| Preface | xv |
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| 1. Metatheory: Explanation in Social Science |
| Explanation of the Behavior of Social Systems | 2
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| Components of the Theory | 11 |
| Conceptions of the Relations between Micro and
Macro Levels | 21 |
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| Part I. Elementary Actions and Relations |
| 2. Actors and Resources, Interest and Control | 27 |
| The Elements | 28 |
| Structures of Action | 34 |
| Social Exchange | 37 |
| Simple and Complex Relations | 43 |
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| 3. Rights to Act | 45 |
| What Are Rights? | 49 |
| How the Free-Rider Problem Is Reduced for Rights
| 53 |
| How Does New Information Bring About a Change
in the
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| Allocation of Rights? | 54 |
| How Does a Right Change Hands? | 57 |
| Who Are the Relevant Others? | 58 |
| How Are Rights Partitioned, and How Might They
Be? | 59 |
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| 4. Authority Relations | 65 |
| The Right to Control One's Own Actions |
67 |
| Vesting of Authority | 69 |
| Conjoint and Disjoint Authority Relations |
72 |
| Transfer of One Right or Two: Simple and Complex
Authority
Relations | 81 |
| Limitations on Authority | 82 |
| Slavery | 86 |
| Authority without Intentional Exercise | 88 |
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| 5. Relations of Trust | 91 |
| The Placement of Trust | 97 |
| Actions of the Trustee | 108 |
| Multiple Trustors and Public-Goods Problems | 115 |
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| Part II. Structures of Action |
| 6. Systems of Social Exchange | 119 |
| What Is Money? | 119 |
| Media of Exchange in Social and Political Systems |
124 |
| Exchanges within Systems | 131 |
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| 7. From Authority Relations to Authority Systems | 145 |
| The Law of Agency | 146 |
| Sympathy and Identification: Affine Agents |
157 |
| Simple and Complex Authority Structures | 162
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| The Internal Morality of an Authority System | 172 |
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| 8. Systems of Trust and Their Dynamic Properties | 175 |
| Mutual Trust | 177 |
| Intermediaries in Trust | 180 |
| Third-Party Trust | 186 |
| Large Systems Involving Trust | 188 |
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| 9. Collective Behavior | 197 |
| General Properties of Collective Behavior |
198 |
| Escape Panics | 203 |
| Bank and Stock Market Panics | 215 |
| Acquisitive Crazes | 218 |
| Contagious Beliefs | 279 |
| Hostile and Expressive Crowds | 220 |
| Fads and Fashions | 230 |
| Influence Processes in Purchasing Decisions, Voting,
and
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| Public Opinion | 237 |
| Specific Predictions about Collective Behavior
| 239 |
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| 10. The Demand for Effective Norms | 241 |
| Examples of Norms and Sanctions | 245 |
| Distinctions among Norms | 246 |
| The First Condition: Externalities of Actions
and the Demand for a Norm | 249 |
| What Constitutes Social Efficiency? |
260 |
| Systems of Norms | 265 |
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| 11. The Realization of Effective Norms | 266 |
| An Action-Rights Bank | 267 |
| Social Relationships in Support of Sanctions | 269 |
| Free Riding and Zeal | 273 |
| Heroic versus Incremental Sanctioning | 278 |
| How Are Sanctions Applied in Society? | 282 |
| Emergence of Norms about Voting | 289 |
| Internalization of Norms | 292 |
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| 12. Social Capital | 300 |
| Human Capital and Social Capital | 304 |
| Forms of Social Capital | 304 |
| Relative Quantities of Social Capital | 313
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| The Public-Good Aspect of Social Capital | 315 |
| The Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction of
Social Capital | 318 |
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| Part III. Corporate Action |
| 13. Constitutions and the Construction of Corporate Actors | 325 |
| Norms and Constitutions | 325 |
| Positive Social Theory | 344 |
| Change in a Disjoint Constitution: American High
Schools | 349 |
| An Optimal Constitution | 352 |
| Who Are the Elementary Actors? | 367 |
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| 14. The Problem of Social Choice | 371 |
| Partitioning of Rights to Indivisible Goods | 371 |
| Constitutional Issues in Partitioning Rights to
Control
Corporate Actions | 374 |
| Intellectual Puzzles concerning Social Choice
| 376 |
| Emergent Processes and Institutions for Social
Choice | 381 |
| Ethical Theory: How to Determine the Right Action
| 384 |
| Executive Decision Making | 387 |
| Community Decision Making and Conflict | 390 |
| Characteristics of Noninstitutionalized Social
Choice | 394 |
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| 15. From Individual Choice to Social Choice | 397 |
| The Problem of Independence from Irrelevant Alternatives
| 398 |
| Tournaments as Institutions for Social Choice
| 403 |
| Multi-Stage versus Single-Stage Processes for
Social Choice | 405 |
| The Nature of Rights in Social Choice | 414 |
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| 16. The Corporate Actor as a System of Action | 421 |
| Weberian Bureaucracy in Theory and Practice | 422 |
| The Formal Organization as a Specification of
Transactions | 425 |
| Modes of Maintaining Viability in Formal Organizations |
426 |
| Explicit and Implicit Constitutions | 435 |
| Structures That Link Interest and Control | 442 |
| General Principles for Optimizing the Corporate
Actor's
Internal Structure | 446 |
| The Changing Conception of the Corporation | 448 |
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| 17. Rights and Corporate Actors | 451 |
| Allocation of Corporate Rights and the Public-Goods
Problem | 451 |
| Exercise and Exchange of Rights | 452 |
| The Drift of Power toward Actors Having Usage
Rights | 456 |
| Withdrawal of Usage Rights through Voice and Exit
| 463 |
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| 18. Revoking Authority | 466 |
| Theories of Revolution | 468 |
| Comparative Macrosocial Research: Inequality,
Economic
Development, and Repressiveness | 486 |
| Ideology in Revolutions | 487 |
| A Theoretical Framework of Revolution | 489 |
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| 19. The Self | 503 |
| Problems Inherent in a Unitary Actor | 504 |
| Functional Components of the Self | 507 |
| The Dual Role of Interests | 509 |
| Processes of Change inside the Actor | 515 |
| Corporate Actors' Changes in Self | 527 |
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| Part IV. Modern Society |
| 20. Natural Persons and the New Corporate Actors | 531 |
| Individual Sovereignty | 531 |
| Changing Conceptions of Sovereignty | 532 |
| Emergence of Corporate Actors in Social Organization
and Law | 534 |
| Examples of Interactions of Natural Persons and
Corporate Actors | 542 |
| Types of Interactions Involving Corporate Actors
and Persons | 546 |
| Displacement of Nature by Human Constructions
| 552 |
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| 21. Responsibility of Corporate Actors | 553 |
| Responsible Actions of Natural Persons | 556 |
| Social Origins of Corporate Responsibility | 558 |
| Internal Changes and Corporate Responsibility
| 560 |
| Tax Laws and Social Norms | 573 |
| Free-Rider Problems for Corporate Responsibility |
574 |
| Corporate Responsibility in Sum | 575 |
| What Conception of the Corporation Is Best for
Natural Persons? | 577 |
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| 22. New Generations in the New Social Structure | 579 |
| The Conflict between the Family and the Corporation
| 579 |
| Distribution of Income to Children in the New
Social
Structure | 587 |
| Consequences of the New Social Structure for Social
Capital | 590 |
| The Direct Impact of the Two Social Structures
on the Next Generation | 597 |
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| 23. The Relation of Sociology to Social Action in the New Social Structure
| 610 |
| The Social Role of Social Theory | 611 |
| The World of Action and the World of the Discipline |
675 |
| The Structure of Society and the Nature of Applied
Social Research | 676 |
| Applied Social Research and the Theory of Action |
626 |
| What Should Applied Social Research Be Like? | 645 |
| What Research Is Missing? | 647 |
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| 24. The New Social Structure and the New Social Science | 650 |
| The Replacement of Primordial Social Capital | 652
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| Independent Viability, Global Viability, and Distribution
in the New Social Structure | 655 |
| Modes of Organizing Action | 658 |
| Nation-States versus Multinational Corporations,
or Voice versus Exit | 660 |
| The New Social Science | 663 |
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| Part V. The Mathematics of Social Action |
| 25. The Linear System of Action | 667 |
| Two-Person Exchange System with Divisible Goods
| 670 |
| Restrictions on the Utility Function | 674 |
| Beyond a Two-Person System of Action | 680
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| The Competitive Equilibrium and the Linear System
of Action | 681 |
| Further Derivations and Use of the Model | 687 |
| Economic and Psychological Properties of the Utility
Function | 693 |
| Open Systems | 695 |
| Appendix: An Iterative Method for Solving for
r or v Given X and Ñ | 698 |
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| 26. Empirical Applications | 701 |
| Estimation of Value with Perfect-Market Assumptions |
702 |
| Estimation of Value When There Are Two Resources
and
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| More Than Two Actors | 703 |
| Estimation of Value When There Are More Than Two
Resources | 709 |
| Arbitrary Zero Points for Resources | 711
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| Sampling and the Importance of the Population
and Resource
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| Distributions | 715 |
| Estimation of Interests | 717 |
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| 27. Extensions of the Theory | 719 |
| A Perfect Social System | 719 |
| Psychic Investment | 721 |
| Dependence of Events | 722 |
| Partitioned Systems of Action | 725 |
| Losses in Exchange between Actors and between
Resources | 729 |
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| 28. Trust in a Linear System of Action | 747 |
| Introducing Mistrust into a System | 750 |
| Lack of Complete Trust in Larger Systems | 756 |
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| 29. Power, the Micro-to-Macro Transition, and Interpersonal Comparison
of Utility | 769 |
| Interpersonal Comparison | 769 |
| Cardinal Utility | 775 |
| Power, through a Market and Otherwise | 781 |
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| 30. Externalities and Norms in a Linear System of Action | 785 |
| When Will Actions Having Externalities Be Taken?
The Coase Theorem Revisited | 787 |
| Externalities and Level of Affluence | 796
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| What Is Meant by Efficiency? | 799 |
| The Rationality of Norms | 800 |
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| 31. Indivisible Events, Corporate Actors, and Collective Decisions
| 829 |
| When Will Control of Events Be Collectivized?
| 829 |
| The Constitutional Stage | 830 |
| The Postconstitutional Stage | 844 |
| Social Choice by Various Decision Rules | 856
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| Conflict | 869 |
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| 32. Dynamics of the Linear System of Action | 874 |
| Exchange with Two Actors and Two Resources | 875 |
| Change in Resources Held by One Actor | 878 |
| Movement of a Resource among Actors | 885 |
| Logical Constraints on Transition Rates in Pairwise
Exchange Systems | 887 |
| A Description of the Path of Values: Walrasian
Adjustment | 889 |
| Dynamics of Systems with Social-Structural Barriers
| 892 |
| How Do Power of Actors and Values of Events Change?
| 895 |
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| 33. Unstable and Transient Systems of Action | 899 |
| Single-Contingency and Double-Contingency Collective
Behavior | 901 |
| Transfer of Control in Single-Contingency Panics
| 903 |
| Double-Contingency Panics | 911 |
| Evolution of Strategies | 931 |
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| 34. The Internal Structure of Actors | 932 |
| Event Outcomes as Actions of a Corporate Actor
| 933 |
| Corporate Outcomes and Public-Good Problems | 937 |
| The Value of Resources and the Interests of a
Corporate Actor | 939 |
| Subjective and Objective Interests of a Corporate
Actor | 941 |
| The Internal Structure of Persons as Actors | 946 |
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| References | 951 |
| Name index | 973 |
| Subject Index | 979 |
