Context: Our adaptive capabilities for a more humane civilisation are hamstrung by the need to survive on the surplus ladder. There are different theories of social change and the most dominant ones are the Marxian theory and the Evolutionary theory. The uses of these theories determine social change.
Background

• If we look at the different theories of social change, then there are two paradigms that dominate social science. First, the Marxian theory of surplus is generated by unequal positions in the societal process. The second is the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel.
• Both of these processes namely the generation of surplus and evolution are autonomous, inevitable, and continual.

Generation of Surplus

• The theory of surplus-value initially conceptualized as the surplus earned by the capitalists from wage labour is now generalized to the entire scope of social change such as land-use changes, technology, economics, politics, geopolitics, weaponization of trade, derivatives, etc. 
• The uses of the surplus determine the social change.

Theory of Evolution

• The notion of evolution came into social sciences from the theories of biological evolution. With the advent of the Darwinian Theory of biological evolution, society and culture began to be regarded as undergoing the same changes and demonstrating the same trends. 
• Evolutionary theories are based on the assumption that societies gradually change from simple beginnings into even more complex forms. Talcott Parsons’s action theory stressed the importance of cultural patterns in controlling the stability of a society. 
• A process of differentiation takes place when society becomes more and more complex. 
• Different institutions such as schools, and factories may take over some of the functions of a family. 
• One of the most important limitations is with regard to the conceptualization of ‘functional imperatives’ in the evolutionary process. There are different ways of coping with the functional problems of an organism.

Prescient thinking

• In the early 20th century, another theory of social change emerged from the University of Chicago. 
• The conceptualization of the “self” as “I”, the subject, and as “me”, an object to the subject, was ‘prescient thinking’ in 1934.
• The mind evolves through a conversation between the “I” and the “me” and social change takes place through the evolution of that conversation.
• A combination of genetic factors and life experience results in unique brain anatomy for each individual. Conflicting/competing signals from the region of the brain – memory, instinct, technical knowledge, tradition, emotion, and even mere absent-mindedness result in action which cannot be predicted. 
• It is not possible to predict which signal or combination of signals from the mind will win and set the course for societal change.
• Besides bringing in the factor of unpredictability, Mead made one more basic contribution to our understanding of social evolution. According to him, the organism not only interacts with other organisms but also with objects around the world.

Road Ahead

• We read two dominant theories of social change, one is the surplus notion and the other is evolutionary theory. It is up to humankind how it uses the surplus generated by the capitalists and how it deals with the experiences of the past embedded in brain anatomies. If we put these theories to the correct uses, then a more humane civilization will be possible.

By: Shubham Tiwari