Page 164 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

14 . Historical Materialism

haves—a system that conforms at every given stage to the logic
of its acquired structures. Many paths can lead to the same level
of development; wnilinear developments are all the less probable,
the more numerous the evolutionary units. Moreover, there is
no guarantee of uninterrupted development; rather, it depends
on accidental constellations whether a society remains unproduc-
tively stuck at the threshold of development or whether it solves
its system problems by developing new structures. Finally, retro-
&ressions in evolution are possible and in many cases empirically
corroborated; of course, a society will not fall back behind a level
of development, once it is established, without accompanying
phenomena of forced regression; this can be seen, for example,
in the case of Fascist Germany. It is not evolutionary processes
that are irreversible but the structural sequences that a society
must run through 7f and to the extent that it is involved in
evolution.
3. Naturally the most controversial point is the teleology that,
according to historical materialism, is supposed to be inherent
in history. When we speak of evolution, we do in fact mean
cumulative processes that exhibit a direction. Neoevolutionism
regards increasing complexity as an acceptable directional crite-
rion. The more states a system can assume, the more complex
the environment with which it can cope and against which it can
maintain itself. Marx too attributed great significance to the
category of the “social division of labor’; by this he meant
processes of system differentiation and of integration of func-
tionally specified subsystems at a higher level, that is, processes
that increase the internal complexity—and thereby the adaptive
capacity—of a society. However, as a social-evolutionary direc-
tional criterion, complexity has a number of disadvantages:

a. Complexity is a multidimensional concept. A society can be com-
plex with respect to size, interdependence, and variability, with respect
to achievements of generalization, integration, and respecification. As
a result, complexity comparisons can become blurred, and questions
of global classification from the viewpoint of complexity undecidable.*
b. Moreover, there is no clear relation between complexity and self-
maintenance. There are increases in complexity that turn out to be
evolutionary dead ends. But without this connection, increases in com-