ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the progressive differentiation of status in social structures and its implications. It then investigates dynamic interrelations between emergent exchange processes and the explicit organization of collectivities. The chapter also formulates a dialectical conception of structural change and analyzes the dilemmas of social life and the conditions that produce them. One source of the dilemmas of social associations is the conflict of interests in mixed-game situations. The differentiation of status that develops in groups and societies resolves some of the dilemmas of individuals which occur primarily in unstructured situations, but it simultaneously produces new dialectical forces of change. The dilemmas people face in unstructured social situations debilitate them in social interaction, and the resolution of dilemmas resulting from status being secured in the social structure strengthens them. The recurrent disequilibrating and re-equilibrating forces on many levels of social structure are reflected in the dialectical nature of structural change.
