Stratified societies contained power through status-bound, face-to-face acquaintance networks

Evidence

In older types of societal formation, interdependencies are limited and controlled in important ways by means of stratification into families, status and roles. According to the social stratum to which a person belonged, there was for each one a point of view over and above every functional specification to which behavioural rules of a type specific to the stratum could attach themselves. It also contained non-political, interactionally effective power-controls, above all in the higher strata, where the microcosm of a society based on personal acquaintance could be reproduced within a wider society. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 771

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to Giddens’ ‘facework’ and intimate-trust distinction: stratified societies constrained behavior through personal acquaintance networks, the very thing faceless system trust replaces. — connects to: Social network analysis prevents isolating ideas from political and business links — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 10