International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

The idea of purpose in social systems is a conceptual quagmire. At least three different viewpoints can be distinguished:

1) The one, more or less naive, of many leaders who believe that they themselves define the purposes of the system. What they really do is to try to instil their own purposes into it, i.e.:

- what they believe the system could or should do; In this case they merely act accordingly to what they think they know about the system's nature;

- what they want the system to do: In this case they act generally according to some values and norms that they received… from some part of the system itself, and they frequently do so quite unwittingly.

2) What the system appearently does: its members perceive merely what they were educated to see by learning or ideologic indoctrination: In this way, they are of course in for many surprises.

3) What the system really does, i.e. trying to survive, which implies many unexpected behaviors, whose understanding generally dawns upon the participants quite a long time after the events themselves.

D. KATZ and R.L. KAHN think that: "It would be much better theoretically, however, to start with concepts which do not call for identifying the purposes of the designers and then correcting for them when they do not seem to be fulfilled. The theoretical concepts should begin with the input, output, and functioning of the organization as a system and not with the rational purposes of its leaders" (1966, p.89).

Numerous systemic concepts and models could be used to study social systems, in accordance with J.G. MILLER's methodology and could lead to a new type of systemic sociology.