The Presidential Address: Cumulative Change in Theory and in History

A comprehensive overview of the literature on social change would almost certainly bewilder the uninitiated person should that individual have the patience to undertake so arduous a task. The observer would find that the spectrum ranges from Robert Nisbet's (1969:197) denial of change, there being only a finely-graded, logically continuous series of 'stills,' as in a movie film. . ., to Wilbert Moore's (1963:11-2) assertion that change is ubiquitous. Running the gamut, it seems that change covers any difference between before and after states, regardless of the units affected, the magnitude of the differences, the time interval involved, or the repetitiveness of the difference. What is true in the aggregate, of course, is not true of individual scholars. Each has employed a definition designed for a particular purpose. I shall do likewise. By social change I mean any nonrecurrent alteration of a social system considered as a whole. The term nonrecurrence in the definition is intended to exclude rhythmic events, such as the waking-eating-sleeping round of the diurnal cycle, daily trips to and from work or school, the annual cycle of holiday festivities, the succession of generations, and other such pulsations. These are the means by which a given pattern of relationships is sustained rather than altered. A more difficult exclusion concerns short-term variations around a central tendency, inasmuch as they usually are recognized as such only in retrospect. Try as we might, we have perfected no way of recognizing such variations for what they are at the time of their occurrence. Nonrecurrent alterations appear in many forms. Of these the most significant, if least dramatic, is what may be called cumulative change. This may occur as a single increment to the content of a social system or it may be comprised of a series of increments, each of which prepares the way for the next. In either vase it constitutes growth of the system, a movement from small and simple to large and complex. Why, it is reasonable to enquire, should one expect to find growth or cumulative change in social systems? Various answers suggest themselves. One rests upon an analogy with change in biological organisms. That the organism begins with a fertilized cell which, under appropriate conditions, subdivides repeatedly to produce increasing size and structural elaboration is common knowledge. Whether the processes involved, in that phenomenon have counterparts in the growth of the human social system is too debatable to occupy us here. A second kind of answer to the question of why cumulative change? may be found in an argument from history. The historical record enumerates many instances of the rise of empires and of civilizations from small and simple beginnings. The fact that many have declined and disappeared does not gainsay the tendency to cumulative * Address all communications to: Amos H. Hawley; Department of Sociology; University of North Carolina; Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Presented as the Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association at its annual meeting in San Francisco, September 1978.