Материал: disser_arhipov

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for example, power, understood as the right (and later – the monopoly) to physical violence, is a “symbolic medium” for the political system. Power can be acquired through money, and money is a “symbolic medium” of the economic system. This, according to T. Parsons, is an example of the conversion of “currencies”, but for this study, it is important to do different things: what is valuable in society is what has such an “exchange value” within the social system. The most obvious (and probably the most familiar) example for jurisprudence, thus, will be related to the power understood as a “symbolic medium” for physical violence. A social group with direct or indirect access to power will be a pressure group in the meaning of political science. It should be noted that three other subsystems of the social system have functional analogues of pressure groups of the political system.430 The main idea here is that the criterion of “seriousness” is not satisfied if the relevant social institution is reproduced by a social group (or social groups) that do not have any type of “currencies” corresponding to the subsystems of the social system.

Sociologist Brian Stanley Turner (b. 1945) explains the main content of the approach under study in the preface to the new edition of T. Parsons’ book “The Social System”431 as follows:

«The second form in which economics influenced Parsons’ thought was as a model of social exchange in general. Conventional demand-and-supply economics has been concerned to comprehend the nature of maximizing behaviour in the exchange of commodities between individuals in a market. These exchange relations are typically undertaken, not in terms of a material exchange of commodities, but symbolically in terms of money as a medium of exchange. The capitalist buys labour power, not by providing the worker directly with the means of existence (clothing and food), but in terms of a wage in the form of money. However, money is itself only a symbol of value,

430For context, as T. Parsons pointed out, it is necessary to pay attention that, while the generalized media of exchange are used in routine exchange between different parts of the social system (he means money, influence, political power and value commitments, they also may increase creative level and scope of activities within social systems. See: Parsons T. System of Modern Societies (in Russian). Transl. by L.A. Sedova and A.D. Kovalev. – M., 1998 [Electronic resource] // Electronic Publication: Center of Humanitarian Technologies. 09.09.2012. – [Site]. – URL: https://gtmarket.ru/laboratory/basis/5395 (accessed: 03.02.2019).

431Parsons T., The Social System. – London: Routledge, 1991. – 404 p.

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because in principle the worker could be paid in terms of precious shells, postage stamps, a cheque, or other tokens (compare with the context of the discussion of cryptocurrencies and distributed registries; this term is used in almost the same sense – V.A.)… Parsons took money to be a generalized medium of exchange and by analogy argued that there may be a number of such media in society. In particular, he looked at power, influence, and commitment as circulating media of exchange which permit social actors to achieve desirable objectives. These media of exchange relate back to Parsons’ model of the four sub-systems (GAIL). Money is the medium of exchange between the adaptive sub-system and its boundaries; power is the generalized medium of the polity; influence of the integrative subsystem; and commitment of the latency sub-system».432

The approach presented by the author’s team of the MGIMO textbook of political science under the guidance of A.Yu. Melville looks quite appropriate. The authors apply the concept of T. Parsons to resolve the contradictions between the approaches to the definition of the nature of political power, which come from either coercion433 (the extreme form of which is violence), or, on the contrary, only from the understanding of the nature of political power as a communicative phenomenon (T. Ball).434 Political power, however, should be seen as a “medium binding people’s actions and obligations, which can represent them in different ways”.435 Like the economic system, the political system requires stability and sustainability, which are achievable through the use of a generalized symbolic medium. If for the economy it is a symbol expressed in gold, then in law, in the language of M. Weber, it is a symbol of “monopoly of legitimate physical violence”.436

The authors note:

432Turner B.S., Preface to the New Edition // Parsons T., The Social System. – London: Routledge, 1991. – p. 19.

433Plato, Aristotle, T. Hobbes, G. Hegel etc.

434156. Political Science: Textbook / A.Yu. Melville [and others]. – M.: Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, TC Velbi, Prospekt Publishing House, 2008. PP. 75–76.

435Ibid. PP. 76–77.

436“The modern state is an institutionalized alliance of domination that, within a certain sphere, has succeeded in monopolizing legitimate physical violence as a means of domination and, to that end, has combined the physical assets of the enterprise in the hands of its leaders”. See: Weber M. Politics as a Vocation and Profession (in Russian) [Electronic resource] / Weber M. Selected essays. M., 1990 // Open University. - [Site]. - URL: https://openuni.io/course/11-course-7- 4/lesson/2/material/855/ (address: 02.09.2019).

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«According to Parsons, power, is understood as a symbolic medium similar to money, circulating within the political system, but able to move from there to all three neighboring functional subsystems of society – economic (“converting” (emphasized by me – V.A.) into the same money), integrative (a set of social communities with the medium in the form of influence) and integrative (cultural with the medium in the form of values). Thus, power is understood as the ability to ensure the fulfillment of binding obligations by the elements of the political system, when these obligations are recognized as corresponding to collective goals, and in case of disobedience of anybody coercion is provided for. According to Parsons’ definition, making it possible to fulfill a certain desire, even if it is a threat of superior force, does not mean to use power. The ability to achieve obedience in order to call it power must be a generalized function, not just a function of any single impact».437

The path of the economic system – from barter to abstract financial instruments, while the path of the political system is from physical violence to political power.

T. Parsons’ ideas turned out to be in great demand in the theoretical sociology of the XXth century. The complex of ideas of P. Bourdieu about social (symbolic) capital also echoes them in many ways.438 However, the approach of the latter does not contain a comprehensive reflection of the idea of mutually convertible generalized symbolic media, in the interpretation whereunder, according to our fundamental methodological hypothesis, contains special value for jurisprudence. This, however, does not mean that such an idea in his conception is absent. For instance, P. Bourdieu wrote in respect of gift that:

“We understand how, through much more conventional forms of exchange and generosity, social agents can accumulate a form of capital that can be called “prestige”, “recognition”, and that is translated into economic consequences. In other words, if the gift is an invasion, and if, as Larochefoucauld reminds us, people are in a hurry to gift back, the reason, and this is a paradox, is precisely what giving means to possess. Whoever gives to me potentially takes possession of myself, either because I can’t give, or even because I give, but I still owe the debt of recognition. In the economy of honor, the gift is mandatory: there is no choice,

437Ibid. P. 77.

438See e.g.: Demidova M.V. «Symbolic Capital» of P. Bourdieu and «Capital» of K. Marx // Proceedings of Vyatka State University. – 2014. – No. 11. – P. 27–32. And source works by P. Bourdieu: Bourdieu P. Practical Reason (1980) (in Russian) / Transl. from French: A.T. Bikbov, K.L. Voznesenskaya, S.N. Zenkin, N.A. Shmatko; Editing and Afterword by N.A. Shmatko. – Saint Petersburg: Aletea, 2011. – 562 p.; Bourdieu P. Sociology of Social Space (in Russian) / Transl. from French; General Editing of the Translation by N.A. Shmatko. – Moscow: Institute of Experimental Sociology; Saint Petersburg: Aletea, 2007. – 288 p.

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because you are in a universe where you have to be given. He obliges, and he creates a duty”.439

Nevertheless, the idea of mutually-convertible generalized symbolic media is contained in explicit and concise form in the research of S. Abrutyn, an American sociologist who develops this very complex of ideas based on rethinking the works of T. Parsons, as well as other authors, whose texts can be directly or indirectly correlated with the concept of generalized symbolic media. In addition, S. Abrutyn’s works are the last ones in which this very concept is currently being developed in a substantive and consistent manner.

In his article «Money, Love and Sacredness: Generalised Symbolic Media and the Production of Instrumental, Affectual, and Moral Reality»440 The author considers the generalized symbolic media as a phenomenon ensuring the integration of various social units – in this context, this problem is characteristic, first of all, of the theoretical and sociological discourse. As the author himself notes, he uses the interpretation of generalized symbolic media both in the direction of G. Simmel’s views,441 and within the functionalist approach. S. Abrutyn seeks to define precisely the concept of these media, to study their general forms (specialized institutional language and external referent of value), to highlight three modes of orientation that can be created by different media. The author develops an understanding of the role of the media outside of social exchange to include other institutional processes, such as communication, performance and ritualized interaction.442 We must admit that the subject of S. Abrutyn’s research is primarily related

439P. Bourdieu. Economic Anthropology: a Course of Lectures at College de France (1992 – 1993) / Transl. from French by D. Kralechkin. – Moscow: Delo Publishing House, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 2019 – P. 130.

440Abrutyn S. Money, Love and Sacredness: Generalised Symbolic Media and the Production of Instrumental, Affectual, and Moral Reality // Czech Sociological Review. 2015. Vol. 51. No. 3. PP. 445–471.

441It should be noted that in law L. Fuller also addressed the works of this sociologist in the context of his legal

conception.

442Ibid. P. 445.

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to theoretical sociology. The problems of theoretical sociology as such do not seem to us to be related to the problem of the semantic limits of law, at least, directly. However, the part of the views developed by the American sociologist that deals specifically with the rethinking of convertible generalized symbolic media which can be related to the external referent of value, is definitely of fundamental importance for the development of one of the criteria of the semantic limits of law – the criterion of “seriousness”.

There is also a need to explicitly identify the linguistic (but perhaps also ontological

– in the context of the language turn) problem associated with the key problem of the theory of generalized symbolic media. In the Russian version of the text of the theoretical and sociological part of this study, we use the translation similar to “intermediary”, while in the English version, and in the work of T. Parsons, too, the term “media” (in plural) and “medium” (in singular) is used. Unfortunately, it is difficult to preserve the unity and diversity of connotations in the Russian language: the translation of “intermediary” is successful in emphasizing convertibility and “socio-currency value”,443 while the translation as “media” accurately conveys the fact that the concept of generalized symbolic media is fully in line with the concept of the medial turn. The concept of the medial turn reflects not only a shift in the focus of attention of social and humanitarian disciplines to various “media” in the narrow sense of the word, understood as a means of mass communication, but also to the consideration of the fabric of social reality through the prism of generalized symbolic media, which can equally be called “media”. The language game is preserved in English, lost in the variety of translations into Russian, but should always be taken into account.

443 In this aspect, one should always keep in mind another connotation and possible translation: generalized symbolic media are also tokens in the same sense, in which the term “token” is used in the context of cryptocurrencies, and ICO (initial coin offering – the analogue of the term “IPO” from the financial markets, which implies a public offer to purchase cryptocurrencies for the purpose of financing a project, the value of which tokens are thus expressed).