Unsolved Mysteries and Unforeseen Futures of Social Control

Abstract

Suggests that, since the concept of social control has become a vital element of political debate, proposals for expanding the possibilities of making semantic use of the concept should be made on the political field. It is shown how the term was first used as a general social model by US Progressive-Era scholars in the early 1900s & entered the general public lexicon in the 1950s as part of Talcott Parsons's (1951) social system model, which emphasized a very strong idea of social control combining psychosociological demands with political & legal characteristics. Criticisms of the Parsonian conception of the term in the 1960s & after, particularly its harsh consideration of deviance, are connected to the gradual erosion of the strong welfare state. In the 1980, social policies modeled on notions of social control were dismantled in favor of financial-monetarist policies, which have left millions of people helpless. In this climate, social conflict has become more acute, & forms of social control might be substituted with a sociology of social justice & democracy. D. M. Smith