Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

132 Scientism and Values
sible, may try to sort out specific units from a range or cluster of
phenomena and call their interdependency, their functioning, a
system. This does not require conscious behavior on the part of
those units, or of a majority of them, as members (and in terms)
of a system. The "system," its functional value, may have come
about by natural selection. We might think here also, for instance,
of the nervous system or certain ecological systems made up of
different plants and lower organisms.
And even when we speak of "American society," for the most
part we have a system before us that functions in all its complexity
on a level of mutual consciousness and recognition not very much
higher than the systems mentioned above. Except for a few intellectuals
perhaps, most Americans, whose daily activities over centuries
helped to create a complex and highly productive socioeconomic
system, did not, and do not now, go about their business all
the time thinking of their social system.
By contrast, there are social systems that are systems precisely
because of a theory of a specific system that preceded them in time.
They remain functioning systems only as long as most of their
members remain intensely conscious of the theory that has welded
them into a system. Any complex group of human beings performing
a highly specialized service, whether it be Lloyd's of London,
an opera company, or the general staff of an army, might be mentioned
as illustrations. Yet again, there is a difference between the
social system of Lloyd's, a modern opera hous.e, and the German
General Staff. Unlike the former, which grew gradually by trial
and error, the German General Staff was an articulate and functioning
social system mostly by virtue of all its members' constant
and intens,e dedication to the theory which had put the system
into existence.
If these different meanings of the term "social system" are confused,
naive yet ambitious legislators and policy-makers often may
come to expect from "society" a continuous performance on a
level of cohesion and dedication which we could expect only in
the best circumstances from a system of the type illustrated by the
General Staff.