Notes on Technology and the Moral Order by Alvin W. Gouldner; Richard A. PetersonReview by: Jacob FriedThe Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d'Economique etde Science politique, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Aug., 1963), pp. 404-405Published by: Wiley on behalf of Canadian Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/139234 .

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404 Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

moting mobility. The presence of relatives in the receiving country appears to have a catalytic effect upon the decision to emigrate, despite the fact that the emigrants have comparatively weak emotional ties with their families. The extended family acts as a channel of communication about possibilities for economic advancement in the new country and gives practical assistance in the migration process and reception.

With the exception of an unfortunate misplacement of column headings in Table 4 on page 7 the studies in this volume exhibit a high degree of statistical care and theoretical sophistication and are a model for future studies of this kind.

ANTHONY H. RICHMOND

University of Edinburgh

Notes on Technology and the Moral Order. By ALVIN W. GOULDNER and RICHARD

A. PETERSON. Indianapolis, New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co. 1962. Pp. xvi, 96. $5.00; paper $1.95.

IN a short essay, Gouldner and Peterson have managed to entertain some of the most fundamental issues of cultural theory. With an engagingly modest air they ask us to follow them in an "experiment" to see if it is possible to decide just what factors in culture are responsible for change and self- maintenance.

Three major orientations to these problems are considered: (1) the single factor type, or "determinisms"; (2) multiple causation, in which many in- dependent causes can lead to a single outcome; and (3) functionalist orienta- tions, where everything is simply inextricably bound up in a necessary relation with everything else. These three leading explanations are found by the authors to be inadequate ways of explaining cultural dynamics because none of them tells us just what the relative importance of any element in the field of events really is. A new statistical technique, that of factor analysis, is introduced to help us out of this "causal" quandary. It is offered as a tool not only for showing functional relationships between clusters of cultural elements but also for weighing the relative importance of traits within the larger system, something ordinary, non-statistical, functional interpretations do not ac- complish.

The method employed in this demonstration of factor analysis is to use a list of 57 socio-cultural traits as they are found (or not found) in 71 non- industrial (primitive) societies. The source of the data is the Human Relations Area Files of Yale University. By factor analysis of these traits, as they are found linked in these 71 different societies, certain important clusterings, or associations, are statistically shown to be significantly bound together. These are: (1) factor SD, or Sex Dominance; (2) factor L, Lineality; (3) factor T, Technology; (4) factor A, Apollonianism (a term borrowed from Nietzsche to represent moral order). Examining these four "factors" we find that they match classical anthropological compartments: factors 1 and 2 are aspects of Social Structure, factor T is Technology and Material Culture, and factor A falls into Ideal Culture. Only one basic compartment of modern cultural theory is not represented in the above statistical treatment and that

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Reviews of Books 405

is Culture and Personality. But, in chapter 3, we get a non-statistical treatment of this major area, as a special qualitatively treated subject in which human personality is shown to be important to the cultural process.

In fact, the discussion in Chapter 3, which the authors state is not entirely based on their methodological examination of trait lists, makes exciting read- ing. The cultural development of post-Old-Stone-Age man is imaginatively evoked. Growing technological mastery over nature is shown to produce con- flict in stratifying social systems struggling to come into being. Moral systems develop to control desperate conflicts between the individual and society, between the private and social "selves," and to create a moral environment to permit differentiated, complex individuals and social groupings to co-exist. Religion is examined as a social institution, functioning in the new post- Neolithic societies as a basic integrating force; it is the institution that generates moral forces to help bind men into new viable complex groupings. Thus, tantalizing insights are thrown out in a few short paragraphs, explaining the relationship between political and religious institutions and personality in the evolution of civilization.

The authors conclude that the statistical evidence seems to suggest that the forces emanating from the dimension of technology are the leading ones in cultural development rather than those forces emanating from kinship (social structure) or the moral order, and, secondly, that "the higher the level of technology the higher the degree of impulse control of Apollonianism" (i.e., the need for an overarching moral system to integrate the new personality and social forces into complex social systems).

Their conclusions do not really turn up anything new to anthropological theory, as the authors themselves are well aware, but they do claim that their method can suggest which of the various theories are most apt to be valid interpretations. The testing of social scientific theory by quantitative methods is clearly a worthwhile undertaking. One cannot help wondering what limita- tions were placed on the scope of their work by the use of trait lists as their basic data (I don't question the utility of their demonstration, however). Is it because of this that the factors isolated turned out to be only four, two concerned with kinship out of the whole range of social structures, one with technology, and the fourth an aspect of ideal culture? Perhaps the authors will undertake to include other potent variables of personality and value systems in further cross-cultural research.

JACOB FRIED

McGill University

Gli Effetti delle variazioni di produttivita sul sistema dei prezzi e dei salari. Atti del Quarto Convegno di Studi di Economia e Politica del Lavoro. Rome: Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori. 1961. Pp. 307. Lire 2000.

THIs volume contains the proceedings of the Fourth Study Conference on the Economics and Politics of Labour, organized by the Italian Confederation of Trade Unions.

The proceedings open with an introduction by Professor F. Vito, President

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