PARSONS,TALCOTT, SOCIAL ENTROPY THEORY, AND LIVING SYSTEMS-THEORY

Parsonian functionalism popularized grand, macrosociological systems t heory in sociology, and dominated the field for over two decades. Unfo rtunately, it was heavily criticized as teleological, tautological, st atic, untestable, and conservative. The criticisms not only hastened i ts demise, but left a harsh legacy in which contemporary systems appro aches are often labeled as ''functionalism'' and thus diminished or ev en dismissed. Living Systems Theory (LST) has contributed greatly to s ociological thought, but it too, is in danger of being labeled as func tionalist. In order to make clear the sociological contributions of LS T, this paper first briefly compares it with Parsonian functionalism, and then with the major postfunctionalist sociological systems approac h, Social Entropy Theory (SET). The analysis shows that not only are L ST and SET complementary, but that both generally escape the pitfalls of functionalism. Thus, macrosociological systems theory is once again on solid ground. However, many social scientists do not realize this, and are not yet aware of the contributions of the newer systems appro aches. This paper and a companion paper seek to make the contributions of contemporary macrosociological approaches such as LST more familia r and accessible to social scientists.