Abstract
How does intensified morphogenesis affect our ability to interpret codified rules? This paper examines the effects of social and systemic integration on the interpretation of codified rules in morphogenic times. When mophogenesis predominates, we witness both a fragmentation of deep social integration and an extension of minimal social integration over large geographical and social spaces. The result is a social configuration that both facilitates broad consensus on simple issues involving widely shared norms and that complexifies consensus on issues involving less widely shared norms.
Examination of systemic integration’s effects reveals novel forms of inequality in Late Modernity. Actors with access to competent advice, and the capacity to adapt their practices and identity, benefit from intensified morphogenesis as they can make the best use of existing codified rules and can adapt swiftly to rule changes. However, the majority of less privileged agents are burdened by the multiplication and substitution of codified rules. They face situations of illegitimacy and suffer from more flexible agents’ competitive advantage. The phenomenon of unprecedented tax evasion is used to illustrate this argument.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
For a reflection on the effects of morphogenesis on normativity in Late Modern societies, see also the contribution of Al-Amoudi (2014) to the second volume of the Social Morphogenesis series.
- 3.
- 4.
See for instance King (1999) who interprets Archer’s framework as entailing a backdoor reification of social structure that ‘consciously insists on the autonomy of the people and the parts, at certain moments in the social process’ (King 1999: 201). Against King, my approach in this chapter assumes that structure, culture and agency depend on one another at every moment.
- 5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law (checked 22 Apr 2015).
- 6.
“Editor defends Mirror over Diana letters”. BBC News. 31 August 2000. Retrieved 29 Apr 2015.
- 7.
This is not a logical implication strictu sensu as it relies on a metaphysical assumption about the nature of time, i.e. that efficient causes are chronologically posterior to material causes and anterior or concomitant to the effects they produce.
- 8.
In a strict sense, the administrative authorities are also social (corporate) agents. The codified rules they produce may or may not apply to themselves.
- 9.
See for instance the Competitiveness of the UK Tax Administration Review. Accessible on https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/competitiveness-of-uk-tax-administration-review (checked 29 Apr 2015).
- 10.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/06rastg12overvw.pdf (checked 29 Apr 2015).
- 11.
Last accessed on 29 Apr 2015.
- 12.
In the words of the Public Accounts Committee:
HMRC is not able to defend the public interest effectively when its resources are more limited than those enjoyed by the big four firms. The four firms employ almost 9000 people as part of their UK tax practice. For instance HMRC has 65 transfer pricing specialists whereas the big four firms alone have around 250. In our report on tackling marketed avoidance schemes we found that HMRC does not know what level of resource it commits to tackling tax avoidance. Government must ensure that HMRC is properly resourced to challenge the advice given by the four firms and others to companies and individuals seeking to aggressively avoid tax (House of Commons 2013, p.6).
- 13.
So considerable are the internal resources of multinational corporate clients that, in the words of one of the senior auditors.
‘Q232 Ian Swales: Would you personally accompany the client to discussions at HMRC at that point? Is that a thing a tax partner would do?
Jane McCormick: If my client asked me to, but actually, most of my clients do not. They are big organisations and do not feel they need an adviser if they have to talk to HMRC’ (House of Commons 2013, p.44).
- 14.
As the House of Commons’ Committee of Public Accounts’ report puts it.
‘we have seen what look like cases of poacher, turned gamekeeper, turned poacher again, whereby individuals who advise government go back to their firms and advise their clients on how they can use those laws to reduce the amount of tax they pay’ (House of Commons 2013: 4).
- 15.
At one moment, the House of Commons’ Panel’s chair even exclaims:
Q225 Chair: I think you are a bunch of really clever people. You are clever, well remunerated and very experienced, I have no doubt of that. What depresses me is that you could contribute so much to society and the public good and you all choose to focus on an area that reduces the resources available for us to build schools, hospitals and transport infrastructure. You choose that, and I do not get it. I do not know why you do it (House of Commons 2013, Ev. 23).
References
Al-Amoudi, I. (2010). Immanent non‐algorithmic rules: An ontological study of social rules. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 40(3), 289–313.
Al-Amoudi, I. (2014). Morphogenesis and normativity: Problems the former creates for the latter. In M. S. Archer (Ed.), Late modernity: Trajectories towards morphogenic society. Cham, New York: Springer.
Al-Amoudi, I., & Latsis, J. (2015). Death contested: Morphonecrosis and conflicts of interpretation. In M. S. Archer (Ed.), Generative mechanisms transforming late modernity. New York: Springer.
Alexander, D., & Jermakowicz, E. (2006). A true and fair view of the principles/rules debate. Abacus, 42(2), 132–164.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 619–644.
Archer, M. S. (1985). The myth of cultural integration. The British Journal of Sociology, 36(3), 333–353.
Archer, M. S. (1995). Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. (2012). The reflexive imperative in late modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. (2014). The generative mechanism reconfiguring late modernity. In M. S. Archer (Ed.), Late modernity: Trajectories towards morphogenic society. Cham, New York: Springer.
Archer, M. S. (2016). A normative social regulation: the attempt to cope with social morphogenesis. In M. S. Archer (Ed.), Normativity and the crisis of social morphogenesis. New York: Springer.
Boltanski, L., & Thévenot, L. (2006). On justification: Economies of worth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Braithwaite, J. (2002). Rules and principles: A theory of legal certainty. Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, 27, 47–82.
Dean, M. (2010). Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London: Sage.
Durkheim, E. (1892/1953). Montesquieu et Rousseau, précurseurs de la sociologie. Note introductive de Georges Davy. Paris: M. Rivière.
Ewing, S. (1987). Formal justice and the spirit of capitalism: Max Weber’s sociology of law. Law and Society Review, 21(3), 487–512.
Fleming, P. (2009). Authenticity and the cultural politics of work. New forms of informal control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fleming, P., & Sturdy, A. (2009). “Just be yourself!”: Towards neo-normative control in organisations? Employee Relations, 31(6), 569–583.
Fleming, P., & Sturdy, A. (2011). Being yourself in the electronic sweatshop: New forms of normative control. Human Relations, 64, 177–200.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Random House LLC.
Henry, J. S. (2012). The price of offshore revisited. Document prepared for the Tax Justice Network.http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf. Last accessed 29 Apr 2015.
House of Commons. (2013). Tax avoidance: The role of large accountancy firms. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/870/87002.htm. Accessed 29 Apr 2015.
King, A. (1999). Against structure: A critique of morphogenetic social theory. The Sociological Review, 47(2), 199–227.
Kripke, S. A. (1982). Wittgenstein on rules and private language: An elementary exposition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kunda, G. (1992). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation. Philadlephia: Temple University Press.
Kusch, M. (2006). A sceptical guide to meaning and rules: Defending Kripke’s Wittgenstein. Chesham: Acumen.
Lockwood, D. (1964). Social integration and system integration. In G. K. Zollschan & W. Hirsch (Eds.), Explorations in social change (pp. 244–258). London: Routledge & Paul Kegan.
Mead, G. H. (1967). Mind, self and society from the standpoint of a social behaviourist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Montesquieu. (1748). De l’esprit des lois. Available on http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/montesquieu/de_esprit_des_lois/de_esprit_des_lois_tdm.html (checked 29 Apr 2015).
Morgan, J. (2011). Ethos and reform of the finance systems, a tentative argument. Real-World Economic Review, 58, 89–94.
Norton, S. D. (2012). Judicial interpretation of the will of the state: A Hegelian perspective in the context of taxation. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 23(2), 117–133.
Porpora, D. V. (1993). Cultural rules and material relations. Sociological Theory, 11(2), 212–229.
Porpora, D. V. (2001). Landscapes of the soul: The loss of moral meaning in American life. New York: Oxford University Press.
Porpora, D. V. (2015). Why don’t things change? The matter of morphostasis. In M. S. Archer (Ed.), Generative mechanisms transforming the social order. New York: Springer.
Prakash, G. (1999). Another reason: Science and the modern imagination of India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rawls, J. (2001). Justice as fairness, a restatement. Cambridge, MA/London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Sikka, P., & Willmott, H. (1995). Illuminating the state-profession relationship: Accountants acting as department of trade and industry’s investigators. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 6(4), 341–369.
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Al-Amoudi, I. (2016). In Letter and in Spirit: Social Morphogenesis and the Interpretation of Codified Social Rules. In: Archer, M. (eds) Morphogenesis and the Crisis of Normativity . Social Morphogenesis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28439-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28439-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28438-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28439-2
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)