MG Smith's Individualist Perspective on Social Structure

The late Jamaican sociologist and poet MG Smith, while better known for his work on pluralism, earns our gratitude for his problematization of the concept of society as a “system” and of the concept of “function”. While I cannot find that he ever identified himself as such, I always felt that his views were informed, more than anything else, by good old-fashioned bourgeois liberalism. This helped to insure his relative obscurity.

I agree with Smith that it usually makes no sense at all to speak of society as a “system”. Perhaps for some limited purpose, this might do, but for the most part the multitude of individual social interactions does not constitute a system in any meaningful sense. Central planners and social engineers like to think that it does, because their existence would be mooted if it did not.

The idea of “function” also came under attack by Smith, and I reckon that functionalist thinking has clouded the sociological imagination for long enough now. Smith preferred the term “effects” instead of “function”. A social phenomenon may be said to produce such and such effects, and this obviates the need to assume that these were intended by the actors or, worse, by the “group”. “Groups” don’t have intentions or goals; individuals within groups do have these, but the outcome of group endeavors may or may not coincide with individual aspirations.

Smith was also careful to distinguish between “groups” and “categories”. “Groups” are collections of individuals that are organized on one or more principles. “Categories” are collections of individuals based on some common characteristic. The NAACP is a group; whereas, “black people” is a category. The teacher’s union is a group; whereas, “schoolteachers” is a category.

A common theme of Smith’s work in social structure was the problematization of collectivist terminology and thinking, and this was decidedly unfashionable in the mid to late 20th Century. Rational social choice theory was not sexy at all, and it was mainly left to practitioners of the dismal science. He was no libertarian himself, but his perspective may be helpful to libertarians as they frame discussions about the nature of the state and the social order.