ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a reconsideration of the role of contingency and of agency in social life, and the development of a theory which can explain their interaction in the evolution of structures of social inequality. Pragmatism found little recognition in modern positivist and functionalist theories. Sociology and economics reduced social behavior to rational actions by selfish agents who pursued given preferences and were in possession of all relevant information. Cooperative behavior is common among animals, both between genetic relatives and unrelated individuals, and can be culturally transmitted across generations. In human societies, trust and cooperation among genetic strangers is pervasive, from carefully calculated reciprocity to self-sacrificing altruism. Contingent causes of inequality arise along two fault lines of social life, one structural and the other behavioral. Like their tectonic equivalent, they create contradictory structuring and destabilizing forces. The inner secrets of the evolution of inequality structures lie in these destabilizing and ordering forces.
