5: A Theory of the Social System

By the end of the Second World War, Parsons was working furiously on his structural-functional theory, taking into account the comments, suggestions, and criticisms raised in discussion of his 1939 manuscript and incorporating his developing work on institutions and the pattern variables. By 1949, he had all-but completed a new manuscript with the title ‘The Social System: Structure and Function’. Heavily engaged in discussions with Edward Shils and others on a new conceptualisation of the action frame of reference for his interdisciplinary department, he was forced to abandon his incomplete manuscript to concentrate on completing ‘Values, Motives, and Systems of Action’ that was published in 1951 in the collective volume Towards a General Theory of Action. Parsons had, by then, returned to his abandoned manuscript on the social system and completely rewrote it for publication in the same year with the simpler title The Social System.