Description:
David lockwood has drawn attention to two related but analytically distinct types of integration in society: social integration, referring to the relationship between groups—more especially classes or strata; and system integration referring to the degree of connectedness between institutional parts of the social order (i). The former type of integration concerns the social relations between actors, so that the problem of order in society is posed in terms of moral or normative categories. The second type of integration directs attention to the somewhat more technical or non-normative aspects of order, concerning as it does the degree of ‘fit’ or compatibility between various functionally connected institutions. Both types of integration are of course central to Marx's theory of social change. For Marx, the antagonisms stemming from weaknesses in social integration (exemplified in the extreme case by class polarization) plus the weaknesses in system integration (the contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production) are understood to be the twin mechanisms responsible for social transformation. As many critics have pointed out, the exact nature of the link between these two different processes was never clearly specified by Marx. But it does seem apparent that system contradiction is regarded as causally prior to the cleavage, and ultimate conflict, between classes, since it's not until these contradictions in the system become irresolvable that the stage is set for the final showdown between contending classes.