Differentiation of Society

Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research

2014

The present analysis of the Euro looks for the marks that function systems make on what we commonly take for the European money. Clearly distinguishing between coins and currency, the Euro coins and banknotes are not taken for economic tokens per se, but for storage devices that contain both economic and non-economic information. A systemic analysis of the function system references on these storage devices shows that the economy has left fewer marks on the Euro than politics, art, and the mass media systems have. We hence argue that 'the Euro' 'is' not just money with a political second mission, but rather can be understood as an indicator of the relative relevance that specific function systems do or do not have for the European societies and the European society.Keywords: multi-functional; polyphonic; function system; money; currency; the Euro. IntroductionThough functional differentiation is said to dominate the modern world society (Luhmann 1984(Luhmann , 1997Stichweh 1995), most social research is focussed on more 2 intimate forms of differentiation. The most common exercise surely is to group social entities into segments like gender, color, or race, and then to rank these according to scalable characteristics. In this sense, the crossing of certain forms of segmentary differentiation seems to somehow automatically call for certain forms of stratificatory differentiation, or of well-meant efforts of de-stratification, respectively. While we are so much used to arranging income brackets along color lines or to mainstreaming the life-chances of the genders, the question of what function system is more relevant than another seems rather artificial: What if research proved that democracy renders us ill?Would health be higher a value than politics, then? Or would we simply take comfort in the assumption that science is currently not popular enough to advise on a question like this?Without any doubt, neither science nor any other function system of society could give a final answer to such a question today. However, a brief historical review reminds us of times when things were much clearer, when religion indeed could define what is false or true, who is in power, and how to do business. Times have changed a lot since those days. This is true as long as we leave it at the level of interaction, where we nowadays can appreciate faith and truth, peace and profit, health and beauty, all to the same degree at the same time. However, the more exciting case is when we cannot realize all these options at once, when we are perfectly aware of the fact that we are talking about incommensurable categories and nonetheless feel the need to decide.One of the most prominent cases of this kind of need for decision concerns the selfdefinition of society as capitalist. As widespread the label is itself, little consensus is, however, on the question of whether we either owe our form of capitalism to the primacy of politics or to the primacy of the economy (Risse 2003;Wallerstein 2003).Increasingly tired of the never-ending competi...

Section: A 'Functional' Approach To the Euromentioning

confidence: 99%

Coining societies: an inter-functional comparative analysis of the Euro

Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research

2014

“…In following Luhmann (1977), we can combine both lines of arguments and, accordingly, the respective distinctions. As such, a cross-table of the two distinctions dis-/similar and in-/equal already allows for one of the briefest possible mappings of historical and present forms of society (cf.…”

Section: Social Differentiation: Old Familiar Blue Oceans Of Piracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Booties, bounties, business models: a map to the next red oceans

2014

IJESB

This quest is for pirate maps to blue oceans. The key problem involved is that blue oceans turn red whenever these maps make their way from pirates to mainstream entrepreneurs. Pirates therefore have an essential need for maps to the next blue oceans. In drawing on form theory, this article develops a map sheet, on which it appears that, throughout history, pirates navigated social borders. An analysis of the gaps in past and present maps of social differentiation then allows for the discovery of a largely uncharted quadrant of the blue ocean for entrepreneurship and entrepreneuring.

“…As an epiphenomenon of modernization, these functions have evolved in terms of communications centred on universal communication media. 'Money: nowhere, visible thing, nowhere, invisible relation' (Bay, 2012: 43), for example, has become the symbolically generalized communication media of the economy (Luhmann, Holmes, & Larmore, 1982). Further communication media include, for instance power (the political system), truth (science) or belief (religion), whose application recodes communication according to the respective function.…”

Section: Capitalism and Functional Differentiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free Economy! On 3628800 Alternatives of and to Capitalism

Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics

2015

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.