The Role of Social Organizations in Society

All human beings are social being who mostly choose to live in groups. And just because individuals must interact and interrelate with others within a society they saw themselves, there must be a formal method which allow for the procreation of life, interaction, interrelation, making decisions, producing goods, creating meaning and purpose (religion, belief, language, traditions, customs and culture) and organizing people into an orderly society.

Many social organizations have been established within the society to deal with the universal problems of ordered social life.

Some examples:
· Families in their many different organizational forms provide for the needs of both adults and children.
· Educational organizations aid in the socialization process and in the transmission of culture from generation to generation.
· Political organizations meet the needs of people by making collective decisions.
· Economic organizations meet the material needs of individuals within society.
· Aesthetic and recreational organizations meet artistic and recreational needs of people.
· Religious organizations meet the spiritual needs of people.
· All of these organizations have as one of their major purposes the organization of people so that the objectives of society can be accomplished.

The Role of the Social Contract in Society.
People find it convenient and useful to live together. In order to do this, they form societies which become nations or states.

People cannot live together successfully unless there is some basic agreement about the fundamentals of life that can be relied on to give predictability and order.

The actuality of Interdependence
In the reality of daily living, a tension exists between the needs and wants of individuals, groups of individuals, and the needs and wants of the larger society.

Social Contract
Every social grouping has a set of understandings, often tacit, which everyone in the group subscribes to.

These understandings must, in some way, define for all members of the group how they can expect to be treated and how they are expected to treat others.
Freedom and order and equality and hierarchy are four important considerations which in some way are defined and distributed by these understandings.
There are various labels for these understandings and expectations: rules in games, manners in social situations, ethics in professional matters, and laws in relation to the state.

Reconciling Individuality with Interdependence
Individuals and the contributions they can make to society vary from person to person. Society also prizes certain kind of contributions more than it does other contributions.
Traditionally it has been the custom to reward people with different levels of power, privilege, and wealth.

Decision Making within Social Organizations
The ability to make decisions and carry them out is critical to the well being of individuals within society. Without this ability people often find that they their needs and concerns are disregarded often to their detriment. Consequently there has been a great deal of competition within society to control and use power.

The sources of power are the control of:
· resources such as land, money, property, etc;
· numbers of people who are prepared to agree and support you;
· an organization which will carry out your wishes; and
· Information which allows you to know or do things.