# Social system

A social system is the patterned series of interrelationships existing between individuals, groups, and institutions and forming a whole.
    CONTENT : A - F , G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

## Quotes

    Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

### A - F

* The European model is, first, a social and economic system founded on the role of the market, for no computer in the world can process information better than the market.
** Jacques Delors in: Steven Hill Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age, University of California Press, 2010, p. 21.
* The only social system that can possibly meet the diverse needs of society, while still promoting solidarity on the widest scale, is one that allows people to freely associate on the basis of common needs and interests.
** Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, Anarchism and the Black Revolution (1993)
* Today we have access to highly advanced technologies. But our social and economic system has not kept up with our technological capabilities that could easily create a world of abundance, free of servitude and debt. This could be accomplished, if we implement a resource-based economy.
** Jacque Fresco, Roxanne Meadows in:Viable Utopian Ideas: Shaping a Better World, M.E. Sharpe, 7 February 2003, p. 198.

### G - L

* The art system operates on its own terms, but an observer of art can choose many different distinctions to indicate what he observes.
** Niklas Luhmann, Eva M. Knodt (trans.) (2000) Art As a Social System Stanford University Press p. 102

### M - R

* Every social system is a functioning entity. That is, it is a system of interdependent structures and processes such that it tends to maintain a relative stability and distinctiveness of pattern and behaviour as an entity by contrast with its - social or other - environment, and with it a relative independence from environmental forces. It "responds", to be sure, to the environmental stimuli, but is not completely assimilated to its environment, maintaining rather an element of distinctiveness in the face of variations in environmental conditions. To this extent it is analogous to an organism
** Talcott Parsons (1942) "Propaganda and Social Control". in: Parsons (1954) Essays in sociological theory , p. 143
* The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action.
** John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971), p. 87

### S - Z

* Whereas some consequences of our actions occur as planned, others are unanticipated; social actions are not context-free but are constrained, and their outcomes are shaped by the setting in which they occur. Especially significant are the constraints on action that arise from commitments enforced by institutionalization. Because organizations are social systems, goals and procedures tend to achieve an established, value impregnated status. We say that they become institutionalized.
** Philip Selznick (1949). TVA and the grass roots : a study in the sociology of formal organization, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 256-257

## See also

* Economic system
* Sociology
* Social action
* Social control
* Social network
* System