ABSTRACT
Social structure refers not to the particular parts of a society, or to the roleplayers, but to the wholes that remain much the same for decades and even centuries in spite of the fact that the players constantly change. Class structure, patterns of consumption, patterns of exchange, and other structural complexes identify functional rather than organizational aspects of society. Behind the functions or social structures, and woven into them, are a society's fundamental values. Ordinarily, therefore, structural change is taboo.
