The Structure of Social Action: Can Modernity Survive?

Parsons first major book, The Structure of Social Action (1937), explored the issue of ‘what is the general, indeed universal, structure of social action’ by examining the texts of several influential European intellectuals: Durkheim, Marshall, Pareto and Weber. Although the book may appear to be a simple case of Parsons engaging in a form of personal isolationism from the major social, political and economic crises facing the world at the time, The Structure of Social Action has a clear focus on the problem of order in times when modernity had severe difficulty maintaining societal integration and equilibrium, notably in the face of the Russian Revolution and the 1929 Wall Street Crash, leading to the severe economic depression, rising unemployment and the rise of fascism in Europe. This chapter will argue that Parsons believed that the crisis facing modernity was a crisis of social and political thought rooted in the division between materialism and idealism, and the rationale for The Structure of Social Action was to identify secure foundations for a form of modernity rooted in liberal democratic values. In Parsons’ opinion the idealist perspective places a great deal of emphasis on human agency and the ability of individual people to create and drive their own biography in a direction of their own choosing. People who hold this view have a tendency to blame the individual for the situations and circumstances in which they find themselves. In contrast materialism places a great deal of emphasis on factors that are external to the individual shaping the lives of people, with the human agent viewed as largely a passive victim of social conditions. For Parsons the materialist perspective lends itself to the type of social engineering that the Soviets and Nazis engaged in.