Human Hierarchies: A General Theory / Edition 1

by Melvyn L. Fein

Overview

Human beings are hierarchical animals. Always and everywhere, people have developed social ranking systems. These differ dramatically in how they are organized, but the underlying causal mechanisms that create and sustain them are the same. Whether they are on the top or bottom of the heap, people attempt to be superior to some other persons or group. This is the root of Melvyn L. Fein's thesis presented in Human Hierarchies: A General Theory.

Fein traces the development of changes from hunter-gatherer times to our own techno-commercial society. In moving from small to large communities, humans went from face-to-face contests for superiority to more anonymous and symbolic ones. Societies evolved from hunting bands where the parties knew each other through big-men societies, chieftainships, agrarian empires, patronage chains, caste societies, estate systems, and market-oriented democracies. Where once small groupings were organized primarily by strong forces such as personal relationships, the now standard large groupings are more dependent on weaker forces such as those provided by social roles.

Bureaucracies and professional roles have become prominent. Bureaucracies allow large-scale organizations to maintain control of people by limiting the potential destructiveness of unregulated tests of strength and by clarifying chains of command. Their rigidity and unresponsiveness requires that they be supplemented by professional roles. At the same time, a proliferation of self-motivated experts delegate authority downward, thereby introducing a more flexible decentralization. This analysis is a unique and significant advance in both the sociology and anthropology of stratification among humans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412845960
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	06/15/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Melvyn L. Fein is professor of sociology at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. In addition to being editor of The Journalof Public and Professional Sociology, he is the author of numerous books, including A Professionalized Society, The Great Middle-Class Revolution, and On Loss and Losing (Transaction, 2011).

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

1 Hierarchy and Science 1

Causal Mechanisms

The Moralistic Imperative

The Neo-Marxist Hegemony

Science versus Philosophy.

2 A Hierarchical Animal 27

The Universality of Hierarchy

A Biological Imperative

Functionalism versus Teleology

Hierarchical Functions.

3 The Mechanisms of Hierarchy 61

From Neo-Marxist to Post-Weberian

Tests of Strength

Reputations

Dominance and Submission

Forms of Power

Social Distance.

4 A Profile of Relative Strengths 99

The Indeterminacy Principle

Areas of Strength

Anonymous Alliances.

5 Hierarchical Changes 135

Social Generalists

Dimensions of Change

Mechanisms of Change

The Sequencing of Changes.

6 Historical Trends 169

A Succession of Historical Eras

The Succession of Civilizations

Social Leadership

Status Strata

Hierarchical Collapses.

7 Bureaucracies and Professionalism 205

Organizational Hierarchies

Bureaucratic Organizations

The Limitations of Bureaucracy

Professionalism

Bureaucracies versus Professionals.

8 The Middle-Class Ascendancy 239

The Middle-Class Revolution

Special Knowledge

Professional Authority

Professionalized Socialization and Culture

Self-Discipline

Code of Ethics.

9 The Working and Lower Classes 273

Plato's Dilemma

Social Losers

Socialization and Inequality

Non-Professionalization.

10 On Loss and Social Mobility 309

Not Money

Status Scripts

Resocialization

Rites of Passage.

Epilogue: Age and Gender 343

Gerontocracies

The Male Hegemony.

Bibliography 357

Index 385

Editorial Reviews

"Starting from a position that takes as given a liberal, "neo-Marxist" orientation in the social sciences, Fein (Kennesaw State Univ.) argues that this has wrongly shifted focus from the scientific study of hierarchies in human societies to philosophical and moralistic construction of inequalities, and seeks to recuperate a scientific view of hierarchy as innately human, probably biologically determined. Those who see conservative values as marginalized and penalized in contemporary academia will find resonance with these arguments…. Recommended." —F. W. Fleach, Choice

From the Publisher