Systems Diffused: The Modern Paradigm Shift in Economics, Politics and Culture

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Abstract

This paper proposes a set of new concepts to define and explain qualitative phase changes in the institutional logic of societies based on the paradigmatic lens that informs the scripts by which institutionalized social action is justified. These legitimation logics are the rooted in what I term the kinship-paradigm (social action justified by the rightful enaction of reciprocal roles), the sovereignty paradigm (social action justified on the basis of posited essential difference), and the systems paradigm (social action justified by the fact of its adherence to standardized processes and protocols). These are expanded, umbrella terms influenced by the kin-based mode of production, tributary mode of production, and capitalist and socialist mode of production concepts from the world-systems school, but attempt to explain an even wider field of action than the exchange-centered existing terms. The applicability, advantages and constraints of the concepts are evaluated in an examination of two of the seminal historical cases of transition from one phase to another; the “modernization” processes of the U.S. and Japan between 1865 and 1945.

Author

• Armond Scott Hardwick, UC Riverside