Boundaries of Order (Butler Shaffer)
- Highlight Loc. 239-44 | Added on Monday, December 12, 2011, 02:38 AM
It is common to organize with one another for social, business, religious, recreational, or other purposes. From bowling leagues to book clubs to various hobby groups, we form associations with one another that function as tools through which we accomplish shared interests. Such organizations are extensions of our individual purposes, subject to our control. A business partnership, for instance, is a vehicle allowing us to engage in a productive division of labor for profitable ends. But as the organization becomes increasingly successful, there is a tendency to preserve its effectiveness through the creation of hierarchical structures and formal rules of conduct. When the preservation of the organization becomes more important than the informal and spontaneous practices that created it, an institution has been born.
