only such that the structure of the existing social fabric is maintained (Allen, 1975). The diversities admitted in terms of

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fragmentation and diffusion of power are all essentially at the superstructural level (Allen, 1975; Westergaard, 1977). One can argue that a pluralist thesis is nothing but a conceptual adaptation to the consensus model. One can also argue that a consensus model of social reality is a partial view of reality that does not accord with the evidence of conflict and contradictions widespread in human systems, and that any theory predicated on this model is unlikely to be a valid definition of what reality is, or a good prescription of what reality should be. In order to relate the previous discussion to Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, we have reconstructed the original payoff matrix in Figure 9.1. Figure 9.2 reflects management's (R) role as being that of regulating the balance between participants' (perceived) inducements as system's outputs (£) and their contributions (D) in order to maintain a "jumpy" feasible-set ("F-set") for continued systems viability (Barnard, 1938; Krupp, 1961; March and Simon, 1958; Simon 1958; Tinker and Lowe, 1977). In its most general form, Ashby's law asserts that certain D-R combinations lead to certain outcomes: (D-R -> £), the relationship being sufficient but not necessary. In this form, the law describes purposive activity in a regulated input-output form. However, the usual and more interesting form of the law entails a precept in terms of requisite variety for effective control. Thus, if VE = variety of the outcomes, VR = variety of the regulator, and VD = variety of the disturbances (all measured logarithmically), the value of VE is: VE^VD-

VR

From this we can ascertain whether R does or does not have requisite variety for a value of VE that is constrained to meet the control objectives. In this form, therefore, the law entails consideration of a set of control objec-

Management (R)

Contributions

Inducements

(D)

(E)

FIGURE 9.2 An Inducement-Contribution Matrix

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tives. In social systems, this requires explicit incorporation of the needs and values of the participants (D) into the analysis as a precondition for determining (in part) the set of acceptable or desirable objectives in E (the "F-set")- It is only possible to take as unproblematic the issues about who determines the objectives, how they are determined, and for whom they are determined if (1) a consensus model of social reality is presupposed, such that conflicts of values and objectives are trivial or ineffectual; or (2) the participants other than those in "control" are treated as mere disturbances (D) whose preferences are in essence neutral to the outcomes: a kind of " I - i t " relationship (Robinson, 1979), or (3) a gross and unrealistic simplification is made about the nature of human systems, by assuming that the problem of control objectives can be assumed away by the mere act of defining the system (and hence its "purposes"; Hare, 1967). Furthermore, in modern organizations, the relationship between the regulator (R) and the controller, "whom the regulator must obey" (Ashby, 1964), is not unproblematic, given that the debate about the separation of ownership from control (Berle and Means, 1932) is far from being conclusive (Knowles, 1973; Whitley, 1973; Zeitlin, 1974; Zeitlin, Ewen, and Ratcliffe, 1974). Thus we are led to conclude that the Law of Requisite Variety, in its prescriptive form, is rooted in the consensus model of social reality and that this has tended to perpetuate such concepts as stability, homeorhesis, and others, that may be used "conservatively" as criteria for social control. We can therefore now see that the conceptual orientation of any general theory of control and regulation can only be understood by relating such theory to the underlying conception of social reality. The latter is a worldview that provides a metacriterion for social control. In the next section, we examine the idea of environmental variety and its implications on requisite control strategies. 9.2.4 Environmental Variety and Requisite Control Strategies The conflict model of social reality allows the possibility of structural transformation. Conflict is therefore seen as a central rather than peripheral issue in the theory of control. This implies that, inter alia, "disturbances" must be explicitly incorporated into the analysis of control objectives rather than being treated largely as the negative aspects of the control process. This suggests that the nature of environmental variety ought to form an important object of cybernetic inquiry. In order to elaborate on the nature of environmental variety, Ashby's law may be used to formulate a general empirical model of control. For a set of possible behavioral states or outcomes, £, only a subset, T|, is

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compatible with the system's viability. The set of outcomes, £, is coproduced by two forces: environmental forces, or disturbances, D, and systems forces, or organization, S. It is the function of a regulator, R, to mediate between D and S in order to assure systems self-production or autopoeisis (TI). Figure 9.3 illustrates these relationships. It should be noted, however, that in the above formulation, the criterion for determining TI (i.e., the conditions defining system's viability) is not explicated. And yet this is the essence of the control problem. As we saw earlier, this inadequacy may not present a serious problem when one is dealing with nonhuman systems, in which viability and survival take less conflicting meanings. If S is a social system, conflicts and contradictions will exist both within the system and between the system and the environment (D) in the very process of determing or defining in. It is in this sense that we argue that Ashby's law, when applied to human systems, needs to be supplemented by explicitly taking control objectives, T], as problematic and hence inquiring into the nature of environmental variety. As is common in social science, there is little agreement on the meaning of the concept, environment, and how it is related to its elements (i.e., systems). Two ontological positions and two theoretical perspectives may be used to illustrate these differing meanings (Aldrich, 1979). At the ontological level, Weick (1969, 1974, 1976) conceives of environments as socially constructed or "enacted." In Weick's view, the environments, of themselves, represent "mythical entities." In the enactment process, people "act out and real-ize" their ideas and thereby "create their own realities" (i.e., environments), which they subsequently deal with. Organiza-

Environmental variety (D)

^

Viability

4

^

System (S)

S

J

< •

Regulator (R)

FIGURE 93 A General Empirical Model of Control

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tions are therefore conceived of in terms of actors who "invent" their environments, which they later "rediscover" and adapt to (Weick, 1976). Weick thus argues that environment is a social phenomenon tied to processes of attention and sensemaking, which alone endow it with existence. By contrast, a realist position would take the environment as a hard, external objective reality, "out there." At the conceptual level, there are broadly two perspectives of the nature of the environment. The "resource" flows perspective views environments as a stock of resources for which organizations cooperate or compete. The "information" flow perspective treats environments as a pool of information that is filtered through actors' perceptions for the purpose of, or in the course of coping with, uncertainty in the decision situation (Aldrich, 1979). In the resource flow conceptualization of environment, resources have been defined as generalized means, or facilities, that are potentially controllable by social organizations and that are potentially usable—however indirectly—in relationships between the organization and its environment. (Yuchtman and Seashore, 1967, p. 900).

Thus resources include, at a general level, all forms of economic, political, and social power (Aldrich, 1979). There are two major variants of the resource perspective. The first treats resources as evenly dispersed within the environment. In this category are included the ecological models such as the "natural selection models" (Campbell, 1969), of which the "population ecology model" is a special application to the selective propagation of organizational populations (Aldrich, 1979; Hannan and Freeman, 1977). In terms of our control model in Figure 9.3, the "population ecology model" can be interpreted as follows: The system (S) is represented by organizational "forms" or populations; the environmental variety (D) is represented by a "niche," defined as a distinct combination of resources and other constraints capable of supporting an organizational form. The condition for continued system's viability {r\) is relative superiority in the degree of fitness of S to D. The regulatory process takes place via a three-stage process of "variation," "selection," and "retention"; but since, according to the model, it is the environment that "selects" optimal organizational forms, the "regulator" (R) is in effect D. Thus the population ecology model represents, at its level of analysis, environmental determinism, a case in Ashby's payoff matrix (Figure 9.1) in which the regulator (R) has no choice and the environment is both the disturbance and the "regulator." In such a case, the issue of control objectives for the system is nonproblematic because the system is devoid of any autonomy. It is in this sense that the nonexplication of the problem of control objectives in the control theories

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Environmental niche (D)

Organizational form (S)

Organizational change (E)

FIGURE 9.4 Population Ecology Model

based on Ashby's law may be construed as rendering that law tautological on account of environmental determinism. One interpretation of this, in the context of human systems, is that a consensual model of society is, as already seen earlier, presupposed. Figure 9.4 illustrates the population ecology model in cybernetic terms. A second variant of the resource perspective of environments is represented by resource dependence models that are based on the assumption that resources are concentrated in the hands of a few elements or actors, such that the resulting asymmetry in power leads to dependenceavoidance or dominance-seeking strategies in a situation of interorganizational relations and dependence (Aldrich, 1979; Blau, 1964; Emerson, 1972; Levine and White, 1961; Yutchman and Seashore 1967). The distribution of resources among competing demands then takes a political nature (Aldrich and Mindlin, 1978). Whereas in the population ecology model the resource view of environments was that of differentiated niches, in the resource dependence model, the environment becomes differential power distribution and the system's regulator (R) thus reappears. Figure 9.5 illustrates the resource dependence model.

Environmental power (D)

^

Viability

4

J

Systems power (S)

s J

^ \

Regulator (R)

FIGURE 9.5 Resource Dependence Model

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In the information flow perspective, environmental variety (D) is conceived in terms of uncertainty and its impact on actors' decisionmaking ability. However, the same environment is the source of information that becomes the raw materials acted upon by sentient actors in their attempt to cope with uncertainty in the decision situation. The process of regulation (R) thus becomes acquiring requisite information to absorb proliferating uncertainty (Ashby, 1964; Beer, 1979). "Rational" selection models, predicated on the ability of actors making strategic choices, reflect this perspective (Chandler, 1962; Child, 1972). Uncertainty is seen to arise from two main causes: the low degree of constraint in the relationships between environmental elements (i.e., complexity and unpredictability in the environment) and the equivocality of the information flowing to the decision makers (i.e., ambiguity and unreliability of information sources). Thus, environmental instability and heterogeneity (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967), complexity and dynamic conditions (Duncan, 1972), and internal and external uncertainty (Tosi, Aldag, and Storey, 1973) are all dimensions that have been used to describe environmental uncertainty. The condition for systems viability is a matching of the information capacity of the system with the degree of environmental uncertainty. Figure 9.6 illustrates this perspective. Just as the resource-flow perspective takes information flow as nonproblematic, the information-flow perspective takes the resource flow as nonproblematic. The partial view of social reality inherent in each approach is obvious. The cybernetic model of control based on Ashby's Law is a variant of the information-flow perspective, in which the emphasis is on the

Environmental uncertainty (D)

System (S)

V

Viability

^

V

^

^ ^ % ^

Organizational information system (R)

FIGURE 9.6 Rational Selection Model

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quantitative rather than qualitative aspects of information and uncertainty. The focus is on the quantity of organization (in contradistinction to randomness) exhibited by the system (i.e., the "non-semantic" aspects of information) rather than the criterion for such organization (Klir and Valach, 1967). As we argued, this accounts for the nonexplication of the problem of control objectives (i.e., the metacriterion for systems viability). The cybernetic model of socioeconomic control is therefore, we argue, a more partial view of social reality than the information perspective from which it is drawn. In the context of social systems, these discussions, we suggest, reveal two inadequacies in current theorizing about the system-environment relationships and their implications for systems control. First, at the system-environment level, the "forced" existential separation of the system from its environment has contributed to the false but widespread assumption that systems can have, or can be made to have, independent existence at all levels of recursion. Without recognizing the dialectical relationship between the whole and its parts, the "out there" image of the environment obscures the need to incorporate explicitly environmental demands ("disturbances") into systems objectives prior to establishing regulative measures. Second, the resource-information false dichotomy has also arisen because of failure to perceive the "totality" of the environment and the dialectical relationship entailed between the two perspectives. It is against these inadequacies that we now propose a model of environmental variety and its implications for organizational control. Using the dialectical principle of "negation of negation," a model of environmental variety can be suggested in which the "thesis" of the resource-flow perspective and the "antithesis" of the informative-flow perspective are "synthesized" into a "totality" reflecting the social reality of human systems. Using the Marxian base-superstructure distinction, one can conceptualize resources as the basic structure, constituting the necessary conditions for defining the nature of environment as part of reality. This structure reflects itself or is manifested in information that therefore constitutes the superstructure. In the literature of organizations and environments, these superstructural characteristics have been variously described as environmental "dimensions" (Aldrich, 1979) and environmental "determinants" (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). According to Aldrich, six dimensions have been identified by different investigators as describing the nature and the distribution of resources. First, environmental "capacity" (i.e., rich or lean) describes the degree of resource availability or scarcity (Aiken and Hage, 1968; Hannan and Freeman, 1977; Klir and Valach, 1967). Second, environmental

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''homogeneity-heterogeneity" describes the degree of similarity or differentiation between the elements of the population (Duncan, 1972; Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Thompson, 1967). Third, environmental stabilityinstability describes the degree of turnover in environmental elements (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Child 1972; Hage and Aiken, 1967; Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Stinchcombe, 1959). Fourth, environmental concentrationdispersion describes the pattern of resource distribution, which may vary from random distribution to high concentration. Fifth, domain consensusdissensus describes the degree to which an organization's claim to a specific domain is disputed or recognized by others (Levine and White, 1961). Finally, environmental turbulence describes the degree of tight-coupling and the increasing rate of causal interconnection within the environment. Turbulence thus refers to an increase in potential as well as actual linkages (Emery and Trist, 1965; Terreberry, 1968). Child (1972) identifies three types of environmental "determinants": variability, complexity, and illiberality. Environmental variability refers to the degree of change, which in turn is a function of three other variables, namely, the frequency of change, the degree of difference at each change, and the variability of change. Environmental complexity captures the notions of heterogeneity, dispersion, and turbulence. Environmental illiberality is similar to Aldrich's domain consensus-dissensus; it describes the degree of threat militating against goal attainment (Khandwalla, 1977). In developing a model of environmental variety, we build on the work of Aldrich (1979) and Child (1972), but with a perspective that emphasizes the "totality" of the organization-environment situation and the dialectical nature of the social phenomena involved. We define complexity as the causal and relational meaning of the environment; illiberality as the value meaning, and variability as the changes in complexity and illiberality through time. We conceive complexity and illiberality as the structural dimensions of environmental variety but that the dialectical relationship between them generates relentless pressures for change. Figure 9.7 illustrates these dialectics, showing that the interaction between complexity and illiberality generates through time a continuous movement or variability, which in turn feeds back to "restructure" the relationship between complexity and illiberality. It is variability that reflects the dynamic perspective of environmental variety. In terms of causal relations, the following may be suggested: 1. Complexity (COM) is a function of a. the number of distinct elements (ELM) in the environment, b. the degree of heterogeneity among the elements (HET), and

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fi

^

•


SUR

RES RED

OIS

VAL Key: ELM = Elements (Number and attributes) HET = Heterogeneity (Degree of) DEP = Interdependency (Degree of) COM = Complexity (Level of) NAT = Nature of change PAT = Pattern of change VAR = Variability (Rate of change) RES = Resource scarcity (Degree of) RED = Resource distribution (Pattern of) VAL = Value system (Degree of conflict) ILL = llliberality (Hostility) ENV = Environmental variety ORG = Organizational forces SUR = Survival (Organizational viability) OIS = Organizational information system FIGURE 9.8 A Model of Environmental Variety

incorporate an organization information system (OIS). This is a wider perspective not necessarily restricted to a "management information system." Figure 9.9 is an attempt to illustrate the dialectics and the continuous movement between complexity, llliberality, and variability.

Chapter 9

138 Number of elements and their attributes

Complexity

' Degree of heterogeneity

Degree of interdependency

. Nature of change —

•

Variability

Environmental variety

y\^

Pattern of change

Degree of resource scarcity

Pattern of resource distribution

Degree of conflict of values

llliberality

\

^ FIGURE 9.9 Environmental Variety and Its Determinants

The implication of the preceding discussion for a theory of socioeconomic control is, first, that the system and its environment must be viewed as a totality and the part-whole dialectic recognized. Second, a similar dialectical relationship between environmental resource and information must also be recognized. It is a false dichotomy to treat the environment either as a resource pool or as an information pool. One presupposes that "objective" knowledge is possible (i.e., that the problems of human perception and values can be assumed away in dealing with reality). The other assumes that the nature and the distribution of resources is nonproblematic, so long as requisite information can be obtained. We have argued that the nature of the environmental variety must form an important object of cybernetic inquiry. The dialectical models proposed here are an attempt to begin such an inquiry. The discussion in this section is intended to serve as a backdrop to Habermas's reference to biocybernetics and his elucidation of the concept of "system" in his two-level theory of society in terms of system and lifeworld (see Chapter 13). The next section takes a brief look at the concept of control from the perspective of organization theory.

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9.3 The Concept

of Control: An Organization-Theory

139

Viewpoint

In social science literature, the concept of control is as elusive as it is pervasive. But underlying the apparent maze of differing definitions and meanings, two sharply contrasting views can be identified: the "conflict view" and the "order view." It is the latter that is dominant in the management control literature. Flamholtz, Das, and Tsui (1985, p. 37) have noted that even a cursory review of the literature reveals that there are about as many definitions of control as there are theorists. They illustrate: The meanings range from choosing operating rules and enforcement rules to maximize the organization's objective function and verifying the conformity of actions to plans and directions to interpersonal influence activities. Some theorists equate control with structure, while others do not differentiate control and power or influence. Some view control as a function prior to action, and thus a guide to behaviour; others view it as a step to correct behaviours that deviate from plans or initial directions. Some include both ex ante and ex post efforts. Clearly, there is no consistent definition of the concept of corttrol, leading inevitably to divergent approaches to the study of it.

Otley and Berry (1980, p. 231) have similarly noted that "control" is a term with more different shades and nuances of meaning than almost any other in the English language, with Rathe (1960) listing 57 varieties of its connotations." They then identify two sharply contrasting views of control: (1) control as "dominance; the domination of one individual or group by another through the exercise of power" and (2) control as regulation and monitoring of activities. Beer (1967) identifies the same contrasting views of control: (1) control as coercion, a retributive and repressive sense, and (2) control as self-regulation. We may term the first view "the conflict view of control," and the second, "the order view of control" (pp. 21, 23). Both Beer and Otley and Berry consider the order view of control as the appropriate one for their study of control in human organizations. Otley and Berry (1980) state: "In this paper, the term 'control' will be used in its full cybernetic sense of both monitoring activities and then taking action in order to ensure that desired ends are attained" (p. 232). The predominance of the order view of control is evident in the management control literature. A few examples will suffice to show this "order" emphasis. Anthony (1965) defines management control as "the process by which managers assure that resources are obtained and used effectively and efficiently in the accomplishment of the organization's objectives" (p. 17). Lowe (1971, p. 5) defines a management control system as a system of organisational information seeking and gathering, accountability and feedback designed to ensure that the enterprise adapts to changes in its

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Chapter 9 substantive environment and that the work behaviour of its employees is measured by reference to a set of operational sub-goals (which conform with overall objectives) so that the discrepancy between the two can be reconciled and corrected for.

Lawler and Rhode (1976) see the purpose of control as influencing behavior and motivation. Scott (1981) observes: Much of what passes for organizational structure are varying types of mechanisms for controlling the behaviour of participants.... devices to help ensure that organizational managers can shape and influence the behaviour of other participants.... Indeed, a primary justification for the existence of managers is in terms of the impact of their ideas and decisions and designs and plans on the behaviour of other participants, (p. 254)

Flamholtz et al. (1985) define organizational control "as attempts by the organization to increase the probabihty that individuals and groups will behave in ways that lead to the attainment of organizational goals" (p. 36). Hofstede (1981) sees management control as "a pragmatic concern for results, obtained through people" (p. 193). Whereas the definitional area is rife with diversity, attempts at developing models of effective control have been more unified. Tocher (1970, 1976) has specified four necessary conditions for a precise control problem to exist: 1. There must be a specified set of times at which a choice of action is possible. 2. At each such time, there must be a specified set of actions from which to choose. 3. A model must exist that can predict the future history of the system under every possible choice. 4. There must be a criterion or objective on which the choice of action is based by comparison of predicted behavior of the system with the objective. Otley and Berry (1980) have developed a model of control in which Tocher's necessary conditions have been articulated, using Vickers's (1967) terminology. The control elements reflecting the four conditions become (1) a measurement system for knowing outcomes: this requires a reality judgment, (2) an objectives formulation system: this requires making value judgments, (3) a predictive model of the process being controlled, and (4) a system for generating and evaluating alternative courses of action for implementation. The resulting framework of objectives-predictive models-measures-choice of action can be used to evaluate different control approaches in terms of their effectiveness along each of the four dimensions. Flamholtz et al. (1985, p. 39) have developed a

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similar evaluative framework consisting of four core control elements: planning, measurement, feedback, and evaluation-reward. Hofstede (1981, pp. 196-198), on the other hand, has developed a framework that is not only evaluative, but also classificatory of different control approaches. He identifies six types of management control: routine control, expert control, trial-and-error control, intuitive control, judgment control, and political control. The six types fall into what he calls two broad models of control: (1) the cybernetic model-embracing routine, expert and trialand-error types, and (2) the noncybernetic models, embracing intuitive, judge-mental, and political types. Hofstede's classification is based on four criteria that define contingent factors for an effective control system. These are (1) the degree of ambiguity in the objectives, (2) the degree of measurability of outputs, (3) the degree of certainty regarding the effects of management interventions, and (4) the degree of repetitiveness of activities undertaken.

9.4 Social Contradictions and Conflicts: The Problem of Social Order All these conventional perspectives and models share a common concern in their view of social control: the problem of maintaining social order in the face of actual or potential conflicts and contradictions. Such perspectives take social order as given and natural, the problem of control reducing to one of containing conflicts whose origins remain unquestioned. It is in these Hobbesian terms that, for instance, the problem of social order has been defined as an abstract problem posed by the antisocial character of human nature (Parsons, 1937). A critical view, however, inverts this conservative formulation. The problem of order becomes not an abstract problem but a concrete historical problem whose terms are defined by the character of the society within which it arises, essentially a problem of resolving the conflicts to which that society gives rise (Clarke, 1982). Thus the problem of social order presupposes that conflict is an actual or potential problem, and so only arises within a theory that defines the problem of conflict. The overriding concern of regulative perspectives is with how conflict is contained and regulated, not why it occurs. But the existence of actual or potential conflict, without which there would be no problem of order, implies that the terms on which conflict is resolved and order reestablished cannot be taken as given, for the imposition of order must resolve that conflict on terms favorable to one or the other party. As a response to the problem of order, every theory of society

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defines its own problem of order, and critically, we must ask of that theory: For whom is order a problem? It is in terms of such an inversion of the conservative-order problematic that this chapter argues for a critical theory of social control from a social-order perspective. The critical stance taken is one that views human action and social life as constituting not a natural pregiven order but a particular order in society; and it is that particular (historical) social order that gives rise to conflicts, thereby making control imperative. It is one of the major arguments of this book that, under capitalist, social arrangements, there are no two contrasting forms of control, as was earlier claimed by a number of writers (e.g.. Beer, 1967; Berry and Otley, 1980). It is the dominative, coercive, retributive, and repressive form of control that is practiced in the name of regulation and monitoring of activities. Such a form of control must inevitably rely on domination for its continued success.

9.5 Connective

Summary

This chapter has focused on the concept of control in its negative, essentially coercive form. Chapters 10 through 12 develop this theme from two perspectives: that of the subjugators ("in control") and that of the subjugated ("under control"). Chapter 13 reflects on these discussions on the control problematic, but by inverting that problematic from one of resigned acceptance of the existing coercive social order to one of transformative action to redeem human freedom and collective autonomy. In the next chapter, the control phenomenon is discussed from the point of view of those "in control." The focus is on the fundamental philosophical assumptions and concerns that inform different types of problem-solving methodology under different problem situations. Every control decision, it can be argued, is explicitly or implicitly driven by a technical, practical, a n d / o r emancipatory interest. As such, without a critical understanding of the legitimacies and limitations of the presuppositions underlying these human interests, there cannot be a rationally and ethically justified basis for methodological choice in the interest of systems control. In essence. Chapter 10 is an essay on the structural aspects of social control from the perspective of those in control. It begins by observing that in social-systems science generally, and in management science particularly, recent developments in the variety of types of specific problemsolving methodologies (under the rubric of "hard" and "soft" systems approaches) have given an impetus to a line of inquiry, as well as debate

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on the nature of those methodologies. On the one hand, there has been the view that what we are witnessing is a form of "Kuhnian crisis." On the other hand, a complementarist view of developments has been argued and a contingency approach proposed. But one thing has been common among the competing views: a belief that the prospects for further advances in the design and application of those methodologies, and in resolving the current controversies, lie in serious attempts to reconsider and clarify the underlying metatheoretical assumptions and concerns. Thus, Chapter 10 is an attempt to contribute to such an endeavor. A brief exposition of three methodological foundations (namely, empiricism, hermeneutics, and critique) is made, not only with the purpose of highlighting the nature as well as the limits of their epistemological and ethical claims, but also as a basis for illuminating both the nature of contemporary work on systems inquiry, design, and problem solving and the ongoing debate on what constitutes appropriate criteria for choice of specific methodologies.

10 Control and Human Interests Methodological Foundations of Systems Methodologies 10.1

Introduction

For perhaps a number of ideologically compelling reasons, the social sciences sought, right from the outset, to develop in the image of the older, more established and "successful" natural sciences. To a very large extent, that image still remains the exemplar for the overwhelming majority of social scientists, who seem to see no problem between the nature of their objects of inquiry and that of the objects of the natural sciences. Even the (relatively) younger systems science (whose domain is unavoidably constituted primarily by social phenomena) did not succeed in escaping this temptation. But more recently (especially since the late 1970s and early 1980s), there has been a growing awareness of, and an open debate about the inadequacies or inappropriateness of the traditional hard systems thinking and its approaches to the study and design of social systems. Parallel with these debates, new systems "methodologies," predominantly at the practical level of real-world problem solving, have been rigorously developed. But the growing mood for methodological criticisms have not spared even these new directions in systems methods. One thing that seems needed in any serious attempt at clarifying issues of controversy in these debates is a return to the metatheoretical basic assumptions and concerns that underwrite different problem-solving and inquiry "methodologies" (as, e.g., in the debate between Jackson and Ackoff, Churchman and Checkland on the nature of soft systems thinking). It is the aim of this chapter to contribute to the elaboration of such metatheoretical assumptions and concerns. This chapter seeks to make a brief exposition of the methodological foundations that underwrite different approaches to inquiry and problem solving in the domain of social science. The aim of such an exposition is to 145

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highlight the nature and (especially) the limits of different methodological claims and aspirations in social theory. In the process, a rationale for a self-reflective choice of specific methodologies (or methods) of inquiry and problem solving should unfold. Following Jackson's (1982, 1985, 1987a), Jackson and Keys's (1984), Checkland's (1983,1985), and Banathy's (1984, 1986,1987) seminal works on (specific) methodological choice, this chapter also seeks to relate contemporary systems work on modes of inquiry and problem-solving approaches to their explicit or implicit methodological foundations. The chapter concludes by pointing to the need for a critical methodological foundation. Critique does not deny the legitimacy of the human interests underlying empiricist and hermeneutic methodological foundations. Rather, it attempts, in the context of contemporary social formations, to transcend their alterable, historical, and essentially ideological limitations. Section 2 of the chapter seeks to clarify the formal distinction between method and methodology, concepts that, even if employed interchangeably in current usage (as in present systems literature), should be differently understood according to context. It is in that context that whereas methodological foundations refer to methodology in general, or metatheoretical assumptions and concerns, systems methodologies (or, more properly, methods) refer to (logically) lower level modes of systems inquiry and problem-solving approaches. Section 3 is an attempt to elaborate on a metatheoretical framework for methodology in general (or methodological foundations), first in terms of a philosophy of science and a theory of society (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) and then in terms of Habermas's (1972) interest constitution theory. This is followed, in section 4, by a critical examination of empiricism, hermeneutics, and critique as three major methodological foundations corresponding to three forms of human interests: the technical, the practical, and the emancipatory interest. Section 5 relates the foregoing broad philosophical/sociological discussion to contemporary systems work on modes of inquiry and problem-solving approaches.

10.2 Method

or

Methodology?

Giddens (1976) has described how throughout the 19th and well into the 20th century, social science developed in the shadow of the triumphs of natural science, whose spectacular, dazzling, and convincing technological accomplishments drew the admiration of the " n e w " social science and kindled in its practitioners the dream of achieving "the same kind

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of sensational illumination and explanatory power already yielded by the sciences of nature" (p. 13). It was therefore only natural that the process of emulating the natural scientists' approach to the conduct of inquiry (the so-called "scientific method") should proceed with unquestioning and blind faith in its relevance and suitability for the study of human and social phenomena. Given the nature of the objects of study in the natural sciences, it is perhaps understandable that the basic ontological question regarding the essences of things and phenomena did not seem to arise. In the "scientific method" (however defined) an ontological unity was assumed in the sense that all objects in the universe, regardless of whether these were inert, living, conscious or rational beings, were taken to be of fundamentally and qualitatively the same kind. Thus the only meaningful questions of scientific inquiry centered on epistemology and methodology. And since the truth-value of any claims to knowledge ultimately depended on the validation process embodying a set of communally controlled, universal rules and impersonal procedures, those rules and procedures not only became identified with the "scientific method," but were also seen as exhausting the notion of methodology. A distinction between methodology and method can only be meaningful where no ontological unity is assumed, with the consequence that the validity of different modes of inquiry and problem-solving approaches (i.e., methods) need to be evaluated against a set of higher order criteria (i.e., methodology) that lie outside those methods. Despite the long-standing dominance of the "scientific method" in the social sciences, there has fortunately been a growing awareness that the social world is qualitatively different from the natural world, and in consequence that the methodological unity assumption cannot be tenable (also see Flood and Carson, 1988). It is this view that runs throughout the present chapter. From such an ontological position, methodology, as opposed to method, is viewed as representing a higher order construct, a method of methods that examines systematically and logically the aptness of all research tools, varying from basic assumptions to special research techniques. A similar distinction is evident in the Parsonian sense of the terms, in which methodology relates to the consideration of the general grounds for the validity of scientific procedures, whereas methods are best identified with research techniques employed in a particular research activity (e.g., case study, interview, questionnaire, statistical methods; see Gould and Kolb, 1964). The methodology of a science therefore represents its rationale for evaluating its theories or hypotheses (Christenson, 1983, p. 2). In a similar

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manner, the methodology of research provides the rationale for evaluating what it claims to be a research problem, its theoretical and observational propositions and the kinds of proposals it suggests or implies. In this sense, methodology is necessarily normative and for that reason, it is not surprising, as Christenson (1983) notes, that positivists hold it in low esteem, deriding it as "unscientific" and "meaningless." Quoting Popper (1959, p. 51), he adds. The positivist dislikes the idea that there should be meaningful problems outside the field of "positive" empirical science.... He dislikes the idea that there should be a genuine theory of knowledge, an epistemology or a methodology.

But such a positivist dogma, as Christenson argues, does not enable positivists to avoid methodological commitments: It only makes them uncritical and unreflective about the commitments they make. This may be characteristic of the more established natural sciences with a research tradition of demonstrated fruitfulness. But in social sciences, the need for being self-conscious about methodology seems to be crucial. Quoting Samuelson (1962, p. 21), Christenson adds: Paradoxically, the soft sciences that are still akin to an art benefit more from an explicit awareness of the canons of scienhfic method . .. than do the hard sciences, where doing what comes naturally will protect even a fool from gross methodological error.

The view of methodology as a metamethod seems to characterize the thinking of a number of recent writers on the problem of methodology in social science in general, and in systems science in particular. Viewing research as engagement, Morgan (1983) has, for instance, argued for an approach that sees the research process as involving choice between modes of engagement entailing different relationships between theory and method, concept and object, and researcher and researched, rather than simply a choice about method alone, (p. 18)

In those terms, a much broader and self-reflective stance is required. A knowledge of technique needs to be complemented by an appreciation of the nature of research as a distinctively human process through which researchers make knowledge. Such appreciation stands in contrast to the more common view of research as a neutral, technical process through which researchers simply reveal or discover knowledge. Such an appreciation requires that we reframe understanding and debate about research in a way that goes beyond considerations of method alone, (p. 7)

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Mattessich (1978, p. 229) has similarly drawn a useful distinction between methodology in general and special methodologies. The former refers to the "sum-total of all rational ways of pursuing knowledge" and can therefore be regarded as a branch of philosophy. Special methodologies on the other hand "emerge either out of the needs of specific disciplines or out of a specific attitude towards reality." In systems science, Banathy's classification of "systems methodology" into three categories (cf. Jackson, 1985) is highly illuminating. The classification represents a logical hierarchy, from practice, to theory, to metatheory levels of resolution. Whereas the practical level includes systems methods as approaches to real-world problem solving, the theoretical level includes system methods as miodes of inquiry for knowledge production. But it is the third, metatheoretical level that constitutes systems methodology (in the formal sense) as the foundation or basis for determining the metacharacteristics of problem-solving and inquiry methods. The next section elaborates a framework for such methodological foundations at the metatheoretical level.

103 A Framework

for Methodology

in

General

10.3.1 A Philosophy of Science and a Theory of Society In a volume describing 21 different approaches to social science research, Morgan (1983) has outlined a framework for analyzing their constitutive logic or strategies. Overarching any social research are the constitutive ontological assumptions regarding the researcher's view about the existential nature of the social world and human subjectivity. Such constitutive assumptions define the basic, underlying paradigm for a particular inquiry. Concretization of these foundational assumptions in terms of favored "metaphors" or images through which the assumptions become meaningful represents a particular epistemological stance, or a particular view of the possibility of knowledge about the social world. Thus, methodology or "puzzle-solving" represents a bridging activity that aims at forging a correspondence between paradigmatic ontological assumptions and the particular epistemological positions taken. In Morgan's (1983) framework, ontology is clearly prior to epistemology. Beyleveld (1975) has noted that substantively, the priority between ontology and epistemology may differ from what is posited in a formal structure. Morgan's framework is in terms of a one-dimensional characterization of the logic of research. This is the cognitive dimension that classifies research methodologies in terms of the subjective-objective dichot-

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omy (Burrell and Morgan, 1979: Morgan, 1980; Morgan and Smircich, 1980). A second dimension, the ethical dimension, brings to the fore the "order-conflict" or "regulation-radical change" dichotomy as an issue separate from the subjective-objective dichotomy (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Cohen, 1968; Dahrendorf, 1967; Lockwood, 1956). It is in terms of such a two-dimensional perspective that Burrell and Morgan (1979) present a general framework for the analysis of social theory. Figure 10.1 illustrates the framework and its classification of social theories into four paradigms: the "functionalist," "interpretive," "radical humanist," and "radical structuralist." The framework reflects the basic philosophical presuppositions or metatheoretical assumptions underlying scientific inquiry. First, it reflects a philosophy of science in terms of four basic assumptions related to ontology, epistemology, human nature, and methodology, all along a subjective-objective dimension. Second, it reflects a theory of society in terms of regulation-radical change dimension. Each of the four resulting paradigms generates theories, perspectives, and methodological approaches that are in fundamental opposition to those generated in the other paradigms. Briefly, the functionalist paradigm is characterized by an objectivist (realist, positivist, determinist, and nomothetic) ontological and epistemological stance, and a regulative ethical commitment that is concerned with

The sociology of radical change

^>

Radical humanist

o

O 0)

75'

a < •

CO

1^^

Functionalist

The sociology of regulation FIGURE 10.1 Four Paradigms for the Analysis of Social Theory (Adapted from Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 22)

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providing explanations of the status quo, social order, consensus, social integration, solidarity, need satisfaction, and actuality (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 26). The interpretive paradigm, while sharing regulative ethical commitment with the functionalist paradigm, counterpoises to it a subjectivist (nominalist, antipositivist, voluntarist, and ideographic) ontological and epistemological position, with an overriding concern for understanding the social world at the level of subjective experience and seeking "explanation within the realm of individual consciousness and subjectivity" (p. 28). Whereas the functionalist and interpretive paradigms share a common regulative ethical concern, the radical humanist and the radical structuralist paradigms counterpoise an ethical commitment geared to seeking explanations for the radical change, deep-seated structural conflict, modes of domination and alienation, and structural contradictions characterizing modern society. Like the interpretive paradigm, the radical humanist paradigm is subjectivist, but it is committed to a critique of the status quo, seeking at the level of consciousness explanation for radical change, alienation, false consciousness, modes of domination, emancipation, deprivation, and potentiality (p. 32). The radical structuralist paradigm, on the other hand, is objectivist but also committed to a critique of the status quo, a critique that emphasizes structural bases of conflict, contradiction, modes of domination, deprivation, radical change, emancipation, and potentiality (p. 34). 10.3.2 Hahermas's Interest Constitution Theory Laughlin, Lowe, Puxty, and Chua (1981), and Chua, Laughlin, Lowe, and Puxty (1981) have sought to critique and extend the Burrell and Morgan (1979) framework by incorporating Habermas's (1972, 1974) interest constitution theory in terms of which the concerns of social theories are seen as reflecting either a technical interest for prediction and control (man-nature interaction), or a practical interest for understanding (human communicative interaction) or an emancipatory interest (social relations of power, domination, and alienation). The technical interest constitutes empirical knowledge and parallels Burrell and Morgan's functionalist paradigm. The practical interest constitutes historical-hermeneutical knowledge paralleling the interpretive paradigm. The emancipatory interest constitutes critical knowledge paralleling radical humanist and structuralist paradigms. These basic ideas in Habermas's interest constitution theory are summarized in Table 10.1. Laughlin et al. (1981) and Chua et al. (1981) argue that the two schemes are parallel but fundamentally different in that, whereas Burrell

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TABLE 10.1 Hahermas's Interest Constitution Theory Knowledge constitutive interest

Basis of human Interest

Type of interaction

Underlying paradigm

Methodological approach

Technical (control)

Labor (instrumental action)

Man-nature

Functionalist

Empiricism

Practical (understanding)

Communicative interaction

Man-man

Interpretive

Hermeneutics

Emancipatory (freedom)

Authority (power)

Man-self

Radical/ critical

Critique

Source: Adapted from Puxty et al., 1980; Giddens, 1977.

and Morgan merely explain the different paradigmatic categories, Habermas explains and reconciles the interest categories in terms of their being individually necessary (though insufficient) as human speciesuniversal and invariant (ontological) forms of activity, namely labor, human interaction, and authority relations (Giddens, 1977; Habermas, 1972, 1974; Keat, 1981; Puxty, Soo, Lowe, and Laughlin, 1980). This is an important improvement over the interparadigmatic incommensurability position of Burrell and Morgan (cf. Beyleveld, 1975). The three different kinds of knowledge imply different methodological approaches, namely empiricist, hermeneutic, and critical methodologies. It is these methodologies that constitute metatheoretical foundations for lower order methods in the form of modes of inquiry and problemsolving approaches. The next section is a brief attempt to elaborate on the three methodologies: empiricism (in terms of its positivist and structuralist variants), hermeneutics (in terms of its naturalistic and historical variants), and critique (or critical hermeneutics).

lOA Three Methodological

Foundations

In attempting to highlight the three methodological foundations that underwrite different modes of inquiry and practice, a focus on two issues will be made: their underlying interests, and hence their claims about what counts as scientific (valid) knowledge, and the difficulties or limitations they face in those claims. It is upon a critical reflection of such claims and limitations that a rational choice of a particular methodology in general and of specific systems methodologies in particular can be made.

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10.4.1 Empiricism Underwritten by a functionalist paradigm, the empiricist methodology takes the external social world as made up of hard, relatively immutable social structures or immutable, deep-level generative mechanisms, whose existence is essentially independent of individual consciousness. Epistemologically, whereas the positivist position conceives of scientific knowledge as constituted solely by empirical knowledge grounded in the explanation and prediction of observable phenomena, the structuralist position considers empirical knowledge as only a special case of a wider knowledge domain comprising the empirical (observed events), the actual (observed and unobserved events), and the real (actual and potential occurrences; Bhaskar, 1979). Objective knowledge is thus defined in terms of theory neutrality (observer independence) and value freedom (ethical neutrality), and thus methodology reduces to merely a question of the appropriate method of validation (e.g., verification or falsification), which is seen to guarantee undistorted access to the objective phenomena under study. The overriding concern is order and regulation of social affairs in the interest of maintaining the status quo. Given that positivism is the most powerful and influential variant of empiricism (cf. Beyleveld, 1975), its further elaboration seems warranted. Positivism is not a unified epistemological/methodological position (Beyleveld, 1975; Christenson, 1983; Keat, 1981). Keat has identified at least four distinct claims or doctrines that have quite complex logical and historical relationships to one another. These are "scientism," "the positivist conception of science," "scientific politics," and "value-freedom." Briefly, scientism, a doctrine most closely associated with "logical positivism" of the Vienna Circle, is the claim that science alone represents a genuine form of human knowledge, such that nonscience (e.g., religion, metaphysics, ideology, politics, ethics, etc.) represents pseudoknowledge or even cognitive meaninglessness or nonsense (Keat, 1981, p. 16). Habermas (1972, p. 4) describes scientism as "science's belief in itself: that is, the conviction that we can no longer understand science as one form of possible knowledge but rather must identify knowledge with science." Thus, although a "logical positivist" himself. Popper (1969) rejects this doctrine, arguing that although science could be distinguished from nonscience, that did not imply an equivalent distinction between sense and nonsense. More generally, as Keat points out, scientism has been criticized for being self-refuting, because it is itself a philosophical, epistemological doctrine, and not, by its own criteria, a scientific one. The second doctrine, the positivist conception of science, specifies what constitutes scientific knowledge: the explanation and prediction of observable phenomena through the demonstration that such phenomena

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constitute instances of universal laws that remain invariant in all regions of space and time. This doctrine restricts scientific ontology to the domain of what is observable. Within this doctrine, it is possible to distinguish "realist" from "instrumentalist" positions (Keat, 1981, p. 19). Realism holds science as providing statements about some "theory-neutral" real world and adopts a correspondence theory of truth. Instrumentalism, on the other hand, regards science as a device or instrument that is useful for certain purposes such as technical control or prediction (cf. Friedman, 1953). In this case, the idea of truth is either rejected or pragmatically defined. Scientific politics is the doctrine that advocates treatment of politics as an applied science (such as engineering or medicine). Fay (1975, pp. 22-23) explains: If politics were to become an applied science, it is argued, its conjectural, arbitrary, emotional, and personal elements would drop out, and its arguments and decisions would assume the same neutral characteristics as those of engineering. In political arguments there would be, as there are in scientific arguments, reliable public standards of ascertainable truth, and therefore the possibility of a universally recognizable decisive solution to a particular problem. It is in this way that a social science would be able to eliminate the ''anarchy of opinion" which characterizes political thinking.

Whereas scientific politics seeks to "scientize" ends, the doctrine of value freedom opposes this, seeking instead a sharp distinction between means and ends, fact and value, science and politics. Keat (1981) explains how this separation involves two dimensions. First, the truth or falsity of a theory is independent of moral or political commitments or standpoints. Second, political issues or moral judgments cannot be solely justified by means of scientific knowledge. It should already be evident that the relationships between the four major positivist doctrines are complex, and that some are even contradictory. This has, according to Keat (1981), caused confusion and misunderstanding among critics of positivism. For instance, failure to distinguish between the doctrine of value freedom and the doctrine of scientific politics lies at the root of critical theorists' (cf. Habermas, 1976a, 1976b; Horkheimer, 1972; Marcuse, 1968) mistaken criticism of Weber's (1949) methodological writings as representing both doctrines. Indeed, Keat (1981, p. 21) argues and demonstrates that, on the whole, the logical relationships between the four positivist doctrines show that the doctrines do not necessarily entail each other, and that as a result of failure to understand this, [TJhere has too often been a frontal assault on a loosely defined, undifferentiated target called "positivism," or at least an assumption that, by successfully

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criticising one positivist doctrine, the others are thereby shown to fail also, (p. 36)

Although this may very well be so, it is nonetheless possible to point to certain difficulties in positivism without necessarily implying that it is a unified epistemological/methodological position. For our limited purpose, these difficulties are in relation to the possibility of a positivist methodology for social sciences. The fundamental difficulty in positivism is what Habermas (1972) calls its "false objectivism." The doctrines of value freedom and positivist conception of science jointly entail the notion of objectivism and objective knowledge, notions that have been central to the positivist idea of science and scientific knowledge. Objectivism implies two related beliefs: first, that the objects of scientific knowledge exist independently of the epistemological framework on the basis of which they are investigated (i.e., theory-neutrality (TN) belief); and second, that such knowledge is value-free, meaning that the validation of its claims is independent of the acceptance of normative standpoints (i.e., value-freedom (VF) belief; Keat, 1981). Objectivism as a product of TN and VF beliefs can thus be seen to guarantee two important requirements for a science (conceived positivistically): the need for a consensus of interpretations among its practitioners, and the demand that the knowledge be given a basis in certainty (Bauman, 1978). Historical hermeneutics addresses these difficulties. 10A.2 Hermeneutics Within the hermeneutic or interpretive methodology, there exist two variants: the "naturalistic" methodology, also known as "hermeneutics as method"; and the historical-hermeneutic methodology. Whereas both represent a distinct ontological break with the empiricist methodology from a natural world of hard, observable, or real objects to a social world of subjective meaning and intention, the first variant, by maintaining objectivist aspirations in the production of knowledge, retains an epistemological unity with empiricism. The naturalistic methodology includes a number of distinct interpretive approaches. Briefly, phenomenological symbolic interactionism seeks to explain how social order, as a real phenomenon, emerges through social action and interaction processes, from which shared meanings in turn emerge. It therefore seeks to understand how particular definitions and interpretations of the social world for ordered joint action are created and sustained within wider social contexts in which interacting individuals use a variety of practices and resources (Blumer, 1969; Denzin, 1971). Ethnomethodology, on the other hand, seeks to explain how actors employ

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various cognitive resources to order and make sense of their everyday activities and make those activities accountable to others. Order, therefore, does not exist independently of actors' accounting practices, but must depend for its reproduction on actors' capacity to sustain the everyday commonsense suppositions, shared indexical expressions, and reflective activities that characterize the routines of everyday life, all accomplished as if the social world were objective and factual (Garfinkel, 1967; Zimmerman and Wieder, 1970). Existentialism is preoccupied with a concern for the central lived qualities of individual human existence. Existential phenomenology seeks to understand the "lifeworld" from the point of view of those involved, using constructs and explanations that are intelligible in terms of the commonsense interpretations of everyday life. The focus is on processes of "typification" through which intersubjective understanding becomes possible (Schutz, 1967). Transcendental phenomenology seeks to produce a form of knowledge free from all presuppositions. This "projection of human imagination" requires silencing experience provisionally, or "bracketing" factual reality, and seeking to penetrate to the level of "ideal essences," "the reality in consciousness" (cf. Burrell and Morgan, 1979). Although objectivist, the naturalistic methodology nevertheless takes the view that social reality is distinctive in character. Thus, because social phenomena are ultimately acts of men and women and therefore contain a meaningful component that is missing from natural phenomena, they require a mode of analysis different from that of mere explanation. Social science therefore requires an interpretative approach, the analysis of verstehen as the method appropriate to "re-experiencing or rethinking of what an author had originally felt or thought" (Bleicher, 1980, p. 1). It thus seeks "the retrieval of purpose, of intention, of the unique configuration of thoughts and feelings which preceded a social phenomenon and found its only manifestation, imperfect and incomplete, in the observable consequences of action" (Bauman, 1978, p. 12). Hermeneutics as method is represented especially in the works of Weber (1949), Dilthey (1976), and Betti (1955, 1962). Both Dilthey and Weber were concerned to bridge the gulf between idealism (emphasizing subjectivism) and positivism (emphasizing objectivism) so that the cultural (social) sciences could secure a firm knowledge foundation in terms of "objective" validity. As Burrell and Morgan (1979) observe, Weber's overriding concern was to provide causal explanations of social phenomena through the development of an objective science of sociology, which had to be "adequate at the level of meaning." Weber's notion of verstehen was little more than a tool for overcoming the empiricist deficiencies of ignoring the subjective meaning of social action. Similarly, Dilthey's con-

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cern was "methodical," devising ways or methods of generating objective knowledge capable of meeting the requirements of positivist science (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 256), while giving full recognition to the distinctive subject-object relationship where "life meets life" (Bleicher, 1980). Betti (1955, 1962) developed these objective-idealist approaches further by arguing for "the possibility of verstehen as a methodically disciplined form of understanding" (Bleicher, 1980, p. 27). Betti's general theory of objective interpretation is geared toward facilitating the reappropriation of objective mind (meaning-full forms) by another mind. Historical hermeneutics or hermeneutic philosophy as developed by Heidegger (1962,1966) and Gadamer (1975a, 1975b, 1980) is a rejection of objectivism in both empiricism and hermeneutics as method. As Bleicher (1980) elaborates, hermeneutic philosophy sees the interpreter and object as linked by a context of tradition. This means that as h e / s h e approaches his/her object, the interpreter already has a preunderstanding of it, thereby being unable to start with a neutral mind. There can be no objectin-itself, or any factum bructum. The mere recognition of a fact is theoryimpregnated and guided by a number of anticipations (Bleicher, 1980, p. 102). Thus, meaning becomes not a property of entities but another "existentiale." Understanding is not the result of interpretation, in the sense of appropriation of meaning intended by another. Historical hermeneutics inverts this process: Understanding leads to interpretation, the latter merely representing the working out of possibilities already projected in understanding. In hermeneutics as method, the issue regarding the possibility of understanding in general is seen in terms of the "hermeneutical circle," "the movement of understanding from the whole to the part and back to the whole . . . (in order) to extend the unity of the understood meaning in concentric circles" (Bleicher, 1980, p. 78). The aim here is to avoid possible misunderstanding arising from the historicity (or historical situatedness) of the interpreter. Historical reality is seen in terms of unitary, discreet epochs, each with its own tradition or prejudices that constitute a closed "horizon" of understanding. The task of interpretation becomes the re-creation of the past in order to arrive at objective knowledge. By contrast, in historical hermeneutics, the hermeneutic circle is regarded as an existential circle or ontological moment of understanding, which proceeds from a commonality that unites us with tradition. Thus, rather than regard the preunderstanding of an object of interpretation as a blemish and the resulting circularity as an inevitable but vicious circle that should be avoided, historical hermeneutics views the hermeneutic circle as a necessary expression of the dialogical process of understanding. Historical reality is characterized by openness of tradition. Through a

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process of dialogical relationship between the subject and object (text) and the dialectic between question and answer, the corresponding traditions become integrated. Such a "fusion of horizons" leads not to re-creation of the past, but to "a dialogical understanding that transcends both traditions." Gadamer's notion of "effective-history" reflects this "on-going mediation of past and present, which encompasses subject and object and in which tradition asserts itself as a continuing impulse and influence" (Bleicher, 1980, p. 266). Positivism, in its objectivist reliance on methods of interpretation, ignores the force of effective-history, but "only that it will not go away as a result but makes itself felt 'behind the back' of the naive observer" (Bleicher, 1980, p. 111). Historical hermeneutics therefore demands awareness of effective-history, of hermeneutic situation, and that hermeneutic consciousness and experience can never be complete, being limited by our historicality. The fusion of horizons also implies that hermeneutic experience is neither monological nor dialectical (in the Hegelian sense) but discursive or "dialogical." It is in this sense that language as the necessary medium for the fusion of horizons becomes ontologized by Gadamer in his theory of the universality of language. Thus dialogical understanding that emerges from the fusion of horizons represents the full realization of a conversation, the outcome of which is not only the interpreter's, or the author's, but common to both. The significance of language or communicative interaction is thus central to historical hermeneutics. In addition, dialogical understanding becomes a necessary methodological feature, because the way in which the object of inquiry (an objectivated mind) conceives of its own activities is itself a central part of social reality. Historical hermeneutics thus rejects the ontological, the epistemological, and the methodological unity of the sciences (Keat, 1981). Historical hermeneutics therefore constitute a fundamental critique of the possibility of objective knowledge, the central claim of empiricism and of the naturalistic methodology, both concerned with methodical procedures to derive truth as the correspondence between fact and proposition, based on the doctrines of theory neutrality and value freedom. Historical hermeneutics' notions of existential/ontological circle, and hence the universality of hermeneutic experience and practical knowledge, show the falsity of objectivist claims. In other words, if the subjectivity of the interpreter (social scientist) through the hermeneutic circle or the ontological-epistemological circle (Beyleveld, 1975, p. 211) is inherent in any interpretive activity because of the claim that there can be no direct perception of objects without presuppositions (preunderstanding, prejudices, etc.), objective knowledge is unattainable.

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However, historical hermeneutics is in turn confronted with a formidable difficulty: its naturalization of tradition, authority, and language, thereby implying distortion-free communication situations. Critique addresses this difficulty. 10A.3 Critique Critique (or critical hermeneutics) as developed, for instance, in the works of Apel (1967, 1971, 1980), Habermas (1970a, 1970b, 1971b, 1972, 1974, 1979b; cf. Bleicher, 1980), is an attempt to mediate the objectivity of historical processes with the motives of those acting within it, the aim being the freeing of emancipatory potential. The approach seeks to remove barriers to understanding that may be operative without the individuals or groups concerned being aware of them. Bleicher (1980, pp. 148-151) describes this approach as a dialectical mediation of hermeneutic and explanatory approaches in the form of a critique of ideology. The methodological approach is based on a model of psychoanalysis, whereby a neurotic patient is helped to overcome h i s / her symptomatic behavior through the combined use of "causal explanation and deepened self-understanding." The task is therefore directed at rendering individual and social processes transparent to the actors concerned so that they can "pursue their further development with consciousness and will—rather than remaining the end product of a causal chain operative behind their backs." By incorporating both the explanatory and interpretive tasks, critique articulates the critical concerns of both radical humanist and radical structuralist paradigms. Communicative distortions, false consciousness, and other ideological distortions are placed in the wider political, social-structural, and material conditions of existence. I now briefly highlight, from the viewpoint of critical hermeneutics, some of the difficulties positivist and hermeneutical methodologies face in their conceptions of social theory. Starting with positivism, we have already seen the problem with its doctrine of scientism. We have also seen a historical hermeneutical critique of its objectivism, which is central to its doctrines of value freedom and positivist conception of science. Habermas (1972) has criticized the doctrine of value freedom through his theory of knowledge-constitutive interests. Empirical-analytic sciences are constituted by, and hence presuppose, the "technical" interest, which aims at the instrumental control of natural and social processes and which therefore cannot be considered ethically neutral. More generally, positivism's objectivism, by implying that empirical knowledge is objective, neutral, and rational, misrepresents and mystifies socially created.

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historically specific phenomena as natural, eternal, and unalterable. Critical theory and historical materialism see these features of positivism as contributing to a false conception of a false reality and therefore working to conceal, if not reinforce, the dominative, repressive, and exploitative nature of a historical system, such as capitalism. In a similar vein, critique finds the concerns of historical hermeneutics uncritical of the content of its object of inquiry. Gadamer's (1975b, 1980) ontologization of language, and naturalization of tradition and authority, both serve to legitimate the critical components in the understanding of meaning, thereby concealing or mystifying structural features of social control, domination, and power asymmetry (Habermas, 1970a). Thus, (T)radition, as a context that includes the system of work and domination, enables as well as restricts the parameters within which we define our needs and interact in order to satisfy them. That socio-historical processes should occur over the heads and even behind the backs of those carrying them, who may systematically be unable to give an accurate account of their individual actions and the motivations underlying them, points to an approach to social phenomena which transcends the scope of merely meaning-interpretative investigations. (Bleicher, 1980, p. 156)

The critique of historical hermeneutics points to its exclusive concern with the self-understanding of social agents. By excluding any consideration of the possibility of self-misunderstanding, ideology, and domination, it legitimates the status quo and precludes the possibility of critical selfreflection. Thus critique presupposes criteria for distinguishing truth from falsity, without which the very notion of ideology becomes meaningless and at least two types of pernicious consequences follow: (F)irst, we can no longer hope for a critical understanding of our interests since we lose the ability to distinguish true interests . . . from expressed preferences. Second, in the absence of such distinctions, prevailing power relations become the ultimate arbiters of interests. (Habermas, 1976b)

A critical theory sees ideology as acting to conceal the essential aspects of a sociopolitical reality, such concealment not being accidental (in the sense of errors) but relating systematically to some set of social, psychological, and cognitive interests within a determinate historical context. Hence, because ideologies relate systematically to interests and historical realities, they can be criticized so as to provide knowledge about those interests and realities. This implies that it is possible and necessary to develop a defensible theory of truth that underwrites both explanation and evaluation of ideologies, as in Freud's "id-ego-superego" construct or in Marx's concept

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of "mode of production." Related to this is the view that a theory of truth must somehow provide a conception of reason and rational action, in terms of which certain forms of consciousness can be said to be ideological and judged to be irrational. But this implication poses a serious difficulty to critique in terms of the problem of truth-claim validation: the problem of how to provide standards that the critique of ideology can refer to in order to legitimize its procedure and justify its claims (Bleicher, 1980). Because critique seeks the true meaning of an ideology in relation to a historical context, it lacks the grounds on which to assert a priori criteria of its own truth. It must consider its own truth, in the same way as the inverted truth of ideology, as historically conditioned. The way out of this difficulty is that because critique cannot develop formal, a priori criteria of what counts as ideology, the strength of a critical theory lies not in a body of theoretical statements from which empirical states of affairs might be inferred, but in a theory-dependent method that guides research into the meaning of a form of consciousness by relating it to its context of interests and realities, (Warren, 1984, p. 542)

and the philosophical implications are that in order that critical theory not undermine its own claim to a relative rationality, it must criticise a form of consciousness 'Immanently." That is, criticism gains its right to impute ideological meanings to a text insofar as the text is irrational with regard to its own criteria of adequacy, (p. 542)

The implication in programmatic terms for theory and practice is that three functions are necessary for critique (Habermas, 1974): first, the formulation and exposition of critical theories (like Marx's historical materialism and Habermas's theory of communicative competence); second, the validation of critical theory through processes of critical self-reflection by those (targeted) social actors in need of enlightenment (e.g., using models based on psychoanalysis); and third, the selection of appropriate strategies aimed ultimately at the progressive realization of universal enlightenment and emancipation (cf. Jackson, 1985).

10.5 Systems

Methodologies

In this section, the nature of systems methodologies is first summarized in relation to their methodological foundations. Criteria for choice of specific systems methodologies are next discussed in terms of Jackson

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and Keys's (1984) and Banathy's (1987) formulations. The section concludes with a cautionary note in the interest of those who might forget the very contingent nature of some of the methodological implications arising from those formulations and recommendations. 10.5.1 The Nature of Systems Methodologies In a comprehensive and critical analysis of systems methodological approaches, Jackson (1982, 1985, 1987a) and Jackson and Keys (1984) have recently classified those methodologies within the Habermasian framework. Briefly, the functionalist paradigm and its empiricist methodology underwrite the "hard" systems methodologies, which include (1) the positivist approaches: classical operations research, systems engineering, and systems analysis (e.g.. Hall, 1962; Jenkins, 1972) and (2) the structuralist approaches: organizational cybernetics, general systems theory, sociotechnical systems, and modern contingency theory (e.g.. Beer, 1979,1981; Miller, 1978). The interpretive paradigm and its hermeneutic methodology underwrite the "soft" systems methodologies, which include Churchman's (1971,1979) dialectical inquiring systems approach and its development into strategic assumption surfacing and testing approaches, Ackoff's (1981a) interactive planning, and Checkland's (1981) soft systems methodology. Unfortunately, the radical/critical methodologies have not as yet significantly broken into the intellectual market of systems thinking to establish a distinctive and recognized approach. There are however three parallel developments taking place: first, the emergence of a few writers critical of the present conservative orthodoxy of both hard and soft systems approaches, and second, the emergence of a small but growing number of voices explicitly "crusading" for critical systems thinking. Examples of both developments include, for instance, the works of Bryer (1979), Hales (1974), Jackson (1982,1985,1987a), Jackson and Keys (1984), Mingers (1980), Oliga (1986a, 1986b, 1986c, 1987a, 1987b,), Rosenhead (1982), Rosenhead and Thunhurst (1982), Spear (1987), Thomas (1980), Thomas and Lockett (1979), Tinker and Lowe (1984), Whitley (1974), Wood and Kelly (1978), and the critical papers presented at the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting conferences held at the University of Manchester in 1985,1988,1991, and 1994. The third and perhaps more significant development relates to the emergence of actual attempts to apply critical theory to real-world situations, such as involvement with work on social movements (Melucci, 1985; Touraine, 1981), the Open University's Co-operative Research Unit's involvement with work on worker cooperative organizations and democratic social management (Spear, 1987), the establishment of a Centre for Community (Operational) Research at

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the Department of Management Systems and Sciences, University of Hull (Jackson, 1987c). In the foregoing classification, the soft systems methodologies have been shown to be underwritten by the interpretive methodological foundations, but without making the very important distinction between the "naturalistic" methodology and the historical hermeneutic methodology. If we turn to Jayaratna's (1986) analysis in his NIMSAD framework, soft systems methodologies appear to involve, at almost every stage of analysis the joint participation and dialogical processes of understanding between analyst and client. This would point to a historical hermeneutic foundation. However, there are certain features of soft-systems thinking that are equally compelling in seeing them as essentially informed by the assumptions and concerns of the naturalistic (interpretive) methodology. The processes of understanding and interpretation seem to be seen as activities essentially directed at recovering and reconciling the clients' multiple diverse and conflicting values, perceptions, and definitions of systems problems or "messes." Thus, as Jackson (1985) notes. Churchman, Ackoff, and Checkland all pursue a validation approach for their methods on the basis of "respect for the point of view and aims of all the stakeholders affected by the intervention." No social systems change can be justified except through the process of "open debate in which concerned actors achieve a consensus about the nature of their objectives and the changes they wish to bring about in the social system." Thus, as Jackson elaborates, Ackoff considers a researcher rational if his models bring about improvements in the clients' performance, but "by their own criteria." Checkland's methodology requires that improvements emerge in terms of feasible and desirable changes as perceived "by those involved in the problem-situation." And Churchman advocates the need for the analyst to respect different points of view concerning goals to be attained; seeing the world "through the eyes of another" marks the start of a systems approach. Implicit in all these views is the naturalistic assumption that the possibility of an independent observer (analyst) arriving at "objective" knowledge of his/her clients' weltanschauungen or "appreciative systems" is largely unproblematic. It is that possibility that historical hermeneutics denies. 10.5.2 Choice of Systems Methodologies Although the methodological domain of critique, and arguably of historical hermeneutics, remains at present largely barren in systems science in general, and in management science in particular, those of empiricism

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and naturalistic hermeneutics have since the 1970s witnessed a vigorous development in the variety of types of specific methodologies. The need to understand the nature of this development has prompted a number of competing interpretations. Was it, as Dando and Bennet (1981) argue, a sign of competing "paradigms" and hence the making of a "Kuhnian crisis"? Or was it, as Checkland (1983, 1985) and Jackson (1987a) have more persuasively argued, more a sign of increasing competence and effectiveness in dealing with different concerns of management science and problem situations? In this sense, whereas soft systems methodologies take as central the problem of resolving conflicting weltanschauungen in the interest of achieving a consensus over objectives, the hard systems methodologies presuppose the successful "dissolution" of that problem. As such, hard systems thinking reduces to a special case of the soft systems thinking, appropriate only in those problem situations in which the presumption of consensus is unquestionable. It is this complementarist rather than substitutionist or isolationist view of diverse systems methodologies that has provided a point of departure for the current systems work, as well as debate on what criteria might guide methodological choice. In discussing the choice of such criteria, it becomes understandable that the current work in that area, especially that of Banathy (1987) and Jackson and Keys (1984), should take a contingency approach. In the case of Banathy, the appropriateness of a particular methodology (or its "goodness of fit") is posited as being dependent on four dimensions of the (design) inquiry: the system type, the nature of the design inquiry, the characteristics of the design-problem situation, and the functional context of the design situation. Of these dimensions, the system type is perhaps the most important. On the basis of four continua (closed versus open, mechanistic versus systemic, unitary versus pluralist, and restricted versus complex), Banathy constructs a model that displays five major system types: rigidly controlled (at one end of all the continua), deterministic, purposive, heuristic, and purpose-seeking (at the other extreme). Corresponding to each system type are specific system methodologies that are judged to display the best fit (see Table 10.2). Jackson and Keys, however, predicate the appropriateness of different methodologies not on system types as such, but on the nature of different problem contexts. As we shall see later, there is an important difference between the two criteria of methodological choice. On the basis of differences between types of systems (mechanical versus systemic) and (perhaps more crucially) the nature of the relationship between participants (unitary, pluralist, or coercive), Jackson and Keys identify six categories of problem contexts: mechanical-unitary, systemic-unitary, mechanicalpluralist, systemic-pluralist, mechanical-coercive, and systemic-

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TABLE 10.2 Problem-Contexts and Systems Methodologies System type Participants' relationship

Mechanical

Systemic

Coercive

Mechanical-coercive Methodologies: yet to emerge

Systemic-coercive Methodologies: yet to emerge

Pluralist

Mechanical-pluralist (Heuristic)

Systemic-pluralist (Purpose-seeking)

Methodology 1. Dialectical inquiring systems (e.g.. Strategic Assumptions Surfacing and Testing [SAST]) 2. (Double-loop orgcinizational learning)

Methodologies 1. Interactive planning 2. Checkland's soft systems methodology

Mechanical-unitary (Rigidly controlled) (Deterministic)

Systemic-unitary (Purposive)

Unitary

Methodologies 1. Classical OR 2. Systems engineering 3. Systems analysis 4. (Living systems process analysis) 5. (Management cybernetics)

Methodologies 1. Organizational cybernetics 2. Sociotechnical systems thinking 3. General systems theory 4. Modem contingency theory 5. (Living system process analysis) 6. (System design)

Source: Oliga (1988).

coercive. The six problem contexts imply the need for six types of problemsolving methodology, as summarized in Table 10.2, in which an attempt has been made to superimpose Banathy's schema on that of Jackson and Keys. As earlier discussed, the emerging picture is that of the glaring poverty of systems thinking in critical methodological terms. 10.5.3 Methodological Choice: A Cautionary Comment The contingency approach used by both Jackson and Keys (1984) and Banathy (1987) in developing their criteria for methodological choice is highly persuasive. But there is a danger in, for instance, beginning to take Banathy's system types as structurally given, as entities that have an existence and meaning independent of those concerned with solving the problem at hand. Indeed, this impression is likely to be gained from, for

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instance, Banathy's examples of system types: Are problems of government bureaucracies, small business, and industry typically deterministic in nature? Is it the system type as such, or the nature of the problematic issues that is of crucial importance? It is in that sense that the Jackson and Keys' choice criteria, which focus on problem contexts rather than system types, are less likely to lead to similar dangers. They emphasize that problem contexts are formed from the perceptions and interactions of participants, both actors inside the system and relevant observers outside. Problem contexts are not objective features of the real world (Jackson, 1987a). As such, an overreliance on the analyst's own definition and construction of a model of the problematic situation may be questionable. The comments so far have focused on the nature of the contingent or explanatory variables. Further issues of interest might be concerned with, for instance, the clarity with which those variables or dimensions have been defined. Flood and Carson (1988) and Ellis and Flood (1987) have, for instance, noted that the perception of a traditional management scientist may be that he was working, not in a "machine age," but in a "systems age." Also there is the possibility that there may exist reciprocal interdependences among contingent dimensions, thus rendering the influence of a specified dimension on the appropriateness of a particular systems methodology difficult to understand. As Flood and co-workers argue, this is the context in which the soft systems thinkers might question the validity of a problem-context contingency, with its implied idea of "structured" problem situations. Even the die-hard structuralist proponents (hard system thinkers) might find great difficulty in discriminating between different problem contexts. It is not within the scope of this chapter to debate further these issues. However, at a more general level, the contingency framework, although very valuable, also needs to be treated with care. Contingency formulations tend to focus almost exclusively on the contingent relationships, taking, by default, the variables (or dimensions) themselves as unproblematic, in the sense of not questioning how they arose and why they came to be what they are. This failure to problematize the origins of posited contingent dimensions can easily lead to the unfortunate tendency to "naturalize" those dimensions as inevitable and unalterable, thereby reducing the inquiry and problem-solving tasks to merely one of correct pigeonholing unquestioned methodologies to their appropriate (but unquestioned) system types or problem contexts (cf. Ellis and Flood, 1987; Flood and Carson, 1988). If this happened, the insightful, methodological work done by Jackson and Keys, Checkland, Banathy, and others might, especially for practicing managers, simply degenerate into a mechanical.

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nonreflective "do-it-yourself" game of contingency matchmaking. Thus, the need for a critical, self-reflective approach to the whole question of methodological choice seems inescapable.

10.6 Connective

Summary

Current usage, particularly in the literature of systems science, makes little, if any, difference between method and methodology. An attempt was made to show that the distinction is epistemologically significant if one does not assume an ontological unity for all the objects of the universe. Using Habermas's interest constitution theory, the chapter elaborated on three methodological foundations (empiricism, hermeneutics, and critique) for social inquiry and problem solving in general, unfolding in the process a hierarchy of epistemological criticisms. "Naturalistic" hermeneutics finds the empiricist doctrine of ontological unity untenable in relation to the social world. Historical hermeneutics finds the "objectivist" aspirations of naturalistic hermeneutics unattainable. Critique finds the historicist naturalization of tradition, authority, and language ideological. In systems science, it is seen that the basic underwriting assumptions and concerns of the presently established systems methodologies have not "developed" beyond those of empiricism and naturalistic hermeneutics. Such a situation points to the glaring poverty of current systems thinking in relation to both historical hermeneutics and critical methodology. But even leaving this "underdevelopment" aside, the existence of a variety of both "hard" and "soft" systems methodologies poses its own problem: the question of appropriate criteria for methodological choice. Two important contributions, among others, are discussed, one by Jackson and Keys, and their extension of Checkland's complementarist perspective, and the other by Banathy. Both are seen to be informed by a contingency theory perspective, a valuable framework that provides important insights as well as the basic message that the validity or appropriateness of a specific methodology is crucially dependent on the nature of the problem situation under consideration. However, given the persuasive and potentially influential nature of those contingency formulations, the chapter points to the need for a cautious approach. It is important to avoid the temptation to "naturalize" the so-called contingency dimensions into inevitable, unalterable structural features of social life. In the next chapter, the locus of emphasis shifts from "in control" to "under control." In essence. Chapter 11 develops the theme that historical processes entailing power, ideology, and social control in sociocultural systems have been given scant attention in the literature of systems theory.

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Preference has instead been given to naturalistic accounts of systems behavior, using either "hard" or "soft" systems models. This chapter argues that unless an account of systems stability and change is sought in the conscious actions of humans as makers or victims of history, no valid explanation of constancy and change, insofar as sociocultural systems are concerned, is likely to ensue from the current preoccupation with functionalist and even interpretive approaches. The argument is developed by examining the joint concepts of power and ideology. These concepts emerge jointly as the essential motif for any kind of social stability and change, be it conservative, reactionary, reformist, or radical.

11 Control^ Constancy^ and Change The Architecture of Power and Ideology 11.1

Introduction

This chapter is a critical inquiry into the phenomena of systems stability and social change. It starts by suggesting that whereas the necessity for critical systems thinking in systems science is undeniable, its very slow appearance may be attributable to ideological reasons. The chapter proceeds by arguing that any penetrative account of social systems stability and change must lie in a historical rather than naturalistic explanation. This implies that the concepts of power, ideology, and social control must be confronted and addressed explicitly and not bypassed in silent embarrassment. From a conceptual analysis of power, ideology, and social control, this chapter arrives at the justification of its thesis: that systems stability and change tendencies are a consequence of a particular architecture of power and ideology in being. The critical implication is that when the existing social order is founded on coercive systems of exploitation and oppression, then the dissolution of the problem must lie in the radical transformation of that social order.

11.2 Critical Systems Thinking: A Very Slow to Systems Science

''Slowcomer"

An inquiry into the phenomena of systems stability and change cannot proceed in a vacuum. According to Habermas (1972), different kinds of human interest motivate different kinds of inquiry, and hence constitute different forms of knowledge. He identifies three types of constitutive interests arising from two fundamental forms of activity, namely, labor (work) and communicative interaction (language), which, in spatiotemporal terms, are universal and invariant to the human species. The "technical interest" is constitutive of empirical-analytic knowledge aimed at the 169

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prediction and control of "things, events and conditions which are, in principle, capable of being manipulated" (Habermas, 1974, p. 8). The "practical interest" constitutes the historical-hermeneutic knowledge aimed at achieving intersubjective communicative (symbolic) understanding. The "emancipatory interest" constitutes self-reflective knowledge aimed at the realization of autonomy from defective actions and utterances arising from social relations of power, domination, and alienation. The three forms of knowledge are underwritten by different paradign\s: the "functionalist" (for empirical-analytic sciences), the "interpretive" (for the historical-hermeneutic sciences), and the "radical"/ "critical" (for the self-reflective sciences; Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Flood and Ulrich, 1990; Giddens, 1977; Jackson, 1982; McCarthy, 1978; Oliga, 1986a; Puxty et al., 1980). Jackson (1982, 1985, 1987a) and Jackson and Keys (1984) have classified the present systems methodologies within the Habermasian threeparadigm framework. What clearly emerges from that classification and their insightful, discursive elaboration of it is the continuing dominance of the functionalist paradigm, which underwrites all "hard" systems thinking. The "soft" systems methodologies, within the interpretive paradigm, are of more recent origin. However, since they emerged, they have made impressive progress, as exemplified by the classic works of, for instance. Churchman (1971, 1979), Ackoff (1974a, 1974b, 1974c, 1981a, 1981b), and Checkland (1972,1981,1983,1985). These methodologies have not supplanted the well-entrenched hard systems methodologies; but they have, nonetheless, emerged as real, practicable alternatives. Critical management science, on the other hand, only "emerged as a distinctive tendency in the 1970s" (Jackson, 1987a, p. 143). As I have observed elsewhere (Oliga, 1988, p. 104) distinctive radical/critical systems methodologies have yet to emerge, although highly significant developments are taking place, at both the theoretical and the practical levels (see Flood, 1990b). What is interesting, however, is that whereas formal reaction against hard systems orthodoxy from both soft and critical systems thinking appeared about the same time in the history of management science, the impact of critical thinking has been, in contrast, very slow to emerge. Yet, in terms of Habermas's interest constitution theory, it would seem that most institutions and organizations in our present (capitalist) social formations are in dire need of critical inquiry, given that they are generally characterized by power asymmetry, unequal distribution of wealth, structural conflicts, and contradictions (Hales, 1974; Jackson, 1985; Rosenhead, 1982; Rosenhead and Thunhurst, 1982; Spear, 1987; Thomas, 1980; Thomas and Lockett, 1979; Tinker and Lowe, 1984; Whitley, 1974; Wood and Kelly, 1978). Buckley (1967), for instance, points to the fact

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that the distinguishing problem foci for sociocultural systems are the structurally induced and maintained conflicts, and social dissensus. Thus, although it might be quite legitimate and proper at a general level of systems inquiry to offer functionalist and interpretive explanations of the phenomena of systems constancy and change, such accounts would not be sufficient where coercive sociocultural systems are involved. Critical systems thinking would clearly be necessary. However, as we have seen, critical systems thinking is a "slowcomer" to systems science, and the reason for this, I guess, is ideological. If this is true, then critical systems thinking is going to be not just a newcomer like soft systems thinking but a very slow slowcomer: The cure it offers (the unmasking of ideological bias) is the very disease dreaded by the patient. It is the aim of this chapter to transcend this dread and account for social systems stability and change in critical terms.

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Systems

Stability

and Change: Natural

or

Historical?

When applied to social systems, mainstream systems theories of stability and instability are implicitly or explicitly underwritten by functionalist or interpretive paradigmatic interests. Their overriding concern is to regulate the existing state of affairs, which is seen as natural. Thus, hard systems perspectives are guided either by the morphostatic criteria of equilibrium (minimal organization) and homeostasis (preservation of given structures) or by the morphogenic criteria of adaptiveness and steady state, which allow for structure elaboration and development. In either case the basic form of the existing structure is taken as given, therefore natural, eternal, and unalterable. Watt and Craig (1986), for instance, suggest a theory of instability and surprise in terms of signals of impending societal destabilization and how optimal strategies can be designed for quick response and return to stability, stability being defined in terms of "the speed of return of state variables to their equilibrium values or trajectories after a system has experienced a perturbation" (p. 192), Thom's (1975) catastrophe theory is concerned with discontinuities, resulting in the quantum transformation of systems from one equilibrium to another equilibrium. The dissipative structure "paradigm" (Smith, 1986) is ultimately concerned with the viability of the existing structure ("deep structure"), even if dissipative structure processes of transformation and regeneration are seen to allow for improved structural elaboration through systems quantum evolution from one dynamic equilibrium to another.

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Similarly, soft systems perspectives are guided by the criteria of consensus, common understanding, and shared meaning, all arising from social processes of interaction in which multiple values, interests, perceptions, and perspectives are seen as the essential resources. These resources are taken as given and natural; the possibility that the particular forms these resources take may be the consequence of power asymmetry, domination, and ideology or self-misunderstanding remains outside the interpretive paradigm's agenda. It is to the conjoined concepts of power and ideology that I now turn. The concepts of power and ideology have already been discussed separately in Chapter 7 and 8. In those chapters, the thrust of the inquiry was to investigate their nature as critical concepts, and to elicit their empowerment potential. Although the two concepts are analytically distinct, substantively they are deeply interpenetrative, and both bear an essential dialectical relationship to the concept of control. In conservative and coercive terms, control would be an empty concept without the force of power a n d / o r ideology. In this regard, the title of Therborn's (1980) book. The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology, is a vivid expression of the intimate relationship between the phenomena of power and ideology. Thus, this chapter examines the power-ideology dynamics as they exert a controlling influence upon the behavior of members in social and organizational settings, and, in the particular, the forms of acquiescence or resistance those members' reaction may take. The emphasis is on understanding the problem of control from the point of view of those "under control."

UA

Control

and the Architecture

of Power

and

Ideology

This section seeks to develop an understanding of how the p o w e r ideology matrix in a particular social setting influence Constance and change, and hence social control. Developing Althusser's (1971) notion of ideological "interpellationrecognition," Therbom (1980) has elaborated on the functioning of ideology in terms of the "subjection-qualification" dialectic. Ideologies operate as discourse, interpellating (addressing) individuals as human subjects. This involves a simultaneous process of subjection and qualification. Subjection refers to the individual's subjugation to a particular force or social order that favors or disfavors certain values and beliefs. Qualification, on the other hand, refers to the enabling of an individual to take up and perform the repertoire of roles given in society (including the role of being a possible agent of social change). This simultaneous process involves

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three fundamental modes of ideological interpellation whereby individuals as human subjects are told and made to recognize (1) what exists and what does not exist (thereby structuring the visibility of the social world in terms of spotlights, shadows, and darkness), (2) what is good, right, just, and its opposites (thereby structuring and normalizing the individual's desires, preferences, and values), and (3) what is possible (thereby patterning and shaping the individual's hopes, ambitions, and fears). These three mode of interpellation form the " i s - o u g h t - c a n " trio. In a social-control context, the success of ideological interpellation results in the ruled accepting the rulers' ideologies as dominant. This means subjecting the ruled to a social order that is in the interest of the ruling class; the ruled thus become qualified to obey. However, the ideological interpellation may not be fully successful, in which case varying degrees of resistance and struggle may ensue: from covert dissent/ reserved consent to open dissent/forced consent. Therbom (1980) has suggested that in addition to the is-ought-can ideological interpellation, a second dimension of the interpellation may require an answer to the question, "Does there exist a possible better alternative to the present regime? Yes or No?" (p. 94). The second dimension seeks to highlight the crucial difference between obedience as an intrinsic necessity because no better alternative is conceivable, and obedience as a contingent necessity given that a better alternative to the present social order is conceivable. In the case of intrinsic obedience, three possible types of ideological subjection/domination as well as potential responses by the ruled as "qualified" subjects emerge. The three possibilities correspond to the is-ought-can modes of interpellation. First, obedience may result from a sense of "inevitability," a cognitive belief that it is in the nature of things to be what they are; the existing state of affairs are natural and hence inevitable. Second, there is obedience motivated by a sense of "deference." In this case, the ruled hold normative beliefs in the legitimate domination of the rulers, because the latter are seen as having superior and unique ruling qualities deriving from their descent and breeding (e.g., in Britain and Japan) or their special social/political positions. Third, there is the form of obedience based on a sense of "resignation," a political belief founded on a profoundly pessimistic view of the practical possibilities of social change. In the case of contingent obedience, there are also three parallel possibilities. First, there is the form of obedience through either "accommodation" or "instrumentalism" (pragmatism). Accommodation results from the cognitive belief by the ruled that despite their present subordination (e.g., exploitation), which they believe could be alleviated in a better, alternative regime, there exist other features of social life that are perhaps

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more salient and hence sufficiently compensatory (e.g., job satisfaction, leisure, consumption, sport, the family). A similar belief motivates instrumentalist obedience, in which the working/feasibility of present arrangements is more salient than the possibility of a better alternative. Second, there is the form of obedience based on a sense of "representation," a normative belief by the ruled that the domination of the rulers is legitimately founded on accepted, conventional/cultural norms. The rulers may be seen as representing, in the eyes of the ruled, the ideals of that society or as defenders of the needs of the ruled (charismatic representation). "Fear" represents the third source of contingent obedience. Here there are two possibilities: (1) fear of the physical force and violence and (2) the moral fear of excommunication/ostracization, or the social fear of (for instance) losing one's job or social position. At this juncture, an important point needs to be borne in mind. In both the intrinsic and the contingent forms of obedience, the specific sources of acquiescence (inevitability, deference, etc.) are analytical constructs rather than empirical, classificatory categories. They are empirically intertwined and coexist in varying degrees of salience. Although they may clash, they often reinforce or compensate for one another in ways that work concertedly, in the overall interest of conserving the status quo. These mechanisms of ideological subjection and qualification are summarized in Table 11.1. It is possible to extend the aforementioned typology by explicitly introducing the possibilities of open, covert, and latent dimensions of obedience/resistance and struggle (Salaman, 1979). Although that is not necessary for our purpose. Table 11.1 is sufficient to demonstrate that the complex possibilities cannot be captured by simple dichotomies of force

TABLE 11.1 Mechanisms of Ideological Subjection and Qualification Alternative regime conceivable? interpellation

Yes

No

What is (is)

Accommodation or instrumentalism

Sense of inevitability

What is good (ought)

Sense of representation

Deference

What is possible (can)

Fear

Resignation

Source: Adapted from Therborn, 1980, p. 94.

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versus consent, hegemony versus force, or legitimacy versus power. For instance, people do not obey either because of consent or because of physical coercion. Both elements of consent and force may be present, as in resigned obedience. Social control does thus seem to be crucially dependent on power and ideology; but what is the relationship between power and ideology? The processes of ideological interpellation of the ruled result in either their acceptance or their rejection of the (rulers') dominant ideology. This, however, is at the discursive level. Obedience (or resistance and struggle) depends additionally on the power balance, that is, on the matrix of material affirmations and sanctions available to the rulers relative to the ruled. For analytical purposes, power can therefore be related to the nondiscursive (i.e., economic and political) dimension of social relations. In these critical terms, power and ideology thus become dialectical notions. The idea of ideology is meaningless except in the context of organizing, maintaining, and reproducing power through "subjection-qualification" processes. This is the sense in which ideology reflects power. Obversely, all ideologies operate only in a material matrix of affirmations and sanctions (power). Thus power, in turn, reflects ideologies. The power-ideology matrix has important implications for social systems stability and change tendencies. In terms of our earlier ideological interpellation, whether a possible better alternative regime (social system) is conceivable. Table 11.1 can be extended to yield three possible answers. The first possibility is a negative answer, implying that neither the present regime's dominant ideologies nor the effectiveness of its power is doubted. This is likely to result in obedience through a sense of inevitability, deference, or resignation. The second possibility is a qualified positive answer, in which there exist some degrees of doubt on either the power or the dominant ideologies of the rulers. This is likely to result in obedience through a sense of accommodation/instrumentalism, representation, or fear. The third possibility is an unqualified positive answer, in which both power and dominant ideologies are doubted. This is likely to result in some form of organized counterclaims to the legitimacy of the rulers' domination and hence resistance and struggle by the ruled. In this case, the doubts on the regime's right and capacity to rule are a consequence of the breakdown in the effectiveness of the articulation between power and ideology (the power-ideology matrix). Such a breakdown may manifest itself in a number of ways, including (1) legitimation crisis, (2) a dissensus among the rulers themselves and dissent by the ruled arising from a disarticulation or clash between the forms of their subjection and the forms of their qualification, and (3) some forms of revolutionary class consciousness and possibly transformative action.

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is a possible better alternative conceivable?

Yes

No

Power-ideology both undoubted Obedience through — Inevitability

-•

Deference - • Resignation -*-

Some degree of doubt on either ideology or power

Power-ideology both doubted

— Obedience through

Resistance and struggle

-«- Accomodation

Legitimation crisis

-^

Disensus and dissent

Representation

Transformative action

-•- Fear

Stability tendencies

Change tendencies

Present social system FIGURE 11.1 Systems Stability and Change: The Architecture of Power and Ideology (Adapted from Oliga 1990a, p. 282)

The responses that result in obedience, for whatever reason, work toward social conservation, the maintenance of the present regime. They account for the stability tendencies of social systems. Resistance and struggle, on the other hand, account for change tendencies. Of course, in reality there will also be shades of disobedience manifested in what the present regime would call "dysfunctional behavior" such as social withdrawal, manipulation, protest, and law-breaking; but such unorganized and diffuse "disaffection, scepticism, and cynicism do not amount to a 'crisis of legitimacy' " (Therbom, 1980, p. 108). Figure 11.1 is a schematic summary of the argument that systems stability and change must be seen as a consequence of a particular architecture of power and ideology.

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for Systems

177

Theory

11.5.1 Thematic Consolidation Jackson and Keys (1984) have developed a typology of problem contexts and systems methodologies, but with a critical intent. Oliga (1988a) sought to consolidate this critical intent by focusing on fundamental philosophical assumptions and concerns that underwrite different types of problemsolving methodology. Whereas the thrust of those two intellectual expeditions cantered on design inquiry at both theoretical and metatheoretical levels of critical analysis (see also Banathy, 1987), this Chapter can be read as an attempt to broaden the inquiry beyond the structural aspects of system control (see also Oliga, 1988b). The focus here is on processes of organizational power relations and the functioning of ideologies from the point of view of those "under control." Thus, the "powerless" obey, thereby contributing to systems stability tendencies, or resist and struggle, thereby contributing to systems change tendencies, all depending upon their perception of the degree of effectiveness of an organization's power-ideology matrix. This attempt at further thematic consolidation therefore seeks to introduce the "missing" processual aspects of power and ideology as they influence the actual behavior of organizational members. Such attempts at thematic consolidation in critical management science seek to stimulate more critical explorations of the potentials, the limits, the gaps, the errors, and the implications of diverse critical formulations, all in the interest of fostering a more coherent development of theory and practice in the discipline. 11.5.2 Toward Rereading Constancy and Change Mainstream literature in political theory has been characterized by what can now be seen as an untenable dichotomization of the grounds for obedience or resistance and struggle: force versus consent, force versus hegemony, force versus legitimacy, or in essence, power versus ideology (see Gramsci, 1971; Lukacs, 1971; Weber, 1968). The power-ideology matrix perspective takes the two concepts as essentially dialectical in nonliberated systems. This implies that obedience or revolt is not a consequence solely of either ideology or power. Both phenomena are always implicated, albeit in varying degrees of salience (see Figure 11.1). Given this critical understanding, both hard and soft systems approaches represent a step even further backwards than orthodox political theory. Both approaches are least concerned with issues relating to ideology and power and the structures of constraints and social contradictions. Both approaches additionally suffer from the problem of uncritically using

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coercive power and agents' ideological self-understandings as resources for social control.

11.6 Connective

Summary

It has been argued that systems stability and social change are the result of the kind of social control imposed upon a social system. The nature of a particular social control is, in turn, a consequence of the kind of power-ideology motif or architecture in being. And such architecture is not inevitable but, ultimately, the product of conscious actions of human beings as makers or victims of history. Sociocultural systems stability and change cannot therefore be adequately explained in naturalistic accounts rooted either in hard systems functionalist models of physical mechanisms or biological organisms, or in soft systems interpretive models. A critical social theory seems necessary. Perhaps the most important implication of this chapter is that, insofar as sociocultural systems are concerned, systems theory literature should begin to pay greater attention to the historical processes (such as power relations and exercise of power, and ideological formation of human subjectivities) that ultimately circumscribe individual and social behavior. In ignoring the dialectical nature of the relationship between power and ideology, both hard and soft systems approaches represent two steps backward from a penetrative understanding of the phenomenon of control in social systems. This chapter is an attempt to discuss the processes of power-ideology dynamics as they particularly influence the behavior of those "under control." The next chapter revisits the "in control" discussion of Chapter 10, but now from a processual rather than structural standpoint. In essence. Chapter 12 focuses on the concepts of weak and strong organizations as a prelude to the idea of constitutive and strategic ideologies as reflecting the analytical distinction between ideologies as outcomes of an inverted reality and ideologies as conditions for the reproduction of that inverted reality. The chapter gives two empirical illustrations (from Japan and the United Kingdom) of strategic ideologies, showing how isolated events, which would have normally attracted little attention, became dramatized out of proportion in the false name of attempting to restore/maintain social order. The chapter suggests that such reactionary responses are typical of contemporary social systems when faced with problems of weakening internal hegemony (social integration). Instead of recognizing that such problems potentially stem from structurally inherent system imperatives, the powers in those social systems uncritically and yet strategically seek explanation and place responsibility upon acci-

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dental but opportune "events" deemed external and inimical to the mainstream "lifeworld." The chapter suggests that the interest of liberating systems theory and practice can be advanced by systematic efforts to unmask such ideological concealments, now so prevalent in our contemporary social formation.

u Control and Strategic Ideologies 12.1

Introduction

We have seen in Chapter 7 that in the dialectic of control, the powerful typically occlude the interdependence of relations in pursuit of identity that they psychologically deem to be secured in their being independent and hence "in control." This situation obtains no less at the aggregate level than at the individual level. This chapter develops the implication of this sociopsychological struggle in an organizational and social context, posing the thesis that management (or the state), when faced with threatening problems, strategically adopt particular ideologies depending on how they perceive the power position, or the organizational strength, relative to the social challenges faced. The chapter thus begins by exploring the concepts of weak and strong organizations. This is followed by an elaboration of the ideas of constitutive and strategic ideologies, and the formulation of the strategic ideologies thesis. The thesis is illustrated with empirical cases from Japan and the United Kingdom. The chapter concludes by drawing the implications of the thesis for systems thinking.

12.2 Concepts

of Weak and Strong

Organizations

Organizations differ along many dimensions (e.g., size, structure, nature of market and market share, nature of technology and products, degree of competition, political standing, legitimacy position, etc.). Each of these has an implication for the organization's power-ideology relations. The concept of organizational strength is an attempt to distill these multifaceted dimensions into some commonality that is meaningful in the context of social theory. This discourse is situated at the confluence of three critical social theory concepts: control, power, and ideology. The need therefore to relate the discussion of power, ideology, and control to some index of organizational strength (broadly conceived in a social theory sense) 181

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seems inescapable. This section is therefore an attempt to conceptualize the notions of weak and strong organizations, and offer some suggestions on how those notions might be meaningfully operationalized in concrete organizational situations. Organizations can be conceived as occupying particular hierarchical locations in the social web or network of power-ideology relations. The dimensions of such power-ideology relations may include, to varying degrees of salience, economic, political, scientific-technological, and cultural spheres of social practice. In a relative sense and at a given point in time, weak organizations would, by definition, be those occupying the lower rungs of the hierarchical ladder, and strong organizations, the upper rungs. But how is this hierarchy constituted? In the economic sphere, organizational strength is likely to be conceived in terms of the degree of success in contributing to the reproduction of a given mode of production. Given a capitalist mode of production, the degree of success in capital accumulation is the most likely index of whether an organization is viewed as being strong or weak in economic terms. This is precisely because the very logic of capitalist production is accumulation for accumulation's sake. Organizational survival itself is predicated on ability to accumulate. In the political sphere, the crucial issue would be the question of legitimacy in the eyes both of organizational constituents and the public. The degree to which public and political perception of an organization accords with the moral and ethical culture, and with the social ideals of a given society, would determine its relative hierarchical location in political terms. Economic strength may, but need not, imply political strength. For instance. Miller and O'Leary (1987) in an insightful and penetrating periodization analysis (covering the early decades of the 20th century) of the public perception of the newly emerged corporations in the United States, found that the first period was marked with open, public hostility toward business and business leadership. Giant corporations were perceived to pose serious threats to cherished American ideals of individual economic and political freedom, as well as to the very fabric of society itself. Their authority structures were seen to undermine, if not to annihilate, the democratic ideals of American life. It took as much as two decades to get the large corporation accepted in America. The reversal of the public perception was only possible through a gradual process that rendered big business a legitimate institution. Miller and O'Leary call this process the construction of "a vocabulary of managerial authority" out of certain normative images in the political culture of the time. The result was a congruence between that vocabulary and the American democratic ideals. From that vocabulary, concepts such as function, responsibility, and decision emerged and served to render managerial authority, previously seen as coercive and arbitrary, democratic and legitimate.

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The implications of the scientific-technological sphere for organizational strength would be in terms of the degrees of relative expertise in a given field of knowledge and practice, as well as relative professionalism. Here again. Miller and O'Leary's (1987) critical analysis helps to elaborate. Besides legitimating the giant corporation, the vocabulary of managerial authority served to establish a new science of management and professionalism. Thus the giant corporation was seen not only as an entity susceptible to management, but also as one amenable to systematic management, a new activity characterized by "expert professional knowledge deemed true." In the cultural sphere, the salient issue likely to determine the relative degree of organizational strength would be the degree of centrality of the role played in the direct reproduction of a particular mode of production (e.g., the capital accumulation process in the capitalist mode of production). Peripheral organizations, which are mere supports to that direct reproductive role, are likely to occupy the lower rungs of the cultural hierarchy. Given this multidimensional nature of social practice and power relations, and if it is the case that each dimension may have its own unique hierarchical location, in what sense can we meaningfully talk of the relative (aggregate) strength of an organization as a whole? This question would pose a serious problem if we treated each dimension as having absolute autonomy. This, of course, is not the case. These dimensions must be seen as only having relative autonomy, such that at any given point in time, they are either likely to be mutually reinforcing, or only one of them is likely to be relatively more salient and relevant. As to which one becomes more salient in specific, concrete situations must be an empirical question. Given the relative-autonomy argument just referred to, possible methods of operationalizing the different dimensions of organizational strength may now be suggested. In the economic sphere, organizational strength may be signified positively by the "rate of profit," or negatively by the "rate of profit squeeze" (both signifiers understood in the radical sense). These signifiers can be further resignified by the conventional income statement (profit or loss) figures. Operationalizing the economic strength dimension in these quantitative terms is perhaps less problematic than attempts to operationalize the other, more qualitative dimensions. In the political sphere, the degree of organizational legitimacy may be signified by the extent or intensity of public approval or disapproval of the ethical nature of corporate behavior. Where the attitude of the organization's members or employees is more relevant, the degree of legitimacy may be gauged from the state of prevailing industrial harmony or conflict. This may be signified either by the level of members/labor

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militancy (or, alternatively, identification with the organization), or by the balance between "consent" and "coercion" regimes characterizing the organization's hegemonic posture (cf. Gramsci, 1971). In the scientific-technological sphere, the degree of relative expertise and professionalism may be signified by the degree of knowledge-driven organizational change, as manifest in creativity, inventiveness, innovativeness, and adaptiveness. These dynamic factors can be signified by, inter alia, the intensity of research and development efforts, the number of patents held, the rate of improvement in the changes in the nature of an organization's products, or in the changes in its processes of production, marketing, and management. In the cultural sphere, relative strength may be operationalized, in the context of capitalist social formations, by reference to the nature of the underlying purposes of the core activities in which an organization is engaged. In a basic and general sense, those purposes define the basic goals of particular kinds of organizations, seen as specific institutions in a given society. Carchedi (1977) has elaborated on the formal and substantive contours of these different institutions (cf. Clegg and Dunkerly, 1980) Briefly, a first-level distinction can be made between profit-oriented (capitalist) institutions and not-for-profit institutions. Within the former group, a second-level distinction separates "productive" from "unproductive" subgroups of organizations. The productive subgroup is oriented to the production of and for surplus value (i.e., appropriation and realization of surplus value). The unproductive subgroup is, however, oriented only to the production for (realization of) surplus value. Industrial organizations in general and manufacturing companies in particular exemplify the productive category. The unproductive category is exemplified by commercial and financial institutions. Within both productive and unproductive categories, there is a further third-level distinction between private organizations (the private sector) on the one hand and, on the other hand, state (public or nationalized) organizations engaged in capitalist state activities (Carchedi, 1977). The latter (the profit-oriented public sector) differ from the former only formally in terms of the locus of their legal ownership. However, this absence of substantive difference does not necessarily imply that privateand public-sector enterprises occupy similar hierarchical locations in cultural terms. The position of the latter would depend crucially on whether their activities were perceived by the state to be central to the accumulation process or merely supportive of it. Given the three-tier distinction, operationalization of relative organizational strength in cultural terms may now be summarized. In general, profit-oriented organizations often stand above those not-for-profit orga-

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nizations. Traditionally, productive organizations stand above nonproductive institutions. Also, the private sector is likely to rate higher than the public sector. Hov^ever, this broad ordering may be modified in specific situations, depending on the balance of power in the other spheres of social practice. Moreover, the complexity of today's institutions, involving intricate interpenetrations between productive and unproductive institutions, may complicate the ordering at this second level of differentiation. Nevertheless, the ordering suggested here offers a useful broad-brush approach to the analysis and operationalization of the concepts of weak and strong organizations, provided one bears in mind that each of the four spheres of social practice is only relatively autonomous. From this discussion of relative organizational strength, the strategic ideologies thesis can now be more meaningfully explored.

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Strategic

Ideologies

Thesis

12.3.1 Introduction In 1854 the Edo Shogunate signed a treaty of amity with the United States of America. This marked the forced opening up of Japan after 200 years of self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world. However, it was not until 1868, the year of the Meiji Restoration, that the country came to have an effective national government under the constitutional name of the Emperor (the Tenno). The Meiji government started the process of transforming the country into a modern state, the aim then being to catch up with the West (and even surpass it) in the politicoeconomic and military spheres. In this vision, the crucial importance of the state having effective domestic hegemony over national cultural beliefs came to be increasingly recognized by successive imperial governments. In particular, beliefs in the supremacist uniqueness of the Japanese society and yet forever existentially threatened by alien forces were (and still continue to be) powerfully orchestrated by the state to instill in the populace both a sense of superiority as a unique nation and a deep-seated feeling of vulnerability as a peripheral nation. It is this paradoxical combination of confidence and fear that underlines this chapter's critical view of Japan's self-perception as a unique society. The discussion starts with a brief exposition of a social theory that attempts to throw some broader light upon the notion of strategic ideologies. Strategic ideologies represent a powerful, reactionary attempt by a social system to resolve perceived crises of hegemony. An isolated event that under normal hegemonic periods would attract little attention sud-

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denly becomes dramatized out of proportion in order to instill a feeling of grave threat to systems stability, and hence the need for extraordinary action to reestablish social order. It is these camouflaged but farcical orchestrations in the name of social order that constitute strategic ideologies. To illustrate the strategic ideologies thesis, the chapter gives brief empirical examples drawn from Japan and the United Kingdom. In the case of Japan, the chapter refers to the textbook scandal of 1902, which provided an opportune ideological "event" around which the state sought to reassert its domestic hegemony in the face of threatening foreign liberal influences. In the United Kingdom, the mugging "event" of 1972, and the idea of value added, provide examples of similar opportunistic reactionary behavior. The final section of the chapter is an attempt to draw some implications of the strategic ideologies thesis for critical systems thinking in its task for the liberation of systems theory and practice. In essence, the chapter points out the crucial need for educative enlightenment in the interest of emancipation from illusory self-understandings and strategically imposed ideologies. Within the systems movement, this emancipatory interest is being strongly pursued by an emerging, powerful current of thought under the name of liberating systems theory.

12.3.2 Strategic Ideologies Theses and Systems Control That ideology is simultaneously an outcome of an inverted reality and a condition for the reproduction of that inverted reality is becoming recognized in the literature (cf. Larrain, 1979). But the fact that the form of ideologies as conditions may be different from that of ideologies as outcomes seems to have escaped the attention of researchers in this area. Ideologies as outcomes, referred to in this chapter as "constitutive ideologies," are so to speak first-order ideologies that represent inverted reflections, essentially playing the role of masking the structural contradictions of society. They are constitutive in the sense that, by interpellating subjects, they play an active role in molding the subjects for or in a certain meaning. The consequence is distorted consciousness of a distorted reality. But, as Larrain has cogently argued, this constitutive role must not a la Althusser (1971) be inflated and extended to the point that it assumes absolute autonomy, the subjects becoming passively acted upon in a deterministic fashion. Whereas constitutive ideologies play a pervasive, concealing role, strategic ideologies (ideologies as conditions) have specific, legitimating roles. They are discursive practices, theoretical or practical (cf. Habermas,

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1988), that seek to justify, in particular circumstances, the concealing role of constitutive ideologies. They are thus second-order ideologies actively employed or appealed to by agents in specific reproductive and interactive situations. Constitutive ideologies provide the stage, the context of concealment; strategic ideologies are the players on that stage, exploiting available concealment opportunities. The distinction between constitutive and strategic ideologies must not be likened to the extreme structuralist and historicist positions in the debate on the concept of ideology. Those positions have to do with the root, base, or determinacy of ideologies, and not with the roles different orders or forms of ideology play. It is the latter issue that can more adequately illuminate, for instance, the debate whether in modern times science and technology have become the new bases of ideology. According to our distinction here, constitutive ideologies, rooted in (or as outcomes of) social contradictions, have not changed in today's technocratic world. Science and technology can however become new and more effective forms of strategic ideologies. They can provide unquestionable criteria for justifying and maintaining, for instance, the constitutive ideology of the equity of the present forms of social relations (be they economic, political, or in terms of religion, race, gender, or nation states). As Larrain (1979, p. 211) has elaborated. Ideology is the negation of the inverted character of social relations in reality. To be effective, though, it has to negate that negation; it has to justify it by resorting to an unimpeachable criterion which is found in science.

The "constitutive-strategic" distinction may appear to have a number of parallels in the literature on ideology. It is therefore necessary to clarify in what respects there are basic differences notwithstanding any valuable, insightful similarities that may also exist. For this purpose, two influential parallels will be referred to: the structural linguistics tradition or semiological analysis, and the Althusserian structuralist tradition. In semiological analysis (see, e.g., Barthes, 1972), there is a distinction between language and speech. Discourse is analyzed as having two levels: The first, the manifest content, is the level of speech; the second, the latent content, is the underlying structure represented by language. Whereas speech yields the primary meaning and is thus "denotative," there is a second, hidden meaning "connoted" by language. Thus, according to semiological analysis, ideology is rooted in these hidden, rhetorical meanings in language as a system of signs or significations. In this view, language constitutes the mythical level of discourse, whose meanings are characterized by imprecision and nebulousness. Those meanings, in the words of Barthes are "received but not read." It is the meanings in speech that are read.

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This extreme structuralist view of the semiological school has been rightly attacked for its unwarranted dualism between language and speech, ideological connotation and innocent denotation. The dualism wrongly assumes the autonomy of language and the immanence of meaning in language divorced from speech. The privileging of the linguistic structure at the expense of how it is used in particular socially structured communicative situations falsely ignores the relative autonomy of the agents involved, as well as the role of history and change. However, if stripped of these structuralist errors, semiological analysis does provide valuable insights in terms of the two levels or order of discourse. Constitutive ideologies have a parallel in language. Both are stable, unobtrusive, and pervasive in their influence upon the consciousness of agents. Both are outcomes of the historical structure of a given society. Strategic ideologies and speech, on the other hand, are conditions for the reproduction of constitutive ideologies and language, respectively. As Larrain (1979, p. 139) has argued, 'Tt is necessary to remember that somehow speech is a condition of language. Language cannot be grasped without speech. Every change in language is brought about through speech (parole)." A second parallel can be seen in Althusser's (1971) distinction between the "theory of ideology in general" and the "theory of particular ideologies." The former, Althusser postulates, is concerned with ideologies having immutable structures and functioning without a history. The latter deals with ideologies in concrete, historical social formations. Thus, whereas ideology in general is therefore eternal, particular ideologies only arise as a result of the existence of specific modes of production and social struggles. And it is ideology in general that interpellates individuals, thereby constituting them as subjects. There are, of course, serious problems with this Althusserian conception of ideology. It has been rightly criticized for its ahistorical character. The real contradictions of society in which ideologies are rooted are essentially ignored. The result is the hypostatization of ideology such that human subjects become its mere passive effects or manifestations. However, if stripped of this erroneous transcendental idealism, the Althusserian formulation offers valuable insights. In a penetrating essay on ideology, Therborn (1980), for instance, made Althusserian contribution his point of departure, even while rejecting a number of its problematics. Two contributions were particularly noted: first, the attempt to link radical structuralism to psychodynamics and psychoanalysis in accounting for the role of ideology in the constitution of human subjectivity; second, the conception of ideology not as a body of coherent ideas or elaborate institutionalized thought systems, but

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as ongoing, complex social processes of interpellation or address, which overlap, compete, clash, drown, or reinforce each other. Our conception of ideologies as constitutive is clearly informed by Althusserian contribution, but the idea of an abstract, eternal, ahistorical ideology in general must be rejected as erroneous idealism. In summary, the constitutive-strategic distinction is an analytical distinction. It does not necessarily signify any difference of content. Rather, the distinction highlights the process through which different subjectivities surface. Constitutive ideologies are essentially resources (albeit distorted) from which self- and social identity continually evolve in relation to a concrete, lived, social reality. Strategic ideologies, on the other hand, are resources (also distorted) actively mobilized for systems control. As reproductive ideologies, strategic ideologies are of necessity a subset of constitutive ideologies, selectively employed to justify, defend, or further a particular ideological position. And the very act of so choosing must be linked back as the consequence of the operation of constitutive ideologies. After all, both forms of ideologies are ultimately predicated on the same need for systems control. We now turn to the way different strategic ideologies are employed in the face of threats to systems stability. The real problems facing capitalist organizations (and institutions) are the social conflicts b o m of the social contradictions of the capitalist society itself. In coping with those contradictions, organizations, as individual elements of the total system, rely on "local" rather than "collective" (global) rationality; that is, in pursuing their private interests, their behaviors exhibit a rationality that conforms to the capitalist dictates of individual organizational survival, but that in total exposes the irrationality of the system as a whole. This is analogous to what Knights and Willmott (1985) analyze as the quest for illusory individual or sectarian independence in situations of interdependent relations. From the point of view of a particular organization/state, as such individual behaviors impinge on or threaten its own interest (e.g., capital against capital), or as its own such behavior becomes opposed by other affected elements of the system (e.g., labor against capital), arenas of active social struggles become constituted. The organizational control then becomes one involving at least two crucial social forces, both essential products of capitalist social contradictions. These forces are, on the one hand, social challenges, and on the other, the power-ideology resources the organization presently relies upon. It is argued that it is this complex interplay between these forces that influences the particular strategic ideologies the organization appeals to or pragmatically adopts as appropriate in dealing with the problem of restoring, maintaining, or enhancing its doubted position within the prevailing dominant social arrangement.

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And it is only at this stage that the organizational "control problem/' as conventionally understood, becomes managerially "defined," essentially retrospectively in terms of anticipated, feasible ideological solutions. Thus concrete management-control problems trigger a process of organizational self-assessment in terms of the level of managerially perceived organizational strength vis-a-vis the social challenges faced. Organizations/states that perceive the power balance to be in their favor are more likely to emphasize the strategic ideologies of free market competition under individualism and differentiated pluralism. Both worldviews allow the stronger parties maximum opportunity to pursue their private interests at the expense of the weaker challengers. Weaker organizations/ states, on the other hand, are more likely to emphasize the strategic ideologies of cooperation and collaboration under unitarism and corporatism. Both worldviews emphasize the necessity for pursuing common or general interests for the very survival of the system as a whole, including obviously those of the weaker members of the system. But, in both cases, such ideologies are managerially constructed or espoused as strategies for responding to active social struggles. In the face of actual social conflicts and contradictions, strategic ideologies are mobilized in the case of stronger organizations to maintain their status quo and even win further social advantages. In the case of weaker organizations, they are mobilized in order to stem further inroads into, or reverse, their already precarious position, and perhaps improve that position. Given these differing control objectives, a similar concrete problem situation would be strategically explained (in terms of perceived underlying causes or reasons) in different ways if the power circumstances of the organizations involved were perceived to differ. Similarly, strategic ideologies would be differently constructed if, over time, the power circumstances of a given organization were perceived to have changed. Thus, according to this "strategic ideologies thesis" managerial definitions of the nature of an organization's control problem are not independent of the way the "social challenge-organizational strength" balance is managerially perceived. In these terms, organizational/state control problems are socially defined retrospectively to accord with strategic ideologies constructed, espoused, or mobilized in specific situations. The implications of the strategic ideologies thesis are both crosssectional and longitudinal. If over time, the same organization/state oscillates between a strong and a weak position {vis-a-vis its social challenges), its organizational control strategies would similarly oscillate between the strategic ideologies of free competition (individualism and differentiated pluralism) and cooperation (unitarism and corporatism). The next

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two sections cite a number of insightful empirical studies in support of the longitudinal implications of the thesis (a periodization analysis).

12.3.3 The State Textbooks System: A Japanese Example The Meiji Restoration in 1868 saw for the first time Japan formally recognizing the need for kokusaika (i.e., internationalization; Tanaka, 1989). But even today, more than 125 years later, this need for kokusaika continues to be characterized by an extraordinary degree of ambivalence. On the one hand, Japan has fervently sought to learn from, imitate, catch up with, and even surpass the West. On the other hand, Japan has been equally fervent in its attempts to insulate its people from cultural influences that are not in accord with its self-perception as a culturally unique society (cf. Befu, 1980; Crawcour, 1980; Kawamura, 1980; Nakane, 1970; Pucik and Hatvany, 1980; Reischauer, 1978; Sugimoto and Mouer, 1980; Woronoff, 1979, 1981). It is against this ambivalence that "the state textbooks struggle" can be appreciated as a long-drawn attempt by the Meiji authorities to secure control over education as one of the most potent socialization and ideological means of maintaining state hegemony. The Meiji Restoration initially allowed an influx of Western textbooks that were translated and accepted as a necessary basis for Japan's modernization needs. Notwithstanding this desire for (Western-type) modernization in the realm of economy, the events that follow clearly show how the Meiji state was determined to pursue an antithetical program in the cultural sphere of the Japanese society. By the Education Order of 1872, the government made directives regulating primary schools' curricula and textbooks. By 1877, the government became more repressive as a result of internal wars and nascent democratic movements. Education became clearly seen as a powerful indoctrination medium for instilling Confucian ethics of filial piety and feudalistic virtues of absolute loyalty. For our historical account, 1879 marks the beginning of a concerted effort by the state to secure control over the means of education. In that year, the Ministry of Education took the unprecedented action of setting up its own publishing office, and started producing its own moral textbooks for use by schools. Two contradictory ordinances were issued by the Ministry: one promoting the U.S. system of liberal education; the other proscribing a number of moral textbooks, which ironically included three of the Ministry's own moral textbooks. And, whereas the 1879 ordinance listed subjects for primary schools in the following order: Read-

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ing. Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, History, and Morals, the 1880 ordinance sharply reversed the order by putting Morals at the head of the list. The state's grip on educational control continued to tighten. From an initial laissez-faire regime in the choice of textbooks, the situation changed (in 1881) to a "reporting system" whereby schools lost their right to use textbooks unless those textbooks were reported to the authorities. This gave way in 1883 to an "approval system," whereby schools were required not just to report what textbooks they were using, but to have formal approval of textbooks they adopted or proposed to change. Even this system gave way to a yet more authoritarian system: the "authorized system," whereby only textbooks appearing in the authorized list could be used. It is interesting to note the crucial ideological importance attached to education by the authorities. In 1885, a clear distinction between "education" and "study" was publicly made. Study was the province of places like universities. Education embraced all Japanese schoolchildren and was seen as the means for molding pupils into good Japanese subjects (hence the importance of the Morals subject). Perhaps the most important landmark in the history of Japanese education system is the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890. The rescript reiterated Japan's historically unique national polity (kokutai) as a natural, not man-made state, and that the "Emperor-system" provided the fundamental principles of education in terms of the system's inherent virtues, including its emphasis on filial piety and absolute loyalty. The linkage between education and militarism does not require much imagination. In fact, on the proclamation of the Imperial Rescript on Education, the then prime minister openly declared that Japan's top priorities were first, armaments and second, education. This line of inquiry, however, is not within the scope of this study. I now wish to focus on the consequences of the dictatorial "approval system" of education, which was in force in the period 1883-1902. Given the huge demand for school textbooks, it seems almost inevitable that the official dictatorial "approval system" would end up as a fertile ground for bribery and corruption involving officials from the Ministry of Education, prefectural governments, schools, and publishers. Indeed, on December 17, 1902, the state took action by issuing search warrants, arresting, and prosecuting suspects. Of the 112 people arrested and prosecuted, 100 people were found guilty of corruption (see Table 12.1). This was the infamous and much publicized textbook scandal. For a long time there had been mounting pressures from certain quarters of the establishment to institute full-control measures over the means of education. This was closely tied to the issue of national security.

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TABLE 12.1 Judgments on the Textbook Scandal Prosecuted officials Governors of prefectures Prefectural secretaries School commissioners Presidents and teachers of teachers' institutes Principals of junior high schools Principals of women's schools Prefectural school inspectors Municipal school inspectors Principals of primary schools

Guilty

Innocent

Total

4 2 10 21

1 0 2 2

5 2 12 23

7 8 23 17 1

1 1 0 1 1

8 9 23 18 2

Source: Morita and Oliga, 1991, p. 29.

Between 1896 and 1899, no less than five memoranda went unsuccessfully to the legislature for this control. However, by 1900, the Ministry of Education, despite its ambivalence and prevarication on the control issue, succumbed and started producing secretly state moral textbooks. (In fact between 1900 and 1903, no less than 132 meetings were held to plan the [secret] publication of state moral textbooks). From a critical viewpoint, the bribery/corruption scandal was an opportune "event" that enabled the authorities to take the coup de grace in their strategies to secure control over the means of education. In fact the textbook corruptions had been going on since 1880, but because of the tremendous power of the publishers, the Ministry of Education found it opportune to prevaricate until the right moment came. Even when the scandal became a public event, the power of the publishers insulated them from prosecution from 1902 to 1904. The official excuse was that schools needed textbooks and any conviction of a publisher meant that his books could no longer be legally used by schools, resulting in a void that the Ministry of Education was as yet unable to fill. Yet, it must be remembered that as early as 1900, the Ministry of Education had started producing secretly state moral textbooks. When, by April 13, 1903, the Ministry was in a position to produce state moral textbooks, the government proclaimed the introduction of the state textbook system. Our argument is that the so-called textbook scandal was nothing more than an opportune event for the state to seize upon in the face of increasing erosion in its ideological hegemony over the populace. We now turn to a similar opportunistic example in the United Kingdom.

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12.3.4 The Mugging ''Event": A British Example The empirical study of Hall and his colleagues (Hall, Crichter, Jefferson, Clarke, and Roberts, 1978), provides another valuable periodization analysis, which serves well to elucidate our strategic ideologies thesis. In that study, the focal "organization" (broadly defined) was the British state, whose changing hegemonic character was periodized from the p o s t World War I era to the mid-1970s. First, the postwar boom was characterized by a number of rapid changes in the British society: the birth of an "affluent society," greater labor mobility, a mixed economy, and the welfare state. Thus, in this period, which lasted up to the end of the 1950s, the legitimacy of the state was strongly founded on a "natural" and "spontaneous" form of social consent. In Gramscian terms, this "normal period" signified a regime of consensus: the rule of the state taking the form of a "hegemony" of consent (Gramsci, 1971). The first half of the 1960s, however, marked a transitional period. Progressively, the basis of social consensus began to disintegrate for a number of reasons. There were, for instance, balance of payment difficulties; unemployment began to resurface, and poverty, almost forgotten during the consumer boom, became "rediscovered." Increasingly, social consent flowed only grudgingly, forcing the state to resort to measures for "managing the dissensus" in the name of "national interest." The third period, from about 1966-1967 to the mid-1970s, was marked by a growing crisis of hegemony. The hegemonic pendulum decisively swung from the position where consent, "natural or managed," overrode coercion to one in which coercion became the natural and routine basis for securing social consent. It is this "hegemonic break" that is of special relevance to the strategic ideologies thesis. Hall and his colleagues illustrate this break through a penetrating study of the 1972 "mugging event" in Britain. Although mugging had been familiar in Britain for over 100 years, it was presented as "a frightening new strain of crime" discovered in 1972. The wide media coverage of mugging in America had led the British police to anticipate its arrival in Britain by putting into force preemptive policing and anticipatory arrests, tactics that paradoxically produced widespread fear of a mugging crime wave, the very phenomenon they sought to control. As a result, the tactics amplified in public consciousness a sense of moral panic. This was reinforced by the British media in their massive coverage of mugging incidents, as also by the lengthy and acrimonious judicial admonition about the nature of mugging as an "abnormal crime" that undermined and threatened in a fundamental manner the very fabric of

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society. But as the analysis of the study clearly shows, the real threat from mugging was insignificant in relation to the enormity of these reactions and generalized moral panic. The mugging event was a mere conductor (among others) of the crisis of hegemony that confronted the British state in that particular historical period. The "British crisis" developed as a consequence of a number of historical factors, all of which contributed to the weakening of the state. These factors included the serious deterioration of the British economy in the postimperial era, the progressive deterioration of the global capital accumulation process culminating in the first post-World War II global economic recession (in which Britain was among those hardest hit), and intensified polarization of antagonistic social forces both on the terrain of politics and of the state itself, as a consequence of the emergence of state monopoly capitalism in Britain, as in other advanced, industrial capitalist nations (Hall et al., 1978). As the crisis developed and deepened, the reality of it came to manifest itself in a series of unfolding social reactions: first, as a diffuse sense of social unease, then as an unlocated surge of social anxiety (e.g., about hedonistic culture of youth, the rising number of immigrants, unbridled materialism, and about accelerated, destabilizing pace of social change itself); the groundswell of the anxiety then moved to becoming located upon specific, concrete, social phenomena or events perceived as abnormal and threatening (e.g., the antisocial nature of youth movements, the black immigrant threat to British way of life, or the "explosion" of a particular kind of crime, such as mugging). Social anxiety became now focused in terms of perceived reasons behind the abnormal state of affairs (e.g., the permissiveness of British social life leading inevitably to moral decline, urban decay, labor militancy and blackmail, and ultimately the possibility of anarchy and the destruction of the state). As Hall and his colleagues explain, it was at this stage that "the moral-panic cycle" issued directly into a "law-and-order society." The coincidence and convergence of the anxieties of the general public with perceived threats to the state itself provided an undeniable need for strong measures of social control: a decisive break from the normal hegemony of consent to a state of "legitimate coercion." And certain events not previously deemed threatening became redefined for exceptional attention and treatment, thereby providing the rallying point for orchestrating the need for protecting the national interest, the interest of the majority and social unity. The appearance of mugging in 1972 was one such event. It provided the moment for constructing a number of related strategic ideologies around the common theme of rising crimes of violence and the need to

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protect life and property of everybody. Such strategic ideologies included the importation from America and the appropriation by the British media of the term mugging as a social label indexical of a related number of perceived or symbolic threats to society, such as the race conflict, the urban crisis, rising crime, and the breakdown of law and order. The ideology of mugging was in turn reinforced by the ideology of abnormal crimes requiring exceptional sentences (the judicial reconstruction), the ideology of policing the crime, and ultimately the ideology of law and order. Although the reality of the British crisis was undeniable, and the crimes of mugging and the social anxieties as concretely experienced by the general public were equally real, what made these social reactions and political responses ideological was the way the real crisis of hegemony, rooted in concrete social contradictions and conflicts in society, and the ensuing forces of resistance and opposition to that crisis, was misrecognized and distorted by the state, and how those distortions were in turn reproduced for appropriation in popular consciousness. As strategic ideologies, they sought both to conceal the real nature of the British crisis and to justify and legitimate coercion as the right and duty of the state in containing that crisis and maintaining a particular social order. The analysis also illustrates how the first period, when the British state perceived itself to be relatively strong, unchallenged by any social dissensus, was marked by strategic ideologies of consensus, with individualism, competition, and the private interest as the dominant ideological themes. The subsequent weakening of the state and the change to the hegemonic regime of coercion in the third period was, on the other hand, characterized by strategic ideologies of unitarism, the national interest, and the need for social unity and cooperation in the face of a common enemy. In summary, the Japanese and British cases well illustrate that the way in which an organizational/state control problem is defined seems to be crucially dependent on the way that organization/state perceives its power or strength in relation to the social challenges it faces. In critical terms, organizational/state problems are socially defined rather than objectively given. Relatively stronger organizations/states perceive their control problems as rooted in sociopolitical factors that disrupt the free, competitive market forces. Weaker organizations/states, on the other hand, perceive their problems as essentially predicated upon failure to cooperate in the interest of common or general interests. It is argued that both positions reflect ideologies strategically constructed, espoused, or mobilized in order to cope with social challenges rooted in social contradictions and conflicts characterizing a given society.

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12.3.5 Implications for Critical Systems Thinking If, from the two empirical cases we have reviewed here, it is the case that the real problems that were perceived to threaten the state were essentially problems of weakening domestic hegemony, then they had little to do with the particular "events" that were so dramatically held out as grave dangers to the existential security of the societies in question. The events were in those terms strategic, ideological constructions of a structurally sick social system. Lockwood's (1964) notions of "system integration" and "social integration" provide an important point of departure for suggesting the implications of the strategic ideologies thesis for critical systems thinking. Specifically, Habermas (1988) has argued that a systems-theoretic concept of crisis in terms of external, persistent disturbances upon system integration is an impoverished view. As he puts it. Crises in social systems are not produced through accidental changes in the environment, but through structurally inherent system imperatives that are incompatible and cannot be hierarchically integrated, (p. 2)

An adequate view of the concept of crisis must therefore address the complex problem of how system integration connects to social integration. System integration brackets normative considerations and focuses on problems of boundary maintenance and systems survival through specific "steering performances/mechanisms" of a self-regulated system. Social integration, on the other hand, screens out steering aspects and focuses on the nature of social systems as lifezvorlds that are symbolically structured by socially related speaking and acting subjects. In this latter case, the issue of normative structures (values and institutions) of a society becomes central. From the dialectical view of system integration and social integration, Habermas (1988) suggests that a critical view of crisis tendencies in social systems should take account of the following crucial aspects of social systems: 1. The nature of the particular social formation a. Primitive, classless society b. Traditional, class society c. Modern, class society (1) Capitalist (a) Liberal capitalist (b) Organized or advanced capitalist (2) Postcapitalist d. Postmodern

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2. Principle of organization (kinship, political class rule, unpolitical class rule) 3. Systems spheres (economic, political, sociocultural) In terms of this nonreductionist schema, Habermas (1988) derives four possible tendencies in the context of "organized or advanced capitalism": economic crises from the economic sphere, rationality crises and legitimation crises from the political sphere; motivation crises from the sociocultural sphere. In Chapter 13, we discuss further the details of (1) the nature of these crises (system crisis or identity crisis), (2) their source (systemssteering capacity or open conflicts between antagonistic interest groups), and (3) their development and manifestation (e.g., a crisis in systems integration leading to social disintegration). The point we wish to emphasize in this chapter is that the systems-theoretic concept of crisis largely in terms of external disturbances (and the cybernetic Law of Requisite Variety) needs to be reexamined for its adequacy in relation to the dialectical interplay between the normative, social integrative issues and the steering, system imperatives. By highlighting the opportunistic practice of transposing the real internal problems/crises to external disturbances, our strategic ideology thesis sought to unmask the typical, systematic actions within social systems that conceal the inverted reality.

12.4

Conclusion

Ideologies play a systematic concealment role. Constitutive ideologies are the outcomes of an inverted reality, and as such play the pervasive role of masking the structural contradictions of society. Strategic ideologies, on the other hand, are theoretical and practical discursive practices that seek to justify the concealment role of constitutive ideologies in specific circumstances. This chapter gives two illustrative, empirical cases of strategic ideologies, one from Japan; the other from the United Kingdom. The implication for critical systems thinking is that problems of systems control and systems crises cannot be simplistically defined in terms of the problem of external environmental disturbances upon system integration. Issues of social integration are equally important. Both system and social integration are dialectical phenomena, such that a more critical view of the problem of hegemony in general and system control in particular must not fail to address the interplay between system integration and social integration.

13 Critical Social Theory From Epistemology to Communicative Paradigm 13.1

Introduction

Following Habermas (1972, 1984a, 1987b), it seems to us that science, in the broad and (in our view) proper sense is the systematic engagement in endeavors to improve knowledge through a diversity of human processes of new learning backed up by psychosocial heritage of human intuition and past knowledge. However, in his 1965 seminal work (translated from German to English in 1972) on the theory of knowledge, Habermas found all previous influential work on the theory of knowledge epistemologically impoverished; they all suffered from "objectivist illusion," trying to sever knowledge from human interests. In his recent monumental work (Habermas, 1984a, 1987b), he reconceptualized the problem, not in epistemological terms, but in sociolinguistic terms. Although most of the issues of central concern to his emancipatory program remained the same, the thrust of his argument changed from a preoccupation with radicalizing epistemology to that of radicalizing forms of linguistic interaction. But running throughout these emancipatory concerns, the central problem remains the same: the task of redeeming modernity from the enigma of enlightenment. In this chapter, we attempt to discuss these two aspects of Habermas's work: the epistemological and the linguistic enigmas of modernity. Habermas's (1972) theory of knowledge and human interests (KHI) is an epistemological argument that knowledge, including its most visible form, science, is necessarily embedded in three anthropological, deepseated interests of the human species as a whole, namely, the technical, the practical, and the emancipatory interests. As such, the validity of any epistemological standpoint is inseparable from these underlying human interests. 199

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The purpose of the next section of this chapter is to revisit KHI to see one particular aim Habermas wanted to achieve, namely, to show that the fundamental assumptions and tenets of modern positivism are not tenable, and that the only epistemologically valid standpoint for knowledge, or science (in rational argumentation terms) is one founded on knowledge-constitutive interests of the human species, qua species: human-centered epistemology versus modern positivistic epistemology, themost extreme form of objectivism. This epistemological standpoint falls under the rubric of critical hermeneutics. Section 13.3 is therefore intended to provide a brief definitional focus on critical hermeneutics as a paradigm in social theory. But, up to that point, reference to critical hermeneutics would have been made only against the backdrop of positivism, without reference to a wider framework of other competing sociological paradigms. This task is undertaken in Section 13.4, where the work of Burrell and Morgan (1979) is shown as significantly illuminating, even if epistemologically limited compared to Habermas's KHI. In section 13.5, we discuss the epistemological enigma of modernity. For this purpose we focus upon the paradigms of Hegel, the mature Marx, Weber, Lukacs, Gramsci, and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, and show how the young Habermas's KHI paradigm found them all misguided by the "objectivist illusion." Section 13.6 takes us beyond KHI, in an expanded discussion of critical hermeneutics under what has come to be known as Habermas's "linguistic and social turn," a turn from a concern with epistemological foundations as such, to the philosophy of language and a concern with sociology. The problem is now different. The battle is no longer merely about one form of epistemology versus another epistemology; the battleground has shifted from the subject-centered epistemology of consciousness to the sociologically informed theory of language. We therefore begin to reexamine the whole problematic for critical social theory in terms of modernity's enigma of the "dialectic of enlightenment." In Section 13.7, the chapter then ends with a brief examination of the part or role critical systems thinking currently plays, or indeed should play in this wider critical social theory.

13.2 Habermas's Knowledge and Human A Human-Centered Epistemological of Objectivistic Positivism

Interests: Critique

KHI is essentially a critique of objectivism in general, and objectivistic modern positivism in particular. The purpose is to develop epistemologi-

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cally a more comprehensive conception of reason. Restricting our discussion in this section to Habermas's critique of positivism, we briefly outline how Habermas argued that positivism was founded on three untenable tenets: 1. That knowledge deriving from the hypothetical-deductive model (empiricism) is the only genuine form of knowledge in both natural and social sciences. 2. That this form of knowledge is value-free, meaning that its validity is independent of any normative commitments. 3. That values and norms are totally outside the realm of science understood as the only basis for rational discussion, in which case rationality in the value-laden realm of politics must be understood as only referring to the efficiency of the means, and not to the ends being pursued. Habermas attacks these positivistic tenets as "scientistic," an arrogant and mistaken self-understanding of science that reduces all knowledge to a belief in itself. In Habermas's (1972, p. 4) words, scientism is "science's belief in itself: that is, the conviction that we can no longer understand science as one form of possible knowledge, but rather must identify knowledge with science." Habermas's attack proceeds on three devastating arguments, which progressively seek to establish that there is no defensible basis for an ontology of an independently existing world of things "out there" that objectivistically constitutes knowledge "from the outside in." The first argument is a reiteration of the Kantian fundamental point that every act of knowing is a human action that must ipso facto entail a thinking subject and a knowable object. In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant (1966) argues that knowledge is necessarily constituted not only by the objects of experience (in the object world), but also by a priori categories and concepts that the knowing subject brings to every act of thought and perception. In which case, the validity of any form of knowledge depends as much on the subjective conceptual process of apprehension as it does on methodologically verifiable observation and sense experience. Thus, Habermas seeks to put reason and rationality back into the knowing subject. The upshot of the argument is that knowledge cannot be conceived of as independent of the knowing subject. The second argument extends the first by conceptualizing the knowing subject, not as merely a solitary individual, but also as social. This means that there cannot be a knowing subject without the heritage of culture or tradition, in which case all knowledge is necessarily mediated by our embeddedness in human historical experience.

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Habermas's third argument seeks to elucidate the epistemological puzzle of how to validate what we doubt today as knowledge, given that such a validation process is in principle trapped in an infinite regress. Habermas's argument is that the answer lies in the self-reflective power of reason (in its universal sense of Reason), not only in the sense of critiquing its own conceptual categories and principles, but also in the emancipatory sense of trying to uncover the constraining shackles of false consciousness.

13.3 Critical

Hermeneutics:

A Brief

Definition

There are two major strands of hermeneutics. One is historical hermeneutics, which represents a sharp epistemological and ontological break with positivism (Oliga, 1991a). The epistemological break is the hermeneutics denial of the possibility of knowledge without a knowing (thinking) subject. The ontological break is the hermeneutics recognition that there is a fundamental difference between the world of nature (or objectivated nature), and the social world, because the latter goes beyond the natural world of merely observable objects to the social world of subjective meanings of social action, and intentions of interacting "selves." The second strand is critical hermeneutics, which represents a sharp ethical break with positivism (Oliga, 1991a). Critical hermeneutics builds on historical hermeneutics, extending the paradigmatic standpoint to a radical/critical position in which issues of power and ideology become problematized. In this light, it can now be seen that the aims and consequences of Habermas's (1972) KHTs attack on positivism were to establish the validity of critical hermeneutics as reflecting the technical, practical, and emancipatory interests in intersubjectively shared understanding (i.e., in the objectivity of experience).

13A Burrell and Morgan's Sociological Paradigms and Haberntas's Knowledge and Human Interests To locate the paradigmatic position of critical hermeneutics within a more general framework of social theory, we need to turn briefly back to Burrell and Morgan's (1979) typology of sociological paradigms (Chapter 10). As we saw, for this purpose, Burrell and Morgan employ a twodimensional perspective: (1) a cognitive dimension that dichotomizes theories as either subjective or objective, and (2) an ethical (political) dimen-

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sion that cate gorizes social theories as being either regulative (a social order view of society) or radical (a conflict view of society). The resulting 2 x 2 matrix classified social theories into four paradigms: the "functionalist/' the "interpretive," the "radical humanist," and the "radical structuralist" (see Figure 10.1). According to Burrell and Morgan, each of these paradigms has its own unique theories, perspectives, and methodologies that are incommensurable. Functionalism is simultaneously objectivist (positivist epistemology, realist ontology, a deterministic view of human nature, and a nomothetic methodology), and a commitment to the regulative need to maintain the existing social order. Interpretivism, on the other hand, although taking a similar regulative stance, sees knowledge as essentially a product of subjective experience and individual consciousness, and is hence cognitively committed to a nominalist ontology, antipositivist epistemology, a voluntaristic view of human nature, and an ideographic methodology. Cognitively, the difference between radical structuralist paradigm and radical humanist paradigm parallels that between functionalism and interpretivism. But they difjfer from the latter in that they are committed to a radical transformation of a dominative social order through processes that seek either to critique the existing social structures of power, social contradictions and domination (the radical structuralist paradigm), or to foster critical self-reflection about existing ideological beliefs (the humanist paradigm). Laughlin et al. (1981), Chua et al. (1981), and Oliga (1986,1991a) have all argued that whereas Burrell and Morgan's (1979) framework parallels that of KHI, the two are essentially different in their fundamental presuppositions. The difference lies in the fact that whereas Burrell and Morgan are preoccupied with explaining the nature of the differences between the four sociological paradigms, Habermas (1972) goes further by reconciling those differences. Thus, contrary to Habermas's view, Burrell and Morgan end up in a paradigmatic incommensurability position (Oliga, 1986a, 1991a, pp. 163-166; Flood, 1990b, pp. 35-41).

13.5 The Epistemological of Consciousness

Enigma of Modernity:

The

Philosophy

13.5.1 Introduction With his usual rare insight and powerful argumentation, Habermas (1972,1984a, 1987b) has shown that the long line of "philosophers of the subject," consciousness and reason (from Hegel, Marx, Weber, Hork-

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heimer, Adorno, and others), and those repudiating reason, the postmodernists/poststructurahsts (from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, to Derrida and others) have all seriously attempted but miserably failed to solve the problem of subject-centered reason, which is at the root of the dilemma of modernity conceived as grounded in the dialectic of enlightenment (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1972). We defer discussion of the postmodernists' aesthetics paradigm to subsection 13.5.3.

13.5.2 Subject-Centered Philosophy of Consciousness: Two Strands and Six Lines of Approach Habermas (1970a, 1970b, 1971a, 1971b, 1972,1973a, 1973b) cogently argues that six different lines of approach to the dilemma of enlightenment have each been a failure for one and the same reason: the misconceptualization of the repository of reason as being the subject (the individual) instead of the intersubjectivity (the universal). A brief discussion of the six lines of approach precedes Habermas's KHI paradigm.

13.5.2.1 The Dialectic of Enlightenment In brief, the dialectic of enlightenment has arisen because of the fact that, on the one hand, the very meaning and reality of "modernity" is that the " m o d e m " man became disenchanted with the premodern unjustified metaphysical beliefs (e.g., myths, tradition, and religious dogmas) that were not rationally justifiable. The potential for an enlightened (i.e., rational) subject thus became real. On the other hand, progress in the modernization and rationalization process seemed to be accompanied, not by increasing progress toward human emancipation, but by increasing loss of freedom and loss of meaning. There lies the dialectic of enlightenment, a dilemma, a paradox. Two different philosophical traditions have sought to grapple with this dilemma. One line of philosophical thought saw the issue as requiring a more penetrative analysis within the subject-centered philosophy of consciousness. Within this tradition, there are two strands: the positive view, and the negative view. The positive view is represented by Hegel's Absolutist Paradigm, whereas the negative view can be represented by perhaps its five most important paradigms, namely, the classical Marxist Production paradigm, the Weberian Culturalist paradigm, the Lukacsian Dialectical Voluntarism paradigm, the Gramscian Revolutionary Praxis paradigm, and the Frankfurt School's Critique of Instrumental Reason para-

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digm. The young Habermas's KHI paradigm is a critique of all the six paradigms. A different line of philosophical tradition, postmodernism, on the other hand, sought to dissolve the dilemma by repudiating the very idea of reason, opting instead for an Aesthetics paradigm. This will be discussed in subsection 13.5.3. Figure 13.1 is a representation of these different paradigms. It seeks to offer a schematic guide to the discussions in this subsection. Thus, what now follows is a discussion of what must necessarily be a selective choice of some key players in the battle against the enigma of modernity. This is then followed by is an introduction to Habermas's (1984a, 1987b) Theory of Communicative Action (TCA), a theory that seeks to reconceptualize the whole problematic in "lifeworld-system" terms, and to suggest the theory of language as perhaps the best way forward. Table 13.1 represents this three-stage sequence of our discussions.

The enigma of modernity: Diaiectic of eniightenment

Subject-centered philosophy

Post-modernism

Philosophy of language: Habermas's linguistic turn

Nietzschian Negative view

Positive view

Aesthetics paradigm

1 Hegelian Absolutist paradigm 1

1

1

1

Marxian historical materialism

Radical Weberianism

Lukacsian Marxism

Gramsdan Marxism

The Frankfurt school of critical theory

Production paradigm

Culturalist paradigm

Dialectical voluntarism paradigm

"Praxis" paradigm

Critk^ue of instrumental reason paradigm

Young Habermas

Khi paradigm

Communicative action paradigm

FIGURE 13.1 The Enigma of Modernity: The Dialectic of Enhghtenment (Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

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The Enigma of Modernity: Issues I. The problem

11. A selective list of attempted solutions

III. Habermas's latest attempt

TABLE 13.1 With Some Key Players and Their Paradigms

The dialectic of living and dead labor The paradox of cultural and societal rationalization processes The dialectic of enlightenment Absolute spirit Historical materialism (production) Stunted culturalism (Iron cage: no solution) Proletariat class consciousness Proletariat praxis (theory and practice) Habermas's KHI Postmodernism: aesthetics (taste)

Habermas's TCA (language)

Lifetimes

Some key players K. Marx (1818-1883) M. Weber (1864-1920)

M. Horkheimer (1895-1973) T.W. Adorno (1903-1969) H. Marcuse (1898-1979) G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) K. Marx (1818-1883) F. Engels (1820-1895) M. Weber (1864-1920)

G. Lukacs (1885-1933) A. Gramsci (1891-1937)

J. Habermas (1929-) F. Nietzsche (1844-1900) M. Heidegger (1889-1976) M. Foucault (1926-1984) J. Derrida (1930-) J. Habermas (1929-)

Source: Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a.

13.5.2.2 Hegelian Absolutist Paradigm The first line of approach, that of Hegel and one strand of his followers, took a positive view of the solution to the problem of the dialectic of enlightenment. For Hegel, the problem of modernity lay in the selfestrangement of the subjective mind into an external, objective illusion. His theory of negative dialectics offered a positive solution, whereby the self-estranged subjective mind with all its rational and irrational elements {thesis) would call up a negating image of the better alternative (objective reason) as an antithesis; and if the contradiction was sufficiently fundamental, a synthesis could ensue, marking a progressive step in which the rational elements are preserved, and the irrational elements cancelled. This triadic process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis is a "sublation" (sublima-

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tion) of the subject and the object, which if progressively repeated in the history of human consciousness, would, in Hegel's view, lead to the selfcritical and full awareness of the mind's own true nature: the absolute spirit, the highest state of the mind. Translated in social terms, this highest "state" is what Hegel envisaged as the progressive maturing of collective consciousness into "absolute knowledge" or the spirit of a people {Volksgeist) in a particular, historical "nation-state." In his philosophy of religion, Hegel saw self-conscious rationalization progressing dialectically from primitive religion, in which there was no differentiation between consciousness and Nature, to the final stage where religion and art, both being ways of apprehending reality in the form in which reality could be sensed through imageries, are transcended by philosophy (the highest, pure, imageless form of thought) such that Reason becomes perfectly actualized into the "Absolute Knowledge." In human species terms, each Volksgeist represented part of a chain of progress, culminating ultimately in Weltgeist, the "world mind" with "absolute knowledge." This was the Hegelian absolute idealist solution, in which Reason in the form of Geist, adopted another form, the State, in which it would manifest itself, a political solution resting on the subjective consciousness of the institutional orders of the day (Rasmussen, 1990). This, as Habermas argued, clearly ended in the endorsement of the political status quo with no guarantee for individual freedom and collective autonomy. The Hegelian political solution thus failed to articulate a rationally justifiable way forward for progress toward human emancipation. Figure 13.2 is our schematic representation of this paradigm. As this way of schematically representing a particular paradigm will remain our standard form for all paradigms addressed in this section, a word of explanation is perhaps in order here. Figure 13.3 represents the rationale of our understanding of various paradigmatic positions. Obviously, this general frame of reference must be taken as only one form of conceptual guidance to the individual, specific interpretations of various "emancipatory" paradigms. We believe, however, that this schematic elucidation of the emancipation problematic may and can contribute to an enlightened thought and understanding of direly needed critical (and not vulgar) emancipatory actions. Looking at Figure 13.3, we see that the ultimate objective is h u m a n emancipation. Those concerned with this objective have espoused beliefs that express hope, or despair, or sheer impossibility of the emancipatory task. The lower, horizontal arrows represent the particular social tensions characterizing a particular paradigmatic enigma of modernity. The upper, vertical arrows, on the other hand, represent either positive attempts, suggesting ways forward for the emancipatory efforts, or simply an expo-

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Emancipation through "absolute spirit" (self-critical and full awareness of mind's own true nature) (Synthesis)

"Sublatbn" (sublimation) whereby rationalities are preserved and irrationalities cancelled

Subject: Individual consciousness: Subjective mind (in abstraction from social relations) (Thesis)

Dialectical Overcoming illusion of the mind (mental alienation) through the triadic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) chain of progress

Self-estrangement of subjective mind

"Sublation" (sublimation) whereby rationalities are preserved and irrationalities cancelled

Object: Self-objectification: Objective mind (In social context)

Return of objective mind as an opposite (a contradiction)

(Antithesis)

FIGURE 13.2 Hegel's Objective Idealism: Absolutist Paradigm (Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

sition of aporias that are either bereft of any hope of being resolved, or are presented as being, in principle, beyond resolution. The two rectangular boxes, the subject on the left, and the object on the right, represent the two poles of the enigma of modernity: the subjective pole being the victim of unfreedom, and the objective pole the forces of unfreedom. 13.5.2.3 Classical Marxist Production Paradigm Historical materialism is the mature Marx's theory of social evolution (Marx, 1973, 1974, 1976; Marx and Engels, 1970, 1975). It is that theory that has dominated the works of that strand of Marxists known as classical orthodox Marxism (see, e.g., the works of Mandel, Braverman, Baran and Sweezy, etc.). Historical materialism is what has come to be known as the production paradigm, a positivist economic theory, which postulates

209

Critical Social Theory Objective: Human Emancipation Paradigm standpoint:

or or

(a) Hope for progress towards freedom (b) Despair (e.g. Weber) (c) Intractable aporias showing unfreedom is irreversible (e. g. Horkheimer andAdorno)

- Overcoming the enigmas of modernity Uberating victim's actions

(Combined actions of left and right arrows)

Redemptive action upon forces of unfreedom

(a) Possible (b) Despair (c) Impossible

(a) Possible (b) Despair (c) Impossible

(a) Possible (b) Despair (c) Impossible

Subject: Victims of unfreedom

The enigmas of modernity (the dialectic of enlightenment: a dilemma, a paradox)

Object: Forces of unfreedom

Positive: Progressive process of rationalization and modemization

* Alienation

(a) Individual consciousness (b) Collective consciousness (c) A differentiated subject Negative: Regressive processes leading to (a) Loss of meaning, and (b) Loss of freedom

• Fetishism ' Reification * Purposive rationality * Ideological hegemony and coercive power * Instrumental reason (technocratic consciousness) * Objectivist illusions ' Myth of a differentiated subject • System's colonization of lifeworld through parasitic forms of language interaction

FIGURE 13.3 A Common Interpretive Framework for Understanding Different Paradigmatic Positions on the Enigma of Modernity (Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

that social evolution or progress is economically determined. The paradigm identifies five different evolutionary modes of production through which progress proceeds: (1) hunter/gatherer (i.e., primitive communism), (2) the Asiatic mode of production, (3) the feudal mode of production, (4) the capitalist mode of production (CMP), and finally (5) the communist or postcapitalist mode of production. At the center of the production paradigm is the capitalist mode of production (CMP), characterizing modernity. Marx (1974) argued that

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CMP was characterized by a contradictory inner logic. On the one hand, there was the intensification of progress on the production (materialist) side: in the name of forces of production (technology, or more generally, the productive combination and use of men, machines, materials, and money). On the other hand, progress at this materialist (structural) level entailed a mystification at the cultural level, known as the relations of production. In the latter case, Marx saw the social relations not as one directly between human beings, but as one n\ediated through the imperatives of commodity exchange and value in terms of money. In such a system of social relations, human qualities are reduced to things, commodities, private property. In this alienation of private property, social relations become essentially commodified and institutionally taken, not as historical, but as natural. The relations of CMP thus become distorted and transformed into a fetish, capital being, for instance, the source of profit, and labor, the source of wages (Marx, 1974; cf. Clarke, 1982; Melloti, 1977; Oliga, 1991a). Although so-called commodities appear to be simple, independent objects in the external world, they are in fact bundles of social relationships. The products of human action and interaction, which in essence represent the transformation of concrete living labor (work) into dead labor (values in use), are mystified in the CMP as commodities (i.e., merely values in exchange). Fetishism refers to this commodification of social relations and interaction into "naturalized" things for market exchange. For classical Marxism, it is in this fetishism, a consequence of the CMP contradictions between forces of production and relations of production, that the problems and dilemmas of enlightenment lie. In reconstructing Marx, Lukacs redefines this fetishism as reification. But, in the context of contemporary realities of advanced capitalism, Habermas (1982) sees the Marxist theory of social evolution and progress as underdeveloped, and in need of reconstruction. He argues that the production paradigm is positivistic and an impoverished, economic-reductionist view of social progress. The roles of culture, and growth of human knowledge (that go beyond economism) are ignored. In a deeper sense, Habermas argues, labor (production) should not be naively construed as the sheer force of material "tool power," or physical laboring; not merely as an economic category, but as an epistemological category, the human activity and social action through which experientially the external world (Nature or objectivated social world) becomes known to us. But, Habermas's argument continues: The ensuing instrumental and technological knowledge is "socially coordinated and [therefore] rooted in culture, and bound up with forms of symbolic interaction that characterize each stage of social evolution" (Pusey, 1987, p. 28).

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Critical Social Theory

Emancipation through dictatorship of the proletariat k.

Enlightenment

Overcoming fetishism

Decommodifici

Subject

Achievements of progressive "forces of production"

Object:

Materialism: Fetishized socially

History-making subjects (Superstmcture) Commodifying "relations of production"

created reality (Base)

FIGURE 13.4 Marxian Marxism: Economistic Determinism: Production Paradigm (Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

In summary, the Marxist social evolution theory, the production paradigm, needs to be reconstructed as "a progress that depends on expanded possibilities for learning and so for the creation of culture with an emancipatory potential: as the progressive institutionalization of the claims of reason against arbitrary power" ( Pusey, 1987, p. 29). Figure 13.4 is our schematic representation of this paradigm. 13.5.2.4 Weberian Culturalist Paradigm The third line of approach took an extremely negative view of the solution to the problem, despairingly seeing no way forward. This was the line taken by Weber (1968, 1976), who initially saw disenchantment of the enlightenment period as a positive process of the societal (cultural/ethical) rationalization process, which got its strongest driving force in ascetic Protestantism in general (and in the religious orientation of Luther and Calvin in particular). Later, however, as capitalist structures of economic interest and power became dominant, Weber could only see the negative

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face of rationalization in terms of the "Iron Cage," the quintessential symbol of late capitalism. In Weber's (1976, p.181) words: The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. In Baxter's view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment'. But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.

Weber periodized the rationalization process in two temporally distinct nonoverlapping phases (see Figure 13.5): 1. Phase 1 (Al) being the disenchantment from beliefs in magicalmythical worldviews, leading first to universal rationalization, and finally to societal rationalization defined in terms of modern progress in the social world of culture and ethics guided by purposive rationality. 2. Phase 2 (B2) being a dramatic shift from a focus on ethics and culture to a focus on structures of power and economic interest of late capitalism. In Weber's (1976) view, it is this abrupt break between the two rationalization processes that signified the start of the one-sided assimilation of culture into institutionalized structures of power (the economy and the state) such that the ethical and cultural springs of action just [began to] rot away and [could] no longer have any "rationally motivating force" or any further "structureforming effects." The future, and with it autonomy, will and consciousness, all disappear into the Iron Cage [emphasis ours] and the blind career of the "machine." (Pusey, 1987, p. 56)

But according to Habermas's reconstruction of this Weberian negative view (see Figure 13.6), the problem is that Weber's account of the rationalization process is incomplete, discontinuous, and inconsistent. Weber's focus moves along the two trend lines, Al and B2. Weber's analysis of Phase 1 of the rationalization process is cast in terms of an unfolding logic of development in the realm of culture and ethics (along line Al). But the problem arises in the discontinuity of the explanatory framework when Weber "switches tracks" from the first to the second

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Critical Social Theory

PHASED

Phase 1

Phase 2

PROGRESS

"Disenchantment" from

Rationalization in the 20th

OF

the European High

century

HISTORY

Middle Ages to liberal capitalism A: The rationalization of ethics and culture A1

A2

RATIONALIZATION PROCESS

B: The rationalization of (social, political economic) structures of power B1

82

FIGURE 13.5 The Reconstruction of the Process of Rationalization (Adapted from Habermas, 1984a, p. 4, and from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

phase that he thereafter "one-sidedly" explains in terms of the social and structural institutionalization of power in the economy and the state (the trend line B2). In Habermas's view, this is wrong; the two processes of rationalization have been going on uninterrupted, not only side by side, but also in a mutually influencing (dialectical) manner. Against this background, one can see more clearly the thrust and the purpose of Habermas's reconstruction. He develops a fully fledged theory of rationalization, constructed as a world-historical process by filling in and expanding the two seemingly incomplete or misconstrued aspects of the larger project, namely A2 and Bl. Habermas's A2 and Bl extensions (essentially reconstructions) represent his basic argument that the course of human history is equally a product of ideas (the Weberian cultural dynamic) as is that of power and

2U

Chapter 13

No hope for emancipation because of the iron cage A

k

imprisoned

Despair

Subject: (Collectivity)

Imprisoning

Object: Stunted progress of ethics and culture

• •••^DDD Culture

(••••DDD Bureaucratic processes: Loss of meaning and loss of freedom

Bureaucracy: Institutions of capitalist economy and state

FIGURE 13.6 Weber's Culturalist Paradigm (Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

interests (the Marxist structural base/causal explanation). Viewed in this light, Marx and Weber are essentially complementary to each other. To understand this complementarity, Habermas (1984a) introduces the idea of the development of law. In his view, the nucleus of the modern state developed in the structures of civil law and public justice. Thus the form of posttraditional law embodied a logic of cultural and ethical development that set coherent limits as to what could or could not be legitimated. These limits acted as constraints upon the law, even if often used as the

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medium through which culture and ethics were neutralized and appropriated in the service of power as an instrument of domination and coercion. In modernity, legal structures thus came to mediate between ideas (culture) and interests (power) in both directions (Habermas, 1984a; Pusey, 1987), a kind of double-edged sword. Habermas's (1984a) reconstruction of Weber thus clearly shows that modernity's rationalization processes are not only simultaneously cultural and structural, but also dialectical in that the structures of power and economy press in upon our lives with an overwhelming immediacy, [while the cultural and ethical trendline] is, in opposite measure, dimly visible, heavily repressed, elusive and manifest for the most part only "in the abstract" and as a beckoning potentiality of open possibilities. (Pusey, 1987, p. 56)

Thus, in his project for the redemption of modernity, Habermas saw the negative approach of the despairing Weber as mistaken, alerting us instead to the all-important idea that abstract developments in worldviews, ethics, and culture, no less than structural developments in science, technology, economy and the state, contain in their inner logic (their critical kernels) universal potentialities and consequences for the institutionalization of increasing measures of human emancipation and happiness. 13.5.2.5 Lukacsian-Marxist Dialectical Voluntarism Paradigm Lukacs's (1947) dialectical voluntarism paradigm is a particular strand of Marxism, but with a fundamental difference from orthodox Marxism. In the early 1920s, Lukacs (1971) and his later followers (Goldmann, 1969; Gouldner, 1976; Meszaros 1970) sought to reconstruct the idea of positivistic and economistic theory of unilinear social evolution that is deterministically bound to happen. Instead, they sought to reinstate the young Marx (before the latter's "epistemological break" from Hegelian idealism of the objectivist idealist strand to historical materialism) to the center of critical theory. It is from this perspective that the Lukacsians saw the proletariat as a class providing the solution to the emancipation problem, collectively through class consciousness, and individually as historical agents, who represent an identical subject-object not only in [their] ability to transcend alienation, but also in [their] position in the centre of the world historical stage, from which [they] can comprehend, more than any other group or class, the "totality" of the capitalist class. (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 286)

Following Hegel, Lukacs sees the concept of "totality" as signifying the intimate interpenetration between subjective and objective dimensions

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216

of social reality. For Lukacs, the Marxian concept of fetishism (or more generally, alienation, in Hegel's terms) becomes reconstructed into "reification," a pathological situation in which the deep and intimate interpenetration is falsely ruptured, differentiated, and made to look discrete rather than identical. The essential difference between Marx's fetishism and Lukacs's reification is that the former sees the emancipation problem purely in economistic (production/money) terms, whereas the latter sees it in essentially political (consciousness/power) terms. Thus, as Burrell and Morgan (1979, p. 287) put it, Lukacs's reification refers to the fact that whilst men in their day-to-day productive activities create their social world, these activities and what results from them are seen as divorced from men, as independent, objectified ''things/'

Figure 13.7 is our schematic representation of this paradigm. As can be seen from the figure, emancipation is predicated upon the enlightenment of the class consciousness of the history-making proletarian subject on the one hand, and the dereification of the alienating socially created reality through objective reason on the other hand.

Emancipation through history and class consciousness of the proletariat

Enlightenment of consciousness

Subject:

Overcoming reification

Achievements of progressive "forces of production"

De-reification through unity of moments of reason (objective reason)

Object:

Materialism: Reified socially created reality

History-making proletarian class Reifying and alienating "relations of production"

FIGURE 13.7 Lukacsian Marxism: Dialectical Voluntarism Paradigm (Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

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Critical Social Theory

13.5.2.6 Gramscian Revolutionary "Praxis" Paradigm In his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci (1971) presents his philosophy of praxis as another Marxist strand of critical theory with its own distinctive features. In his view, other Marxism strands of theorizing selectively veer on the subjectivist, voluntaristic, and idealistic side of the sociophilosophical pendulum, or on the objectivist, deterministic, and materialistic side. He saw that perhaps the best way forward for emancipation lay with the oppressed proletarian class, the class (in his view) best placed to overcome these antinomies through "the philosophy of praxis," the unification of critical theory and revolutionary practice. The proletariat needed to be their own theorists in developing a class consciousness of the need for ideological resistance against the ideological hegemony of the ruling class that invisibly infiltrated the family, schools, and workplaces. But of equal importance, the proletariat also needed to engage in revolutionary struggle (e.g., by forming a network of workers' factory councils upon which |f-?,;::vv:;^ ^ '

:::"' Ehf^ltifHi^^ ii

ii

Overcoming antinomies

/ /

\

Idealism Voluntarism Subjectivism A Class consciousness of the need for ideological resistance

\

Materialism Determinism Objectivism Class revolutionary struggle

Subject:

;•:;•:::;•;;:•:;;:; Object: MZ'--M •5

o

The Frankfurt school of critical theory

Habermas's khi

3 (0

O or Marxian -

Gramsdan Marxism Historical materialism

"Subjective" materialism

"Objective" materialsm

Materlaism FIGURE 13.10 Sociology of Change (Subject-Centered Philosophy of Consciousness) (Adapted from Morita and Oliga, 1994a)

S