Like all living organisms humans must obtain energy from their environment. The modes of production and reproduction are attempts to strike a balance between reproduction and the consumption of energy from a finite environment. It is upon this infrastructural foundation that the remaining parts of the social system are based. The structural components of sociocultural systems arise from the necessity of maintaining secure, predictable, and orderly relationships between individuals. The threat of disorder arises primarily from the allocation of labor and the distribution of goods and services to individuals and groups.
Social organization regulates the allocation and distribution process.
The primary-secondary dichotomy encompasses all human organizations responsible for the allocation and distribution of all biopsychological need satisfaction. Primary groups tend to be informal in nature and dominate the structures of traditional societies. Often organized around kinship ties, these groups regulate the activities of their members through informal norms and folkways of the the culture. Secondary organizations are much more formal in structure and are usually coordinated through bureaucracy. An ideal type provides one of the basic methods for historical-comparative study.