Structures of Ideological Systems Programming. The Case of Sustainability in Prices

ABSTRACT This paper aims to demonstrate Niklas Luhmann's systems theory and its concept of ideologies as a general framework for analysing the actual implementation of normative ideas in modern society. Using the example of sustainable pricing within the economic system, it shows how values can be established at the programmatic level of function systems in order to regulate the binary codes of those systems. In this way, an interplay across different structural layers becomes visible, in which ideologies such as sustainability introduce dynamic orders of relevance and thereby constitute the orientational framework of a system. Luhmann's systems‐theoretical concept of ideology thus proves to be a useful tool for analysing complex and evolving social patterns of orientation, which should be further complemented by additional theoretical concepts such as structural layering.