It is a systematic depiction of certain societal functions, which every society must meet to be able to maintain stable social life.
For example the order of the cultural system vis-à-vis the AGIL functional scheme is: A: Cognitive symbolization.
AGIL scheme outlines four systematic, core functions, that are prerequisites for any society to be able to persist over time.
The tribe also needs to have a common belief system that enforces actions and decisions as the community sees fit.
- natural resources - commodity production - political offices - common goals - family - schools - religious systems - media Each of the four individual functional necessities are further divided into four sub-categories.
In this way, citizenship (or civil society) represents, according to Parsons, the goal-attainment function within the subsystem of the Societal Community.
For example, a community's adaption to the economic environment might consist of the basic "industrial" process of production (adaption), political-strategic goals for production (goal-attainment), the interaction between the economical system and the societal community, which integrates production mechanisms both in regard to economic as well as societal factors (integration), and common cultural values in their "selective" relevance for the societal-economic interchange process (latency (or Pattern Maintenance)).
Each of these systemic processes will (within the scope of the cybernetic hierarchy) be regulated by what Talcott Parsons calls generalized symbolic media.
[5] Defenders of the AGIL scheme respond that there have indeed been situations where social systems, such as some industries, have failed to operate because they have neglected one or more of the four functions.
Hence, the AGIL scheme can be tested against political or economical systems in operation to see if they meet the criteria.
Critics argue that Parsons' theory is inexcusably static and lacks the flexibility to meet instances of social change.
Moreover, Parsons himself tried to develop a theory of world history, and to explain social change through his system, although his critics have suggested that this amounts to little more than window-dressing.