Concentration in contemporary society: Towards a theory of crisis based on Marx and Luhmann

Abstract

When examining the current form that modern society has acquired, it is hard to overlook the emergence of a systemic dimension that has become far removed from its social-symbolic roots. This systemic dimension is the result of a process of functional differentiation and simultaneous growth that has led to the gradual formation of social systems that, alongside their coordinating effect, give rise to multiple conflicts or crises. But how are the crises of modern societies to be understood in light of this logic of functional differentiation and internal growth? The purpose of this article is to postulate one particular form of crisis, which will be understood as the result of a consubstantial tendency towards systemic growth. The trend takes the form of a concentration of the performances of social systems that recreates modern schemes of stratification, homogenizes the diversity of options and selections of these systems and, by becoming caught up in thoughtless patterns of growth, produces critical scenarios.

Keywords

functional differentiation growth concentration crisis social systems

Introduction

The idea that we are currently living in a functionally differentiated society has gained increasing space in sociology (Nassehi, 2004). Following notable attempts by thinkers such as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber to capture the mechanism of social differentiation, it was Talcott Parsons who, with his ‘Adaptation, Goal attainment, Integration, Latency’ (AGIL) scheme, set a precedent for the sociological debate on what is understood nowadays as functional differentiation. On one hand, this divisional framework, applied to the social system – comprising an economic system, a political system, a societal community and a fiduciary system – is what leads Jürgen Habermas (1981b) to propose a thesis on the transition to modernity marked by a process of uncoupling or differentiation of the system and the socio-cultural lifeworld, with a subsequent colonization of the latter by the former. On the other hand, Parsons’ perspective also serves as a precedent for the theorist who has most significantly radicalized the observations linked to the dimension of systemic differentiation of society: Niklas Luhmann. Modern society is understood by Luhmann as the result of the transition to a primacy of functional differentiation – overcoming the primacy of previous forms of differentiation such as stratification – that arises from emergent communications and expresses a multiplicity of systemic reliefs (economics, science, politics, law, healthcare, education, etc.). In this polycentric society, each system operates autonomously as a kind of world of its own, governed by its internal function and without major consideration for its environment – even though it can only exist through its interdependence with the latter.¹

From a more abstract point of view, it is also possible to observe how this systemic dimension of a progressively differentiated society has been the result of a general growth process in which each system expands and acquires its own shape. Marx had already described the development dynamics of the economic system as a process of material growth – that is, of development of the capital that is inherent to such a system (Marx, 1971: 640 ss., 741 ff., 1974: 8–11). However, unlike this economistic spirit, which still reigns today in the form of indices such as gross domestic product (GDP) (see Altvater, 2007: 95; Dörre, 2013: 149), this kind of general systemic growth points to a higher degree of abstraction (cf. also Teubner, 2010). This growth, which contributes simultaneously to an ‘increase’ in systemic complexity (Habermas, 1976: 235, 1981a: 251; Luhmann, 1997a: 135, 137), is based on a sustained rise in the dynamics of each partial sphere. Following Robert Carneiro (1967) and John Kasarda (1974), Luhmann (1997a: 137) points out that the growth of a social system can be understood as an ‘increase in the number of its elements’.² And since a social system ‘consists of communications, its actual size is measured by the number of actualized communications’ (Luhmann, 2017: 864). Unlike from the economistic perspective, the growth of society involves not only the material sphere, through increases in people's income, but also the legal system, with the proliferation of new legal regulations; the scientific system, with the various technological developments; politics, with its administrative decisions; the healthcare system, with its medical therapies; and so on. This situation, which entails an increase in ‘contingency and diversity of options’, as assumed by Helmut Willke (1993: 27), is also not lacking in concretion: without internal growth of the economic system there are no banking institutions; without growth of the political system there is no state; without scientific and educational growth there are no universities; without legal growth there is no judicial authority; and so on.

As such, when observing the context of modern society, it is not difficult to understand the diversity of social systems as a kind of embodiment of dynamics of functional differentiation, supported by underlying processes of growth. The problem, however, is that although growth is necessary for the institutionalization of modern society, this general systemic growth is not exempt from conflict or crisis dynamics that affect the latter. The preliminary interpretation – dialectic, if you will – is that there is no functionally differentiated systemic growth without systemic crises of societal consequences (on a nearby path, see Brunkhorst, 2016: 7; 2019; also Bachur, 2013). The mere deployment of the technical-systemic dimension would entail, as Norbert Lechner (1990) stated at the beginning of the 1990s, both progress and crisis for society. But how to understand the crises of modern societies in light of this logic of functional differentiation and its internal processes of growth? From the prism of sociology, which, as a science of crises (Krisenwissenschaft) (König, 1949: 20; Habermas, 1971: 290–306), would still be in a position to preserve ‘its relations to problems of society as a whole’ (Habermas, 1984: 5), I think that it is possible to offer an answer to some of the crises of said systemic dimension. This addresses, first, the internal development of social systems, marked by such processes of growth, but without obscuring the impact on those subjects involved in that reality.

In critical and heterodox connection with systems theory (Luhmann) and critical theory (Marx), there follows a thesis concerning the type of crisis to which modern societies are exposed, which can be understood based on a consubstantial tendency to the aforementioned systemic growth. As I will explain, this tendency takes the form of a concentration dynamic whose logic was originally observed by Marx for the economic system. However, this logic applies to the totality of the systemic dimension of society and will be understood, in heterodox proximity to Luhmann's theory, as a concentration of participation in the systemic performances of the various social spheres. The deployment of this type of concentration would lead to a sort of modern recreation of stratification – based on gradations of inclusion and exclusion – relative to each social system. Supported by a temporary consolidation of said stratified logic, a sort of simultaneous homogenization of the diversity of options and selections of social systems would appear, entailing severe repercussions for society. Captured in inertial patterns of growth, such concentration would threaten the respective systems, risking moments of regressive crisis at the functional systemic level. Finally, I offer a reflection on the concentrating nature of society, as well as the possibilities of bringing the dynamics of this concentration under control.

The materialist origin of the idea of concentration

When addressing the problem of societal growth, the dialectic repercussions of this dynamic cannot be overlooked. This allusion, whose theoretical core lies in the conviction that the progress of society is always accompanied by movements that threaten it (cf. Horkheimer and Adorno, 2013 [1944]), has been present since the dawn of the theoretical critical approach, that is, in the work of Marx. Although it is possible to find parallel origins in liberal thought – especially in Adam Smith's critique of monopolies (cf. Smith 1986; Seifert, 1959: 664) – it is Marx who, based on his economic-empirical studies, affirms that the process of growth of the capitalist economic system would be accompanied by a particular tendency that solidifies and simultaneously transgresses that process, namely, a tendency towards a ‘concentration’ of the means and results of production, summarized in the formula of ‘concentration of capital’, which would run in a parallel – if not ‘identical’ (Marx, 1971: 654) – path to the accumulation of capital as a ‘prerequisite of the specific form of capitalist production’ (Marx, 1971: 652). Although Marx (1971: 654) assumes, towards the end of the first volume of Das Kapital, the impossibility of presenting in depth the dynamics that explain this concentration – something that, unfortunately, he does not return to later (Sau, 1979: 3) – this tendency is a side effect of the ‘competition’ that lies behind the growth of capitalism (for a detailed analysis, see what Karl Kautsky referred to as the ‘fourth volume’ of Marx's Das Kapital (Hilferding, 1955 [1910])). This competition-based ‘expropriation of the masses by a few usurpers’ (Marx 1971: 791) leads to an asymmetric division between the ‘lords of capital’ – subdivided into large and small – and the mass of ‘workers’, thereby dividing the results or benefits of growing production.

Concentration is thus recognized as a consequence of a decrease in number of the lords of capital – in this case, those who remain at the pinnacle of the economic pyramid – who usurp and monopolize most, if not all, of the benefits and performances of the parallel process of material growth. In this context, ‘the growth of social capital takes place through the growth of various individual capitals’, which, concentrated in a few hands, would tend to grow in size (Marx, 1971: 653–654). This is why Marx (1971: 654) understands that the concentration of capital – similarly to the emerging sociological paradigm of the time – manifests itself as a kind of ‘preservation’ of the ‘individual autonomy’ of capital. In terms similar to what would later become the concept of autopoiesis described by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (2003) – a notion developed to explain the self-production of life and later applied by Luhmann to various systems – Marx understands that the self-production of money rests on the dispossession ‘of the capitalist by another capitalist, [i.e. on a] transformation of many small capitals into few larger capitals’. With this, Marx connects the mode of circulation presented by capital – aimed at an eternal, circular generation of surplus value – with the counter-distributive form of its private appropriation, which fortifies the resulting differences in strata, as well as internal disputes in this regard. In other words, through the concept of concentration, Marx attempts to express a social phenomenon that is peculiar to the capitalist system, from which conditions of structural asymmetry are generated, paradoxically, based on its previous growth. ‘In a society whose prosperity grows’, says Marx (2001: n.p.), ‘the large capitalists’ would impose themselves on both the ‘small’ ones and the workers, thus generating concentration.

This general scenario, which Marx and Engels denounce politically in the Manifesto – given that the so-called ‘bourgeoisie’ would have fundamentally supported a concentration of the means of production and property ‘in a few hands’ (Marx and Engels, 1972) – is not free, however, from theoretical and sociological inconveniences. The conceptualization of concentration presented here consists of an economic dynamic in a scenario of early-modern capitalism. From that point of view, not only growth – as I have pointed out above – but also concentration would be based on a materialistic understanding of society, which obviates the diversity of the social systems of which it consists. The latter is internally connected with Marx's conviction that the economic base would achieve primacy over the other superstructural spheres of society, determining even the latter almost without opposition. However, if we assume that with the full advent of modernity it is not only the differentiation and growth of the economy that become increasingly profound, but also of law, politics, science, healthcare, etc., the materialistic image of concentration would then fall too short, thus forcing a subsequent abstraction of the latter. Such an abstraction would also be based on the fact that said ‘competition’ not only exists in the economy (for capital), but also in the legal system (for legal success), in politics (for power), in science (for scientific discoveries) and so on (cf. Kirchhoff 2015). Even the same self-referential dynamic that characterizes the economic-capitalist system – through ‘independent capitals’ (Marx, 1968, 252; cf. Streeck, 2012) – and has been gradually adopted by all other social systems throughout history (cf. Pahl, 2008, 32 ff.) also enables such a leap of abstraction. If ‘concentration’ is to be understood as ‘a phenomenon that accompanies prosperity’ or growth (Arndt, 1966: 7), then it does not seem appropriate to restrict it to economy, as if this were sufficient in itself.

Updating the concept of concentration within a systemic perspective: The idea of systemic performance

In an effort to achieve an effective abstraction or amplification of the concept of concentration, I will attempt a systemic adaptation of Marx's argument on the functionally differentiated logic of society (see a similar endeavour in Alvear and Haker, 2019). To do so, I will delve into the notion of systemic performance (Systemleistung) developed by Luhmann. The concept of systemic performance, unlike that of function – which concerns the task to be carried out by the system in relation to society in general – refers to the observable benefits in the relationship between a system and its environment, relative to a possible public (people) or to other social systems (Luhmann, 2017: 805; 1993: 156). An observation of dynamics from the point of view of the former appears to clarify the scenario to be postulated: the preliminary thesis is that in each social system it is possible to identify a tendency towards concentration, but not of capital, as was the case in Marx; rather, in the framework of the problem of social inclusion/exclusion, a concentration of participation in the respective systemic performances by specific groups of the population becomes visible. In other words, it is a case of questioning the tendency to distribute, in a concentrated manner, the instances of participation in the benefits generated throughout the evolutionary course of internal growth experienced by the various social systems.

This perspective is thus based not only on the generality of a tendency common to the different systems, but also on the particularity with which said tendency is expressed in each of them. Examination of certain systems reveals examples: as was also observed by Marx, the concentration of participation in the performance of the economic system takes place not only around capital, but also around income, property, consumption, and so on, and the same can be seen within the framework of the political system with respect to organizational tasks, administrative decisions, formation of bureaucracies, etc.; in the legal system with respect to the regulation of conduct and conflict processing, etc.; in the healthcare system according to medicines and medical therapies; and in the scientific system regarding technological developments, knowledge, etc. (Luhmann, 1988: 63; 1993: 156; 2017: 802; Neves, 1999: 567). It is worth emphasizing that this ultimately supposes a concentration of opportunities to make objective use of or, seen in another way, to effectively access the performances generated in the aforementioned evolutionary course of growth of social systems. Hence, the idea of concentration acquires dynamism, as with each growth and/or advance of the systems, new performances appear and, with them, new possibilities for participation that could, in turn, be concentrated by specific groups of the population.

Thus, this Aufhebung of Marx's argument – which aims simultaneously to conserve and overcome it – is clarified. On one hand, the logic or spirit of his concentration thesis, as a counter-distributive dynamic parallel to the systemic growth of the different social systems, is preserved through a concept such as systemic performance, differentiated according to each system of society. Although concepts such as productive forces, relations of production, or even concentration itself appear at the end of the 20th century or the beginning of the 21st century as remnants of the ‘vetero-European tradition’ (Luhmann, 1971: 372), the spirit conveyed by them does not seem to lose validity in a society that continues to tend towards a flagrant division between those groups that are close to and those that are far from the ‘performance core’ of ‘capitalist societies’ (Habermas, 1981b: 577). On the other hand, the aforementioned ‘private appropriation’ present in modern and – to a greater extent – contemporary society have to do not merely with economic or material issues, but, viewed abstractly, with issues that achieve different forms, nuances and spheres. In this way, the materialist literalness of Marx's argument regarding the factors of production is abandoned in favour of a systemic notion of performance – along with, as we will see, a close approach to the framework of inclusion/exclusion dynamics – based on a focus on the possibilities of access to the various performance orders or strata in today's society.

The systematic recreation of modern stratification

However, as Marx observes, albeit from an economic approach based on social classes, these tendencies towards concentration have direct consequences in terms of the structure of society. On this point, I refer to a kind of simultaneous recreation of various schemes of stratification that are entirely modern. Luhmann himself (1997a: 708, 679) confirms a degree of connection between stratification and the ‘concentration of resources’, and ‘not only in an economic sense’, but linked to the various social systems and the differences in access to their internal resources. Although the transition to functional differentiation would have meant overcoming the so-called primacy of stratification, thus limiting the structural barriers to accessing or participation in social systems (which means that nobody would be excluded in principle), this scenario gains a different aspect when observed in terms of such concentration processes and the impact of these on the groups involved. Without going any further, Hugo Cadenas (2012: 67, 56) has shown that stratification as such cannot be understood as ‘mere evolutionary survival’; rather, it must be conceived ‘as a situation deeply rooted in the operation of society’, which would take place ‘thanks to the performance of functional systems’.

The propensity of such systemic performances to generate concentration dynamics would then make it possible to understand the modern stratification structure of society, which can be seen in the various functional systems through different degrees of inclusion and exclusion, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. In contrast to the narrowness of Luhmann's (2008) scheme, which is based on a dichotomous image of inclusion/exclusion, as though absolutely nothing existed between the two poles, I propose a preliminary scheme divided into four levels, namely full inclusion, regular inclusion, precarious inclusion and exclusion. Whereas those population groups that enjoy full inclusion consolidate broad and expeditious access to the performances of a social system, those who are regularly included and precariously included move circumstantially between a concentration of access, average resources and a concentration of disadvantages (on the idea of concentration of disadvantages, see Saraví (2006); Padrón and Román (2010); Mora Salas and de Oliveira (2014)). Those who, as Luhmann (1997a: 632) puts it, remain in full marginality (the excluded groups) seem to count only as mere bodies (on the principle of epistemological exclusion, see Alvear, 2020a). Thus, the different degrees of inclusion/exclusion are based on an unequal vertical distribution of positions, which would always entail affirmation of a type of ‘quality and/or power [in the sense of power to do]’ (Luhmann, 1985: 133).

Beyond the extreme circumstances imposed by exclusion, which implies a positioning outside the dynamics of social systems, it is possible to observe some specific cases for the three inclusion levels – that is, full, regular and precarious inclusion – at the national level. These sorts of inclusion strata, applied, for example, to the case of Chile, can help us to better understand how these distinctions operate in practice. Certain cases are worth mentioning: regarding the economic system, there are differences in the intensity of social inclusion between those who have full use of financial tools (access to credit, bank cards, etc.) and those who make partial use of them (with the help of state benefits) or depend fully on social protection programmes. Within the healthcare system, which has remained largely unchanged since its configuration by the military dictatorship, there is a clear and fundamental difference between those able to access elite private clinics and those limited to average-rated private clinics and public hospitals. The same occurs within the political system, where there is a contrast between those who hold public office or are involved in political organizations (political parties) and those who only go to vote from time to time. The school system is no different, with some able to access private schools and others attending subsidized private or fully public (municipal) schools (for more detail, see Alvear, 2020b). In sum, we are dealing with differentiated forms and intensities of inclusion within each social system.³

The trap of homogenization and social immobility

The eventual sustained recreation of stratification driven by processes of concentration gives rise to a degree of homogenization of the selections and would certainly involve scenarios of social immobility. Given that, for example, the same people would have practically unrestricted and buoyant access to the main benefits or performances of the various systems – namely, to money (economy), technology (science), medical centres (healthcare), lawyers (law), certifications (education), etc. – the diversity of options previously available with the respective internal growth would be lost. Once the internal selections of a social system are being made by similar groups of people, the system would tend towards homogenization and the loss of its ability to adapt to the vicissitudes or demands exerted by the environment and, as such, by the other groups who remain on the periphery of that concentration. In this context, the relentless concentration of participation in such performances could trigger a situation that Aldo Mascareño (2018) has described, based on works on ecology, mathematics and other areas, as a kind of lock-in effect or behaviour. This would serve to solidify the concentration and, at the same time, dialectically, to render the different social systems even more vulnerable.

The lock-in effect is understood as an internal dynamic of social systems that occurs when there is a ‘reiteration’ of communication, which tends to exert inertia and to limit or obstruct ‘the relationship with the environment’, leading the system to critical transitions (Mascareño, 2018: 131). Within the framework of the investigative prism proposed here, this internal dynamic is promoted by the stratified structure that results from concentration processes that tends to homogenize the selections. According to these processes, systemic performances appear in conjunction with a limited spectrum of social groups capable of producing and/or accessing them. But, in turn, the lock-in logic appears not only as a plausible result, but also as a driver of deepening insensitivity or indifference to the environment, thus exacerbating the initial problem. The operational core of lock-in dynamics rests on a ‘self-reinforced adherence to a sort of conduct [that] tends to promote inertia, as a lack of responsiveness to changes in the environment’ (Mascareño, 2018: 130). Thus, the lock-in dynamic constitutes a kind of trap placed by the ‘behavioural pattern’ – or, here, by the concentration tendency – of social systems. Although the lock-in logic actually expresses the typical behaviour of a (self-referential) system, the latter would transform – based on its inertial drift – the internal selection type into practically necessary, reinforcing its attractiveness and cancelling out contingency (Mascareño, 2019: 80). This means that the lock-in effect not only appears as a kind of ‘systemic drift’, but would also end up contributing specifically to immunizing, maintaining and, where appropriate, increasing prevailing concentration levels.

This type of lock-in logic is evident even at the transnational level. With regard to the world economic system, which for years has exhibited high levels of concentration, it is possible to observe how the asymmetries between rich and poor have been increasing parallel to sustained GDP growth (cf. Piketty 2016). Since 2015, 1% of the world's population has succeeded in concentrating more wealth than the rest of the planet put together, while only eight individuals control the same amount of wealth as half of the global population (cf. Oxfam, 2017). In the case of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, a similar dynamic can be seen with regard to the distribution of vaccines. In a global healthcare system already characterized by a high concentration of medical resources in developed countries, which are home to approximately 16% of the world population, these nations managed to secure 70% of all vaccine doses available at the launch of the global vaccination project, while the rest struggled to inoculate only minimal proportions of their national populations (cf. Wouters et al., 2021). The same can even be seen in the world of football. The best footballers, coaches and infrastructure are concentrated on the European continent and, faced with the challenges of the pandemic, the most powerful group of teams in world football – among them Real Madrid, Manchester City and Juventus – attempted to break away from their competitors and launch a European Super League, complete with exclusive access and no threat of relegation for the losers (cf. Thesuperleague, 2021). In all of these cases, rather than paying attention to and tackling this spiral of concentration, social systems have been inclined to follow their usual behavioural pattern, tending to fortify and even intensify existing concentration.⁴

From behavioural inertia to functional systemic crisis and beyond

When the situation leads to a time of great and inertial structural asymmetry; when said spiral operates without counterweights, whether at the national or transnational level; when the super-rich become increasingly wealthy, even at critical moments (cf. El Mostrador, 2021); when the children of parents with limited education have little chance of going to university (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2018); or when those football teams with better players and infrastructure no longer want to play with smaller teams (cf. Thesuperleague, 2021); the possibility of a functional systemic crisis opens up. But how to explain the latter? The thesis that I would like to put forward reads as follows: as soon as such an inertial dynamic of concentration of participation in systemic performances is established, the modern scheme of emerging stratification (this is the aforementioned difference between forms and degrees of inclusion/exclusion) begins to prevail over the rigorous exercise of the function of the respective system, thus calling it into question. In other words, if the exercise of the function of a social system is confirmed – among other ways, as Luhmann (2017: 811–812) admits – by its performances, then an inertial and stratifying concentration of access to them would directly affect the operational primacy of that function, and, with it, functional differentiation itself. In Das Recht der Gesellschaft there is a critique in which Luhmann (1993: 584) summarizes the leitmotif of this problem: without a relatively strict exercise of the function, which excludes any relevant difference in access to systemic performances, it would be impossible to expect a ‘normal functioning of functional systems’ (see also Brunkhorst, 2002: 126). This hypothetical difference, ‘produced by functional differentiation’ and confirmed de facto by cases such as those mentioned above, thus appears incompatible with functional differentiation itself, even undermining it (Luhmann, 1993: 582).

The wake left by these concentration processes speaks, then, of a structural conformation of asymmetries that ends up undermining the functional primacy of social systems and, thus, functional differentiation from the same. In cases such as those mentioned, the original function of the social system (let us think, for example, about the function of satisfying the material needs of people in the economy, about generating collectively binding decisions in the political system, or about preparing professionals in the educational system) would lose its prevalence, giving way to the difference in the concentration of participation in those performances that explain its exercise (for example, the amount of money that is possessed, the category that is acquired as a state official or citizen, or the quality of the school or university where someone is registered). As such, the operation of these spheres would be practically annulled for a majority of the population, thus becoming absolutely dysfunctional. The latter is particularly evident in the case of the global process of inoculation against the coronavirus, where it was clear that the concentration of access to vaccines prevailed over the general function of the healthcare system in this regard, namely, treating and overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic itself. Thus, although the position held within concentration processes dictates fortune with respect to inoculation (see also the differences in mortality between social strata in Sepúlveda and Miranda, 2020), the original function of the healthcare system simultaneously evaporated in the first year of the global vaccination project for the majority of the world's population, who were left to watch – often without even an effective mask at their disposal – as the virus came closer and closer to their family sphere (cf. Our World in Data, 2023).

Based on the above, a relapse into the old primacy of stratification would threaten the respective system and could initiate a regressive moment of crisis, thereby affecting both the system itself and the groups of people involved therein. In this regard, and as seen in the case of the pandemic, it should be emphasized that this problem cannot be reduced to a merely ‘moral’ component. The World Health Organization (WHO) is assuredly correct in underlining – at the most critical moment of the pandemic – that unequal concentration in access to vaccines also implied issues of this order (cf. BBC, 2021). However, the biggest disaster – the ‘catastrophe’ – had primarily to do not with this circumstance of deontological interpretation, but rather with the very functioning of the global healthcare system in its attempt to contain the pandemic. Beyond the ethical, political, moral and even religious observations that can be made about concentration, the biggest problem lies in the temporary dissolution of the functionality of the social systems in question, and the consequences of this for the individuals involved. The problem is not, then, whether we are all children of the same god, but rather that the healthcare system simply does not operate sensu stricto when the majority of the population lacks access to it—as could be seen with the COVID-19 vaccination during 2020/2021. This implied, in this case, an extension of the pandemic, which later led to direct problems for people's health. Hence, crises of this type, triggered by concentration, have the characteristics of a functional systemic crisis, and bring with them the associated direct impact on the population, even threatening the possibility of a subsequent metamorphosis from the systemic-objective scope of ‘numbers’ to the social-critical scope of protests and conflicts. But this is a topic for another occasion (for more detail and examples, see Alvear, 2020b, 2023a; also Cordero et al., 2016).

Conclusion

Throughout this article we have observed how the systemic dimension of society, made up of a diversity of social systems including the economy, politics, law, education, healthcare, science, etc., has been the result of a process of functional differentiation and simultaneous growth. This is coupled with clear tendencies towards concentration in participation or access to the performances of the various social systems. Based on a combination of theoretical approaches by Karl Marx and Niklas Luhmann, I have deployed a perspective that encompasses the core of the notion of concentration, the problematic idea of systemic performances, the recreation of modern schemes of stratification, the dynamics of homogenization of selections, and, finally, the configuration of the systemic-objective triggers of concentration crises in which such functionally differentiated society is involved. These concentration crises are, thus, marked by a form of modern regression to previous socio-evolutionary stages. The supposedly surpassed primacy of stratification schemes strikes back unscrupulously, making available a series of systemic-objective conditions that form the basis of a type of crisis that, although not necessarily leading unavoidably to a social-critical transposition, may conceivably end up exploding in that direction.

However, beyond the paths that such a crisis may follow, what is at least clear as the basis thereof is the concentrating nature of modern society. The concentration of participation in or access to wealth, political power, medical therapies, technological developments, education, justice and so on has shaped a society that is internally fragmented between functional and dysfunctional spaces for the groups of people who inhabit it. In this way, the promise of overcoming the impediments to accessing the various systems, as would supposedly take place with the transition to functional differentiation, reveals its dialectic reverse. In his critique of political economy, Marx voiced a warning about the implications of the closure of the capitalist economic system that seems to resonate here more strongly than ever: capitalism, Marx and Engels (1972: 474) argued in the Manifesto, generates, merely from its operation, ‘its own gravediggers’. Thus, it can be said that it is functional differentiation itself, coupled with processes of systemic growth – that is, the historical form that modern society has reached – that tends to set the conditions for its own demise. The dialectic of modernity is at its best here: ‘Functional differentiation […] denies’ stratification – today, there seem to be few detractors from the discourse of meritocracy – but does not cease to recreate it behind their backs – to be consistently denied by it, even. In this regard, according to João Paulo Bachur (2013: 143, 155), the ‘realization of functional differentiation [I would add here: seconded by systemic growth] produces its own negation’.

The concentration of society is the result of the logic of functional differentiation, which combines with systemic growth and tends to refrain from systematic instruments of control (on democratic control, see Alvear, 2018). In a book edited by Dieter Grosser (1969) and titled Konzentration ohne Kontrolle (Concentration without control), there is clear astonishment and uncertainty generated by a tendency towards concentration in Germany, which not only endures over the years, but has undergone an exponential increase. Shortly afterwards, in the 1970s, Luhmann (2017: 300) argues that if ‘our societies have to agree on a symbol’ that characterizes them, it would be ‘neither a circle nor a cross, nor a line, but a dizzying exponential curve’. This exponential curve cannot, however, be reduced – as observed at times by Luhmann – to an understanding linked exclusively to systemic growth of its performances or complexities. What is needed, rather, is an amplified understanding of its consequences for the tendencies that it carries with it. If concentration must be conceived abstractly as a concentration of the growth of society, the latter provides clues with which to understand the possible increases in the degrees and spheres of asymmetry that exist alongside it. As such, it would not be so difficult to predict: the greater the uncontrolled growth, the greater the concentration. The question of whether modern societies will ever learn to deal better with the problems they themselves generate is as important as it is difficult to answer.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This text was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. I would like to express my gratitude to Francisco Salinas and Paul Salter for their comments and suggestions on the text. A previous, shorter version of this article was published in Spanish under the title La concentración de la sociedad: lineamientos para una teoría de la crisis desde los enfoques de Marx y Luhmann.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung (grant number Az. 40.22.0.016SO).

ORCID iD

Rafael Alvear

Notes

Author biography

Rafael Alvear has a PhD in sociology and is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Flensburg (Germany) with a research grant from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (Germany). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University Los Lagos (Chile) and the University Adolfo Ibañez (Chile). In 2020, his first book, titled Soziologie ohne Mensch? Umrisse einer soziologischen Anthropologie, was released by the German publisher Transcript. His lines of work have addressed areas such as social theory, classical and contemporary sociological theory, social crises, concentration dynamics and philosophical anthropology.

References

Altvater

(2007) Das Ende des Kapitalismus, wie wir ihn kennen. Westfälisches Dampfboot.

Alvear

(2018) La democracia y la crítica societal al capitalismo contemporáneo. Cuadernos de Teoría Social 4(8): 11–27.

Alvear

(2020a) Soziologie ohne Mensch? Umrisse einer soziologischen Anthropologie. Transcript.

Alvear

(2020b) La crisis de concentración de la sociedad chilena: Una perspectiva crítica-sistémica sobre un problema en desarrollo. Economía y Política 7(1): 5–26.

Alvear

(2023a) Die Konzentration in der zeitgenössischen Gesellschaft: Die chilenische Krise aus soziologischer Perspektive. Soziale Systeme 28(2): 462–495.

Alvear

(2023b) América Latina y la concentración del crecimiento multisistémico. Tesis e ilustración de una tendencia social estructural. Revista de Sociología 38(2): 1–17.

Alvear

Haker

(2019) Kritische Systemtheorie und Kritische Theorie sozialer Systeme. Plädoyer für eine fruchtbare Unterscheidung. Leviathan 47(4): 498–513.

Alvear

Morales-Olivares

Chávez

(2022) El patrón concentrador del desarrollo latinoamericano – El caso de Pedro Vuskovic. Izquierdas (51): 1–19.

Arndt

(1966) Die Konzentration der westdeutschen Wirtschaft. Neske.

10.

Bachur

(2013) Kapitalismus und funktionale Differenzierung. Eine kritische Rekonstruktion. Nomos.

11.

BBC (2021) Vacuna contra el coronavirus: la OMS advierte que el mundo está al borde de un ‘fracaso moral catastrófico’, 19 January. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-55712748 (accessed 5 August 2021).

12.

Brunkhorst

(2002) Solidarität . Suhrkamp.

13.

Brunkhorst

(2016) Hat die Demokratie in Europa noch eine Chance? ZÖSS 55: 1–15.

14.

Cadenas

(2012) La desigualdad de la sociedad. Diferenciación y desigualdad en la sociedad moderna. Persona y Sociedad 26(2): 51–77.

15.

Carneiro

(1967) On the relationship between size of population and complexity of social organization. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 23(3): 234–243.

16.

Cordero

Mascareño

Chernilo

(2016) On the reflexivity of crises: Lessons from critical theory and systems theory. European Journal of Social Theory 20(4): 511–530.

17.

Dörre

(2013) Kapitalismus im Wachstumsdilemma. Die Verdrängung der ökologischen Krisendimension und ihre Folgen. WSI-Mitteilungen 66(2): 149–151.

18.

El Mostrador (2021) Los súper ricos chilenos: Forbes pone en ranking al Presidente Piñera y destaca aumento de fortuna en plena pandemia, 4 June. Available at: https://www.elmostrador.cl/mercados/2021/04/06/los-super-ricos-chileno-forbes-pone-en-ranking-al-presidente-pinera-y-destaca-aumento-de-fortuna-en-plena-pandemia/ (accessed 5 August 2021).

19.

Grosser

(1969) Konzentration ohne Kontrolle. Westdeutscher Verlag.

20.

Habermas

(1971) Theorie und Praxis. Suhrkamp.

21.

Habermas

(1976) Zur Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus. Suhrkamp.

22.

Habermas

(1981a) Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Bd. 1. Suhrkamp.

23.

Habermas

(1981b) Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Bd. 2. Suhrkamp.

24.

Habermas

(1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Beacon Press.

25.

Hilferding

(1955 [1910]) Das Finanzkapital. Dietz.

26.

Horkheimer

Adorno

(2013 [1944]) Dialektik der Aufklärung. Fischer Taschenbuch.

27.

Kasarda

(1974) The structural implications of social system size: A three-level analysis. American Sociological Review 39(1): 19–28.

28.

Kirchhoff

(ed.) (2015) Konkurrenz. Historische, strukturelle und normative Perspektiven. Transcript.

29.

König

(1949) Soziologie Heute. Regio-Verl.

30.

Lechner

(1990) Son compatibles modernidad y modernización. El desafío de la democracia latinoamericana. FLACSO-CHILE. Documento de Trabajo, no. 440, March.

31.

Luhmann

(1971) Systemtheoretische argumentationen. Eine entgegnung auf jürgen habermas. In: Habermas

Luhmann

(eds) Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie. Suhrkamp, 291–397.

32.

Luhmann

(1985) Zum Begriff der sozialen Klasse. In: Luhmann

(eds) Soziale Differenzierung: Zur Geschichte Einer Idee. Westdeutscher Verlag, 119–162.

33.

Luhmann

(1988) Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp.

34.

Luhmann

(1993) Das Recht der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp.

35.

Luhmann

(1997a) Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp.

36.

Luhmann

(1997b) Globalization or world society: How to conceive of modern society? International Review of Sociology 1(7): 67–79.

37.

Luhmann

(2002) Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp.

38.

Luhmann

(2008) Inklusion und exklusion. In: Luhmann

(ed.) Soziologische Aufklärung, Bd. 6. Westdt. Verl, 226–251.

39.

Luhmann

(2012) [1984]) Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Suhrkamp.

40.

Luhmann

(2017) Systemtheorie der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp.

41.

Marx

(1968) Das Kapital, vol. 3. Dietz.

42.

Marx

(1971) Das Kapital, vol. 1. Dietz.

43.

Marx

(1974) Vorwort zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie, MEW, Band 4. Dietz.

44.

Marx

(2001) Manuscritos económicos y filosóficos de 1844. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/espanol/m-e/1840s/manuscritos/man1.htm (accessed 5 August 2021).

45.

Marx

Engels

(1972) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, MEW, Bd. 4. Dietz, 459–493.

46.

Mascareño

(2018) De la crisis a las transiciones críticas en sistemas complejos: Hacia una actualización de la teoría de sistemas sociales. Theorein 3: 109–143.

47.

Mascareño

(2019) Ética de la contingencia para mundos incompletos. Revista Diferencias 1(8): 72–83.

48.

Maturana

Varela

(2003) El árbol del conocimiento: las bases biológicas del entendimiento humano. Editorial Lumen.

49.

Mora Salas

de Oliveira

(2014) Los caminos de la vida: Acumulación, reproducción o superación de las desventajas sociales en México. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales 59 (220): 81–116.

50.

Nassehi

(2004) Die Theorie funktionaler Differenzierung im Horizont ihrer Kritik. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg 33(Heft 2): 98–118.

51.

Neves

(1999) Zwischen Subintegration und Überintegration: Bürgerrechte nicht ernstgenommen. Kritische Justiz 32(4): 557–577.

52.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2018) A broken social elevator? How to promote social mobility? Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/broken-elevator-how-to-promote-social-mobility_9789264301085-en.html (accessed 5 August 2021).

53.

Our World in Data (2023) Statistics and Research Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations (accessed 5 August 2021).

54.

Oxfam (2017) Informe de enero de 2017. Una economía para el 99%. Available at: https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-es.pdf (accessed 5 August 2021).

55.

Padrón

Román

(2010) Exclusión social y exclusión en salud: Apuntes teórico-conceptuales y metodológicos para su estudio social. Boletín Mexicano de Derecho Comparado 43(128): 815–843.

56.

Pahl

(2008) Das Geld in der modernen Wirtschaft. Marx und Luhmann im Vergleich. Campus.

57.

Piketty

(2016) Das Kapital im 21. Jahrhundert. C.H. Beck.

58.

Saraví

(2006) Biografías de exclusión: Desventajas y juventud en Argentina. Perfiles Latinoamericanos 28: 83–116.

59.

(1979) On the laws of concentration and centralization of capital. Social Scientist 8(3): 3–14.

60.

Schwinn

(1998) Soziale ungleichheit und funktionale differenzierung: Wiederaufnahme einer diskussion. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 27: 3–17.

61.

Seifert

(1959) Zum Begriff der Konzentration privater Wirtschaftsmacht. GMH.

62.

Sepúlveda

Miranda

(2020) Coronavirus: tasa de mortalidad de los hospitales públicos metropolitanos duplica la de las clínicas. Available at: https://www.ciperchile.cl/2020/06/21/coronavirus-tasa-de-mortalidad-de-los-hospitales-publicos-metropolitanos-duplica-la-de-las-clinicas/ (accessed 5 August 2021).

63.

Smith

(1986) The Wealth of Nations. Penguin.

64.

Streeck

(2012) Wachstum nach dem Finanzkapitalismus? Available at: https://gegenblende.dgb.de/archiv/++co++cfabb32c-935a-11e0-4ba1-001ec9b03e44 (accessed 5 August 2021).

65.

Teubner

(2010) A constitutional moment – the logics of ‘hit the bottom’. In: Kjaer

Teubner

(eds) After the Catastrophe: Economy, Law and Politics in Times of Crisis. Oxford, Hart Publishing, 9–51.

66.

Thesuperleague (2021) Thesuperleague. The best clubs. The best players. Every weeks. Available at: https://thesuperleague.de/&hash;who_we_are

67.

Willke

(1993) Systemtheorie entwickelter Gesellschaften. Dynamik und Riskanz moderner gesellschaftlicher Selbstorganisation. Juventa.

68.

Wouters

Shadlen

Salcher-Konrad

, et al. (2021) Challenges in ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines: Production, affordability, allocation, and deployment. Revista Lancet 397(10278): 1023–1034.