**4.3 Resource processing (Producing from the boxes)**

Social positions and the units within which they are embedded are assigned tasks to do, and accordingly are allocated resources to carry out these tasks. They also are involved, as Marx would remind us, in actually producing resources (e.g. commodities). Also, as a surge of more recent research interest indicates, they are also involved in consumption. Yet, it is strange how the pages of the literature of sociology seem often inhabited by quite vacuous social structures, which do little and have little to do it with.

What can be used as a resource is defined by the culture concerned. Different cultures may have considerably different conceptions of the use of the same array of potential resources. For example, oil is central to the running of modern capitalist societies, and yet may have been regarded as merely a curious seepage by other cultures. Groupings within a social structure may vary in their discernment of alternative uses for resources.

Resources, as such, are therefore often regarded as falling outside social structure. They are 'things' used by the social structure. In the first place, resources are the immediately useable aspects of the environment the social structure sits within, especially the natural environment. (The more diffuse aspects of the natural environment, then, presumably provide more general assistance, for example in providing a physical stage.) In addition, people can be beset by any of a catalogue of dangers or risks, 'anti-resources' such as wind, fire, storm, earthquake. The hard physicality of some resources may have a quite direct affect on social behaviour.

However, **physical** resources are but one form of a wider class. In addition, social structures create 'social' resources, as a product of the activities of their members. Giddens has

Peter Blau (e.g. 1975 see also Calhoun et al 1990) has developed an ambitious theory of the effects of social compositions deploying a 'primitive theory' of macro-structure. This provides a more clear specification of Durkheim's concerns about the consequences of division of labour for the pattern of social integration. However, for Blau, the 'division of labour' involves the considerably wider conception of the composition of the pre-given social structure, and any interest in the overall level of social integration is deflected into the narrower issue of the patterns of social interaction between the groups comprising that

The key to his theory is that any social structure has 'structural parameters' which are built up from the characteristics of aggregates of its members. These then form aggregate-level opportunity-structures which in turn may constrain or provide opportunities for individual behaviour, especially behaviour which involves interaction across (or within) the social boundaries indicated by these parameters. An obvious example is that one finds it hard to meet an Eskimo in a town without Eskimos: or rather more realistically, that one's chances of meeting an Eskimo tend to be shaped by the proportion of Eskimos in your place of residence. Much of the flow of people into the slots provided by social structures is controlled by those who set them up or run them in the first place. On the other hand, those who come to fill them adapt various long term strategies and short term tactics in the way they 'use' their position. It is in the peopling of social structures where much of the interplay between

Social positions and the units within which they are embedded are assigned tasks to do, and accordingly are allocated resources to carry out these tasks. They also are involved, as Marx would remind us, in actually producing resources (e.g. commodities). Also, as a surge of more recent research interest indicates, they are also involved in consumption. Yet, it is strange how the pages of the literature of sociology seem often inhabited by quite vacuous

What can be used as a resource is defined by the culture concerned. Different cultures may have considerably different conceptions of the use of the same array of potential resources. For example, oil is central to the running of modern capitalist societies, and yet may have been regarded as merely a curious seepage by other cultures. Groupings within a social

Resources, as such, are therefore often regarded as falling outside social structure. They are 'things' used by the social structure. In the first place, resources are the immediately useable aspects of the environment the social structure sits within, especially the natural environment. (The more diffuse aspects of the natural environment, then, presumably provide more general assistance, for example in providing a physical stage.) In addition, people can be beset by any of a catalogue of dangers or risks, 'anti-resources' such as wind, fire, storm, earthquake. The hard physicality of some resources may have a quite direct

However, **physical** resources are but one form of a wider class. In addition, social structures create 'social' resources, as a product of the activities of their members. Giddens has

ordinary people and controllers of structures takes place.

**4.3 Resource processing (Producing from the boxes)** 

social structures, which do little and have little to do it with.

affect on social behaviour.

structure may vary in their discernment of alternative uses for resources.

social structure.

identified 'authoritative resources' as those which offer power levers over other people. Bourdieu extends this yet further with the term 'cultural capital', and the even wider conception of 'social capital'. He draws useful distinctions between such aspects of 'capital' as the extent to which they can be institutionalised and to what extent they can be appropriated by individuals (e.g. with educational capital in the form of credentials). Philosopher Karl Popper referred to the whole cultural heritage which people build and then live in as 'World 3', with its own (albeit constructed) autonomous reality.

Economists have developed some distinctions about different types of resources. As opposed to the usual commodity of capitalism which is a 'private good', other resources are described as 'public goods'. These differ from private goods in terms of whether the use of a good exhausts it, and/or whether access to the benefits of the good can be kept private. Sunsets, for example, are clearly a public good, although access to a gorgeous uninterrupted view of them (accompanied by champagne on a warm unpolluted beach!) may not be. There are many intermediate categories, especially where goods have 'externalities': where their use by one person has effects on other people. That goods have beneficial externalities, which people can enjoy but cannot be readily charged for, allows 'free-riders' to benefit. In fact, very few goods are 'purely' private, perhaps just household retail items such as bread and butter. Another distinction which can be important for distinguishing between different types of resource is whether or not they are renewable (e.g. hydro-electric power) or nonrenewable (eg coal-generated electricity), to give examples relating to physical resources.

These distinctions have important implications relating to the operation of markets, as well as the social groupings in these markets. Classic markets work best with pure private goods, and progressively are less and less able to handle goods with more 'public' characteristics. Public goods are more likely to be handled through non-market mechanisms such as rationing or direct state control. Sometimes, as in contemporary welfare state reform , attempts are made to set up 'quasi-markets' in which coupons or other money-substitutes are artificially provided to enable the good to be allocated other than on a rationing basis. In a market society, public goods are usually not handled very well, and this is likely to lead to 'private wealth but public squalor' (in Galbraith's evocative phrase).

How are resources allocated and acquired? In some part, resources are allocated 'rationally' (in the eyes of the authorities distributing the resources) to enable people in particular positions to carry out those tasks. This type of bland assertion, though, suppresses the often vigorous processes of competition and conflict between and within social units. Within any firm there will be struggles between different departments for more resources, although there may be quite different types of resource which are struggled over. For example, a common conflict is between a marketing or sales department which wishes to serve the interests of the firm's customers, and the production side which is sensitive to the internal limitations of the production technology. In markets, firms compete for market share. And similarly, nations compete to keep up their standards of living and their ability to beat the goods produced in other nations in terms of price or standard.

Similarly, the distribution of resources (once they have been rendered ready for use) as rewards is also seen as rational in the eyes of the authorities responsible for their distribution. Certainly, ideological justifications to legitimate income distributions argue this. But as with the pattern of resource allocation, the pattern of reward allocation is the

Analysing Social Structures 35

fostering social change advocated by social change activists and theorists such as Lenin, Trotsky, Mao and Alinsky. (This is part of a two-way trade in ideas between the lay world

A broad approach labelled 'resource mobilisation theory' (RMT) developed. One stream of this approach works at a social psychological level, making the assumption that in fact involvement in social change is rational, and attempting to explain people's involvement in terms of their incentives and costs (as in the broader REM model). At the membership level, the role of social network links in recruiting people and ensuring their continued

The other stream of RMT works at an organisational level, rather more as seen from the viewpoint of a social movement leader. It therefore is concerned with resources, recruitment, strategies and tactics, ideology and communication, not to forget organisational arrangements. In this approach, a distinction is made between the 'Social Movement Organisation' (SMO) or organisations in the vanguard of the conflict, and the long tail of the more or less almost-passive support which good causes often receive: or evil ones for that matter. It is not enough, of course, to concentrate on just the social movement itself, and the wider social environment, competitors and counter-movements have also to be taken into account. In addition, the needs of the organisation itself, just to maintain itself as an

Resource mobilisation theory can be seen as a broad framework within which historical understandings about social movements can be accumulated and particular theories about

a. movement actions are rational, adaptive responses to the costs and rewards of different

b. the basic goals of movements are defined by conflicts of interest built into

c. the grievances generated by such conflicts are sufficiently ubiquitous that the formation and mobilisation of movements depends on changes in resources, group organisation,

d. centralised, formally structured movement organisations are more typical of model social movements and more effective at mobilising resources and mounting sustained

e. the success of movements is largely determined by strategic factors and political

'New Social Movement' (NSM) theory, has arisen to partly complement and partly challenge the RM approach. The NSM theorists are much more concerned with the societal framework within which social change movements are launched, and in particular about the cultural and ideological messages they carry. A distinction is drawn between the older social movements for change, which are seen as strongly class-linked, and newer social

The more recent peace, environmental etc movements are seen to reflect a different set of values about society than those held in the mainstream of that society. This in turn, can lead to new organisational forms being adopted by them which better reflect these values. This

social movements can be tested. In more specificity, these analysts have argued that:

organisation, can begin to cut into, or even deflect, the drive for change.

challenges than decentralised, informal movement structures; and

movements which are seen as reflecting rather different sectional interests.

and analysts.)

participation is seen as crucial.

lines of action;

institutionalised power relations;

and opportunities for collective action;

processes in which they become enmeshed.

contemporary outcome of contemporaneous and historical struggles amongst various social groupings. Certainly, resources are often distributed along social class lines, and other lines of social cleavage such as gender and ethnicity are important. A host of empirical studies have been carried out on income distribution. To a considerable extent the rewards are related to the earning-capacity of individuals, which comes from those of their characteristics which are valued on the job-market. But in addition, sociologists have pointed out that much is shaped by the opportunity structures which they face, which they may be influence barely at all.

The Mertonian concept of 'opportunity-structure' is a general-purpose framework often deployed by sociologists to indicate the ways in which groups differ in terms of their legitimate access to resources. For example, Merton argued that deviance was particularly generated in those groups where, despite a shared cultural pressure to do well, these groups lacked the ready access to achieve occupational or financial success. Such a propensity might be further reinforced when people in this position had access to an 'illegitimate' opportunity-structure in which the means of deviance was available to them.
