Sistemas sociales, lineamientos para una teoría general

In Sistemas sociales (Social Systems), Niklas Luhmann lays out the general theoretical apparatus behind his later, more specific studies of society. Rather than offering a direct sociological account of modern society, the book builds the conceptual instruments Luhmann uses to observe any social system, whether a whole society, an organization, or a face-to-face interaction. Its most distinctive move is to treat society as a self-producing, or autopoietic, system made up of communications rather than of people: for Luhmann, individuals are part of the environment of social systems, not their building blocks. Working from concepts borrowed from cybernetics and systems theory, Luhmann argues that modern, functionally differentiated society no longer has any single, binding way of representing itself to itself, and the book develops the tools for describing how social systems cope with that condition instead of treating it as simple loss or crisis. The text is known as demanding even for readers familiar with sociological theory. Credits: Luhmann, N. (1991). Sistemas sociales, lineamientos para una teoría general. México: Alianza/Iberoamericana.