STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS 163

(a complex of beliefs relative to a supernaturalistic being and an after-
life), and capitalism (a complex of beliefs regarding the nature of society
that are used in support of a particular system of economic organiza-
tion). Similarly, the organizational system of Western societies includes
to some extent such minor systems as the family, the church, and cor-
porate business.

Interdependence of Component Systems.—"Each of the three major
systems is operationally dependent upon both of the others.1 No matter
how highly developed their techniques of food production, the members
of a social group will starve unless they can and do work together har-
moniously. Conversely, effective organization is not enough for group
survival; the group must possess adequate techniques of food production
as well as effective organization if it is to maintain itself. And even as
the major component systems are interdependent, so, too, are the various
social practices that go to make up a minor system and the various minor
systems that go to make up a major system. In the following chapters
each of the major systems and their dependent minor systems will be
discussed one by one and each in relation to the others; but throughout
the discussion it must be constantly borne in mind that no one of them
ever operates as a discrete structural element.

Much use will be made in the following chapters of data drawn from
the social history of contemporary Western societies. In the first place,
most sociological investigation has been conducted by Westerners. More-
over, Westerners have been most successful when studying the Western
societies with which they are most familiar. And, to be entirely realistic
about it, analysis is being made by and for Westerners, who are in-
evitably more interested in their own than in any other society and more
capable of understanding it. Analysis similar to that undertaken here
could, however, be made for any society, past or present, were adequate
data available.2 For every social structure is made up of the same major
component systems, and the interdependence of these systems one with
the others and of the minor systems of which they are composed is a
universal—a "law" of social life. The use of materials from recent Western
experience may therefore be considered simply as illustrative of the
structure and operation of society in general.

1The functional interdependence of the social components is most evident, per-
haps, in the case of relatively simple social systems. Most of the recent over-all
studies of primitive societies stress this interdependence (see Supplementary Bib-
liography 1). It is, for example, the central thesis of R. Redfield's The Folk Culture
of Yucatan (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1941).

2 For one such attempt, on a rather theoretical level, see F. J. Teggart, Rome and
China: A Study of Correlations in Historical Events (University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1939).