Gerhard Lenski's Ecological-Evolutionary Social Theory
By Frank W. Elwell
Macro-perspectives have largely fallen into disuse in sociology since the
19th century--trotted out in our introductory texts perhaps, but then largely
ignored (except, perhaps, as an afterthought). In an effort to attract students the
field has concentrated more on social-psychology, in an effort to attract research
dollars, the field has focussed on the "middle-range," simple relationships
between social phenomenon and human behavior rather than the allencompassing systems of the founders.
Against this trend Gerhard Lenski and his co-authors have stood almost
alone. Since the mid-sixties Lenski has been developing an ecologicalevolutionary theory capable of providing both coherence and integration of the
discipline; capable of furthering our understanding of sociocultural systems as a
whole. Through their work Gerhard and Jean Lenski present an evolutionaryecological theory as an integrating device, synthesizing both the classical works
of sociologists and anthropologists and contemporary social theory and findings.
The foundation of Lenski's ecological-evolutionary theory is the
observation that human societies are part of the world of nature. Human
societies are subject to natural law. Sociocultural systems can only be fully
understood as being responsive to the interactions of populations to their
environments (1987: 55). At the base of their perspective lies the relationship
between population and production. Like all life forms humans have a
reproductive capacity that substantially exceeds the necessary subsistence
resources in the environment. Thus, they conclude, human populations tend to
grow unless they are checked (1987: 32). The checks, of course, consist of both
the positive and preventive checks that Malthus examined. The capacity for
population growth, the Lenski’s assert, has been a “profoundly destabilizing force
throughout human history and may well be the ultimate source of most social and
cultural change” (1987: 32). The Lenski’s posit that population-productionenvironment relationships drive the evolution of sociocultural systems.
The influence of Malthus is also clearly apparent when the Lenski’s
discuss the nature of social inequality. They assert that we are social animals
obliged to cooperate with one another in producing a living (1966: 24). But, like
Malthus, they also claim that human beings are strongly motivated by selfinterests. Lenski state: “when men are confronted with important decisions where
they are obliged to choose between their own, or their group’s, interests and the
interests of others, they nearly always choose the former--though often seeking
to hide this fact from themselves and others” (emphasis in the original, 1966: 30).
Since most necessary resources are in short supply, he continues, a struggle for
rewards will be present in every human society. Individuals are born with a
range of innate abilities and circumstances. Thus the root of social inequality is
in our nature. Some minimal distribution of wealth is necessary to ensure the
survival of “others whose actions are necessary” to themselves, but any surplus
(goods and services over and above the minimum required to keep necessary
workers alive and productive) will be distributed unequally (1966: 44-45).
In the earlier stages of sociocultural evolution the distribution of resources
is allocated on the basis of personal characteristics--hunting skills or plant
gathering productivity. With the development of a more complex division of labor
these inequalities become institutionalized in class, caste, race, sex, and ethnic
systems. Thus, like Malthus before them, Lenski concludes that inequality is
inevitable in any complex sociocultural system (complex as measured by a
division of labor)--though the degree of inequality is variable across societies and
through time (1966: 442).
Though population-production-ecological relationships are at the base of
the Lenski’s system, his theory tends to incorporate numerous explanatory
relationships within these broad confines. Lenski developed his general
ecological-evolutionary theory as an integrating device for the diverse insights of
many classical theorists and contemporary observers.
II
According to Lenski, there is an identifiable sociocultural evolutionary
process.
#There is no pre-established "direction" to the social evolutionary process.
Societies evolve in response to changes in their natural environment or as the
result of contact with other societies.
#Sociocultural systems evolve through the adaptations of individual behavior.
"Just as a species does not 'struggle to survive' as a collective entity, but
survives or not as a consequence of the adaptive changes of individual
organisms, so too do sociocultural systems survive or not as a consequence of
the adaptive changes in the thought and activities of individual men and women
who respond opportunistically to cost-benefit options" (Harris, 1979: 61).
#Societies can be remarkably stable over time. Hunting and gathering societies
existed with little technological, population, and structural change for thousands
of years. Ancient civilizations that depended upon river irrigation as their mode of
production were also remarkably stable. These stable societies can be
characterized as successful attempts at striking a balance between reproduction
and the consumption of energy from their finite environments.
#However, there is a bio-psychological cost in maintaining this balance for preindustrial people. Our ability to produce children has always been greater
than our ability to produce food for their survival. In order to limit population size
pre-industrial societies have practiced infanticide and other forms of population
control.
#The hold of tradition is particularly strong among pre-industrial peoples. It has
been a great conservative force throughout (up to now at least) social evolution.
#The modes of production of human societies have usually intensified (that is,
over time they exhibit an increased use of technical knowledge, skills, and
increased use of non-human forms of energy) because they must continually
exploit less available, harder to reach sources of energy. For example, in a coal
environment, we exploit the coal on the surface first. It is only after using up the
readily available resources that we begin to dig deeper. Thus, a depleting
environment causes the mode of production to intensify.
#Similarly, if "absolute" environmental depletion is reached and the society has
accumulated the technical knowledge to shift to a new mode of production, the
shift is a move from a readily accessible source (say, wood) to a less accessible
source (coal, oil, or nuclear fission in its turn). Each succeeding energy source is
more difficult to exploit. Each takes more general knowledge, capital, technology,
and technical skill to tap.
#The intensification of the modes of production have also greatly increased
productivity. While people must work harder to exploit each succeeding resource
base, each new resource base represents a richer source of energy, allowing
more food and other products to be produced.
#Because pre-industrial people kept their population in balance with their
environment mainly through infanticide, increased wealth is often used to support
a greater number of children. In addition, children themselves can be used in preindustrial production, thus producing more wealth for their families. Each
succeeding mode of production has therefore led to an increased size of the
human population (thus putting further pressure on both the environment and on
expanding the existing mode of production).
#With industrialization, the development of modern birth control techniques and
changes in structure and superstructure, the relationship between the growth in
the mode of production and population has been broken.
#Infrastructures of societies, that is a society's mode of production and its
population, put very strong constraints on the range of widespread social
institutions, ideas and ideologies of sociocultural systems.
#Structural elites and their interests provide positive and negative feedback to
infrastructural change. This feedback can often be decisive in determining
whether infrastructural change is amplified and propagated throughout the social
system or whether it is extinguished.
#Cultural superstructures also provide positive and negative feedback for
structural and infrastructural change. Superstructural feedback can be critical. If a
sociocultural system exploits its environment to the point of "absolute" depletion
(that is, the costs of necessary raw materials becomes prohibitive), and that
system does not have the cultural knowledge base to switch to a new mode of
production based upon a new resource base, that sociocultural system will
collapse.
#Sociocultural adaptation and change is based on the alteration of existing
structures and behavior patterns. The force of historical experience therefore
plays a major role in shaping social institutions and thought.
#Unlike biological evolution, social evolution is a Lamarkian process, that is,
successful adaptations can be learned. We do not depend on genetic variability
and environmental selection for the preservation of successful adaptation. This is
what makes social evolution so dynamic.
#Successful adaptations are spread through social contact, and military and
economic conquest. While environmental necessity is the key to understanding
"pristine" change-- that is change that is done in isolation from contact with other
societies, the rapid adoption of most technologies and social practices are done
through cultural diffusion.
#In addition to the general characteristics listed above, Lenski, Nolan and Lenski
(1995) take social evolution a step further and posit a process of selection in the
world system that favors larger, more powerful societies at the expense of
smaller, less powerful ones. There has been a dramatic reduction in the number
of societies in the world system in the last 10,000 years due to a process of intersocietal selection. Societies that have grown in size and technology have also
grown in complexity and military power; this has allowed them to prevail in
conflict over territory and other resources with societies that have maintained
more traditional sociocultural patterns.
Ecological-evolutionary theoretical discussions of structural and superstructural
feedback are limited to descriptions and broad statements that "they matter."
While the theory is highly developed in terms of general concepts and theories
stemming from infrastructural-environmental relationships, it suffers from a lack
of systematic development of general concepts and theoretical principles of
structures and superstructures. This can be remedied with a synthesis with some
of the concepts and theory of Max Weber.
From Max Weber:
The perspective of sociocultural materialism presented in these essays
represents a synthesis of ecological-evolutionary theory with the sociology and
insights of Max Weber. With his typology of human action and his theory of
increasing rationalization, Weber characterized the sweep of human history.
While Weber's is an evolutionary theory, he did not root his theory of increasing
rationalization and the growth of bureaucracy in ecology. Doing so, however, is
not a difficult task:
#The intensification of the infrastructure (population, production) leads to the
growth of secondary organizations at the expense of primary groups, a process
known as bureaucratization. The greater the intensification of the infrastructure,
the more formal organization is needed to provide the coordination and control
for complex production processes and large numbers of people.
#This bureaucratization of structure changes the cultural superstructure of the
society--thus changing the character of the men and women who make up the
society. Weber classified these changes under the rubric of "rationalization."
Increasingly, according to Weber, human behavior is guided by observation,
experiment and reason to master the natural and social environment to achieve a
desired end. This growth of goal-oriented behavior is at the expense of behavior
guided by emotions, traditions or ultimate human values. The hold of tradition
over social life, in particular, is being eroded by the rationalization process (point
5, above).
#The rationalization of the superstructure provides positive feedback for the
continuing bureaucratization of structure. Bureaucratization is the increasing
application of logic, observation and reason to problems posed by human
organization. The relationship between rationalization and bureaucratization is
straight out of Weber, the direction of the relationship is consistent with the
ecological-evolutionary concept of feedback (point 13, above).
#The rationalization of the superstructure and bureaucratization of structure
provides strong positive feedback to the intensification process. The
intensification process itself can be interpreted as another particular case of
rationalization--the increasing application of observation, logic, and reason and
the decline of values, traditions, and emotions--within the infrastructure. Weber's
rationalization process can also characterize the changing relationship between
production and reproduction in industrial societies (point 10, above). Again, the
direction of the relationship is consistent with cultural ecology's emphasis on
feedback.
#The growth of bureaucracy, and the increase in power and authority this gives
to elites, provides strong positive feedback to the intensification of the mode of
production. The relationship between bureaucracy and intensification is
consistent with Weber's definition of the efficiency and power of these
organizations in the attainment of their goals, the nature of authority, as well as
the ecologist's focus on the role of elite's in determining stability and change in
the sociocultural system (point 12, above).
#The more a sociocultural system has rationalized, the larger the potential
population size, the more technologically powerful that society will be. In
accordance with Lenski (point 17, above), such societies will be "much more
likely to survive and transmit their cultures and institutional patterns than
societies that have preserved traditional social and cultural patterns and
minimized innovations" (Lenski et al., 1995: 71).
Modes of production limit widespread social structures (that is, family, economic,
government) and superstructures (ideas, ideologies, and even entire cultural
world views). Structures and superstructural ideas have influence on
infrastructural intensification.