Kenneth E. Boulding

Two Critiques of Homans' Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms

In 1950 George Homans published The Human Group, one of the handful of sociological works in this century which deserves the term classic. Using findings from a number of field studies of small groups, he developed a theoretical system to describe the process by which work affects patterns of interaction, which in turn lead to the development of subgroups characterized by positive sentiments and distinctive patterns of behavior and attitudes; how such subgroups develop status orders and mechanisms of social control; and how the inherent ambivalence of reactions to authority molds social structure. Apparently one of the few people who was dissatisfied with the book was its author, who was worried not about whether the propositions were true but about why they were true. Why should interaction lead to liking? Why should the activities of one subgroup become increasingly differentiated from those of other subgroups? Why should individuals who come close to realizing the norms of the group as a whole receive high rank? Such why questions can ultimately lead up to cosmology or down to biochemistry, but in the immediate vicinity of the original problem there are only two likely possibilities: a group level theory such as functionalism or a theory of individual psychology. Those who have read Homans comments on functionalism in The Human Group or Homans and Schneider on MarSocial Behavior is thus a theory of motivation designed to predict the propositions of The Human Group. I think it is important to understand the massive challenge of such an enterprise. Of all the areas of the more behavioral social sciences, the theory of motivation is probably in the worst mess today. Logically, the area is booby-trapped with concealed tautologies; empirically, the problems of measurement are horrendous; and conceptually, the area is a battleground of guerrilla warfare between psychologists of the veterinary persuasion and the brawling grandchildren of Sigmund Freud. Sociological theorists usually detour around the problem by taking motivation as given or assuming that all these things are learned during something called socialization. It takes a brave man to enter this area, much less to conquer it. What then is this theory? Chapters ii, iii, and iv present the fundamental concepts and principles of a theory which turns out to be an amalgam of Skinnerian operant conditioning and classical economics, which make a better pair than one might think offhand. From Skinner come the concepts of operant conditioning, positive and negative reinforcement, and satiation, presented lucidly in chapter ii and, as far as I can tell, straight from Skinner. Chapters iii and iv add the key economic components of the theory: cost, profit, and exchange plus a final concept which is neither really Skinnerian nor economic but Homansian, distributive justice. The addition of cost, defined as the value of * Socil Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. By George Caspar Homans. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.. 1961. Pp. x4-404.

How Nations Negotiate.Fred Charles Iklé

5.50.

The Economics of Time and Ignorance.Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr. , Mario J. Rizzo

This edition closely follows the original format, and retains most of the material from the first edition. Aside from shifts in the sequence of presentation, the most noteworthy changes are the reduction of the space devoted to bargaining procedures and the bargaining unit and to union-management cooperation, and the addition of chapters on The Encouragement and Regulation of Collective Bargaining and on Strikes and Collective Bargaining, the last of which fills what had been an inexplicable gap in the first edition. In short, this is not so much a major revision as it is an updating by minor modifications of the original text. This reviewer was disappointed, in fact, by a tendency to incorporate new developments through brief descriptions rather than through the analytical examination for which the text is noteworthy. Readers not acquainted with the first edition, who may wonder whether Collective Bargaining is simply another title for an introductory text in labor economics, may rest assured that it really is what it appears to be, a textbook on collective bargaining per se. As such, it is better suited to an advanced than to an introductory course, for it omits much of the customary introductory material on such subjects as union government, labor market economics, social security, and protective labor legislation, and instead confines itself to an examination of the processes and institutions of collective bargaining, dealing with only such elements or aspects of union government, of labor economics, and of labor law as are necessary to contribute to the analysis and understanding of collective bargaining. The result is that Collective Bargaining affords a perspective on the core of labormanagement relations that is somewhat different from that to be found in other labor texts. And like any perspective, it has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. The primary advantage is that focussing on a single major aspect of industrial relations permits analysis in greater depth and intensity than would otherwise be possible. The authors have fully capitalized on this fact, with the result that its penetrating analysis is the great merit of the book. The disadvantage, which does not seem inherent in this particular approach, is that in concentrating on collective bargaining as an institution in its own right, and not merely as one activity of unions, or as a procedure for determining wages and working conditions, the authors have given relatively little space or attention to the subject matter of collective bargaining. One wonders whether further attention to the very lively substantive issues with which collective bargaining is concerned might not have contributed materially to the readers understanding of the process and of the relationship between its evolution and the changes in the issues with which it deals. Perhaps it is this very lack of emphasis on current manifestations, however, which helps to reveal the persistence of basic issues and demonstrates the continuity of the collective bargaining process. In any case, the advantages of this book far outweigh such minor shortcomings as it may have; Collective Bargaining is a penetrating and thoughtful analysis which makes clear that while collective bargaining is as vital as todays news, it is no ephemeral institution whose fate may hang on the outcome of a single dispute, but a rugged and durable social process which has survived many a storm and may be expected to weather many more. Marten Estey Associate Professor University of Pennsylvania