Resources and Social Structure: Some Conditions of Stability and Change

• Author: William R. Burch
• DOI: 10.1177/000271627038900104
• Published date: 01 May 1970
• Date: 01 May 1970
• Subject Matter: Articles

27

Resources

and

Social

Structure:

Some

Conditions

of

Stability

and

Change

By

WILLIAM

R.

BURCH,

JR.

William

R.

Burch,

Jr.,

Ph.D.,

Branford,

Connecticut,

has

been

Associate

Professor

of

Forest

Sociology,

Yale

University,

since

1968.

He

has

taught

at

the

University

of

Missouri, University

of

Minnesota,

Victoria

University

of

Wellington,

New

Zealand,

and

the

State

University

of

New

York

at

Syracuse

University.

He

has

conducted

research

for

the

United

States

Forest

Service

and

the

National

Park

Service,

and

is

the

author

of

numerous

sociological

articles

on

recreation,

natural

resources,

and

social

change.

ABSTRACT:

Human

societies

exist

within

certain

resource

limits.

Those

limits

reflect

particular

combinations

of

ma-

terials,

language,

and

social

structure

and

determine

tenden-

cies

toward

social

stability

or

change.

Such

issues

seem

best

approached

metaphorically.

Energy

stands

for

the

level

of

resource-development

a

particular

society

has

reached.

Per-

meability

indicates

how

distribution

is

arranged

by

the

social

structure;

and

myths

stand

for

the

group’s

available

percep-

tions

and

its

trajectory

of

belief.

Such

metaphorical

co-ordi-

nates

may

permit

prediction

as

to

the

future

of

a

society.

For

example,

the

emergence

of

Western

industrialism

was

dependent

upon

the

surplus

energy

of

a

frontier:

with

the

closing

of

that

frontier,

the

associated

social

structures

and

mythologies

now

seem

ill-adapted

to

the

new

environmental

limits.