Date:         Sun, 23 Jun 96 07:35:27 EDT
From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Organization: Central Michigan University
Subject:      The Deep and Fractal Structures of Social Class
To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY <SOCGRAD@CSF.COLORADO.EDU>
Message-Id:   <960623.080302.EDT.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Graduate Students in American Sociology must, sooner or later, come
to terms with the new sciences of Chaos and Complexity.  To that
time, I will offer occasional mini-tutorials on it...beginning with
this explication on class segments...it comes in two parts.


1.  Chaos theory sets some five dynamical states.  Each succeeding
    regime displays:
    a.  ever-more non-linear processes which produce
    b.  ever-more complex structures.

   In the case of class structure, this means that as the key
variables which produce class structure(s) increase in value,
'bifurcations' (forkings) occur in the course of a) and b), above.

With each bifurcation, the number of class sectors increase.  Marx
began with two classes; bourgeoisie and proletariat.  Even in the
time of Marx, industrial and finance capital had been organized in
such a way to produce several more class sectors/segments.  To
accomodate the growing complexity of class structure, Marx spoke
of 3) a petite bourgeosis as huge companies began to dominate the
production and distribution of social goods and services...and 4),
a 'surplus' population...those disemployed by the increasing
productivity of industrial capitalism.

By the time Eric Olin Wright stopped to count class sectors, he
found 16.  If Chaos theory is relevant to class dynamics, this new
class sectors were produced by the increase in key variables.  Let us,
for discussion purposes, assume so.

2.  Each bifurcation produces a doubling of class segments.
    2, 4, 8, 16....n.   Other nonlinear processes may re-unite
    class segments so that the count is not always divisible by two.

    With each new set of class segments, each segment becomes more
    and more FRACTAL.  That is, it takes up a fraction of the time-
    space available to it.

    In euclidean geometry, 2+ dimensional structures are solid.  They
    occupy all the space available to them...a point, a line, a
    cube [or as it turns out, even more complex structures] are not
    open...it is impossible for two euclidean structures to occupy
    the same time-space structure...not so fractal structures.

    Fractal structures are loose with considerable open space within
    the region they occupy.  This becomes a very interesting point
    when one considers class structures...it means that race, gender,
    religious and other social structures can have variable causal
    connections to class.   Wow!  You won't find this in the neat
    and tidy dynamics of newtonian physics.

    There is one more very technical but most interesting point
    about bifurcations...in deterministic chaos, they occur in a
    most elegant and precise procession...there is great order
    in chaotic regimes...the mission of postmodern science ground-
    ed on Chaos theory is to discover the point at which key factors
    produce bifurcations.

    It is very important to remember that non-linear social dynamics
    are not deterministic in the sense meant in the physical sciences.
    Faith, imagination, trust, remembrance and forgetting render all
    structures produced by SYMBOLIC INTERACTION and DEFINITIONS of the
    Situation semi-deterministic...remember this when physicists and
    mathematicians among us talk of social physics...

    Self-similar and qualitatively different fractals/patterns/
    attractors do not follow the elegant procession to chaos seen in
    simple chaotic regimes.  Remember this.

3.  The Key Variables which Drive Class Bifurcations.  There is no
    research on this point...in sociology, there is no such research
    design nor are there analytic tools with which to sort out the
    driving factors in complex class bifurcations.  But don't despair.

    We can always speculate.  That's what I've been doing these past
    seven or eight years.  Others, with more insight and a better
    grasp of the literature are most cordially invited to critique and
    surpass my speculations.

    1. The Division of Labor...capitalism itself drives a division
    of labor...a technical division of labor which may not have too
    much relevance to class inequality and class divisions...and
    a social division of labor...I tend to think that it is the social
    division of labor which is a key factor.

    In capitalism, some part of surplus value is expropriated by teh
    capitalist class...some of it is used to consolidate social and
    political power...and thus serves as a positive feedback mechanism
    which produces ever greater class inequality.

    The social division of labor, as it proceeds, requires additional
    class sectors to manage/reproduce class relations: managers,
    supervisions, lawyers, labor specialists and such.  It is the
    value of this parameter/variable which, it seems to me, to drive
    at least part of the bifurcation process.

    There are surely more key variables which drive class structures
    into greater and greater complexity...and into ever more fuzzy
    structures...among them may be nationalism, racism, ethnicity,
    religious sensibility...anything which divides rather than unites
    human beings...not excluding warfare.

4.  Feedback.  There are three kinds of feedback which affect the
    number and quality of the fractal structures which emerge from
    non-linear [chaotic] dynamics.

    Indeed, the concept of causality is casulty to Chaos theory...
    but more of that below.

    1.  Positive feedback tend to 'blow the system apart.'  That is,
        the rational [steady, regular, systematic] appropriation of
        surplus value will destroy the capitalist system.  This
        effect is registered in both kondratieff waves and in kutznets
        waves for class dynamics...[think about how positive feedback
        between speaker and mike create a screech...that's positive
        feeback at work].  Even at 7% profit per year, the wealth of
        capitalist class doubles every 14 years.

    2.  Negative feedback.  In the case of class analysis, the more
        surplus value appropriated, the greater the risk of class
        warfare.  This is a negative effect of a rational system of
        accumulation.  Negative feedback may well work to control/
        extinguish human behavior in controlled environments such
        as a psych lab, a prison or a 'well-run' factory.  Yet, in
        the messy, complex and non-linear runs of human behavior in
        complex social settings, negative feedback loses causal
        efficacy...remember that when you hear a lecture on control
        theory or S-R modelling or Operant Conditioning...and when
        those who like pain and punishment too much want more and
        'better' prisons.

    3.  Non-linear feedback.  Curiously enough, only chaos can cope
        with chaos...in class analysis, there must be some mechanism
        for the distribution of surplus profit not rational in terms
        of class divisions.

        Enter the Welfare State...as non-rational as one could hope
        for....it redistributes wealth and thus, preserves class
        inequality at a safe level.

        There are other 'non-rational' i.e., non-linear mechanisms
        at work to save capitalism from the twin beasts of positive
        and negative feedback.

            Crime.  Crime, as any capitalist will tell you, is ir-
            rational...irrational within the logics of capitalism
            that is.  Some say that, in the USA, crime accounts for
            from 8% to 25% of gnp...I doubt it since much of what
            counts as economic crime is really capitalism before
            it is legitimated: drugs, pornography, tax evasion and
            so on are defined as crime.

            Kinship systems are most irrational...nonlinear.  A
            great deal of wealth is redistributed via the kinship
            system [itself bifurcating rapidly!].  Indeed the
            value of goods and services redistributed in the family
           probably exceeds that of the market...[one can see why
           'family values' are so important to Republicans...'tis
           a great way to transfer costs of production/dis-employ-
           ment to other class segments.

5.   My last point is this min'ture tutorial on Class and Chaos is
     that both causality and thus control fade and fail as dynamics
     become ever more nonlinear; as structures become ever more
     fractal [fuzzy].

     Efforts to burn black churches as a control tactic are sub-
     stantively irrational...they won't work...nor will efforts
     to control American Patriots, Freemen, Michigan Militias or
     everyday criminals.

     The radical program of social justice turns out to be a better
     way to stabilize chaotic regimes than are progressively higher
     runs of pain or punishment.

          Workers, women, criminals, kids and corporations become intrans-
     igent.  Those in both the liberal and conservative camp who
    think that more and more laws, guards, prisons, computer-track-
     ing; in a word, more rationality will work are, if Chaos theory
     is relevant...sadly in error.

   I will leave you with this last, most encouraging point...there is,
in the PSN Archives, several articles which pick up on these points
and develop them a bit...PSN is not the place for anything more than
a bare bones treatment but I trust this new science of complexity
and nonlinearity has piqued your curiousity as it has mine.

There are two ways to access these articles:
Gopher:  gopher csf.colorado.edu [the same server as socgrad]
         select: Progressive Sociology
         select: Authors
         select: Young.TR
         select whichever article fits your interests.  The one
         on Chaos and Symbolic Interaction is a good place to
         start.


2. Web Browsers:
   http://csf.colorade.edu    Then follow the pathways abover.

Part II to follow.                         all good luck in your
                                           very complex life.
                                                              TR