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158 P. F. Lazarsfeld
Processes’, in: W. BUCKLEY (ed.), op. cit., p. 304. The author states that there is a
clear difference between these positive feedbacks and the undamped oscillation and
explosion processes which have been studied over a long time. This is, of course,
a crucial point which at the moment I am not in a position to check.
73. K. W. DEUTSCH, op. cit. p. 389.
74. The ‘Buckley Reader’ includes a group of papers in which prominent natural
scientists discuss this point from two opposing points of view. Part 5 A ‘Cybernetics
and Purpose’, pp. 221-304.
75. W. BUCKLEY, Sociology and Modern Systems Theory, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.),
Prentice Hall, 1967.
76. While the founding fathers were not unaware of the problem, most authors now
take it from No. 3 in Merton’s paradigm.
77. L. COSER, The Functions of Social Conflict, Glencoe (Ill.), Free Press, 1956,
passim.
78. R. DAHRENDORF, ‘Die Funktionen sozialer Konflikte’,passim, in Pfade aus Utopia,
Munich, 1967. The reader might notice in the title of this paper the ambivalence I
have stressed above. Dahrendorf explicitly rejects Coser’s argument. But the
titles of the two publications are the same, indicating that the study of conflict
is a neglected but legitimate part of functional analysis.
79. The trend described here stresses the intrinsic elements in functionalism which
supposedly strengthen the conservative position. One author has a more sociological
interpretation. Renate Mayntz thinks that there is nothing logically compelling
in functional analysis which would keep its proponent in a conservative
posture. But, in fact, the majority are likely to overlook the really important elements
of conflicts. The sociologist of a Western country lives in a society which
has eliminated its worst evils, but in doing so has established bureaucracies which
would at critical moments resist major change. The average citizen is therefore in a
position in which he is neither mistreated nor really shares effective power. The
professional sociologist himself is in this situation. ‘The middle class position of
most sociologists and the occupational role they play results in the fact that they
neither have a great amount of power nor do they live in oppressive dependence.
They neglect the phenomenon of power because they have seldom contact with its
strong emanations’. R. MAYNTZ, ‘Soziologie in der Eremitage: Kritische Bemerkungen
zum Vorwurf des Konservativismus der Soziologie’, in: E. TOPITSCH (ed.),
Logik der Sozialwissenschaften, Berlin, Kiepenheuer, 1965 (First edition, 1957),
p. 526.
80. ‘A Theory of Role Strain’, American Sociological Review, 1960, p. 493.
81. A. W. GOULDNER, ‘The Norms of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement’,
American Sociological Review, 1960, p. 161. The notion of reciprocity has long
played a role among anthropologists. George Homans revived it for American
sociologists, but not in a functional context. PIAGET in an early essay stressed the
importance of exchange for social theory. His interesting observations have, as
far as I can see, not found attention. ‘Essai sur la thkorie des valeurs qualitatives
en sociologie statistique (synchronique)’, in : Publications de la FacultP de Sciences
Economiques de I’ Universitt de GenBve, Georg, I941 (Etudes Sociologiques, No.
32,1941). We started with Goode’s paper because of its greater simplicity, although
it was published slightly after Gouldner’s.
82. Gouldner makes the point that the element of time is usually neglected in functional
analysis. This, according to him, is especially true because ‘rarely, if ever,
systematic treatments include the beginnings of a social system as such‘. Here he
comes very near to the ‘kick-off stressed by Magorol (see footnote no. 72).
83. Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York, Wiley, 1964.
84. R. BROWN, Explanation in Social Science, Chicago, Aldine, 1963, pp. 109 ff; C. G.
HEMPEL, ‘The Logic of Functional Analysis’, in: M. BRODBECK (ed.), Readings
in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan, 1968, pp. 179-
210; A. MALEWSKI, Verhalten und Znteraktion, Tubingen, J. C. B. Mohr (Paul