to this sociologist’s ear, conflating social networks, civic organizations, and social movements is confusing and imprecise. Some forms of human action are shaped by the structure of personal relationships. Others are shaped by affiliation with voluntary associations from which we derive identity and meaning. Both are important alternatives to hierarchy, but they work in different ways and so should be kept distinct.
The Square and the Tower probably will turn out to be an important book for its major claim that order requires hierarchy. But I am confirmed in my belief that Ferguson’s failure to commit to a precise definition of the term “network” detracts from the work.
Does he mention John Kotter’s work on the subject in the area of organizational design and corporate strategy?
“Hierarchy and Network: Two Structures, One Organization”
https://hbr.org/2011/05/two-structures-one-organizatio
“Accelerate!”
https://hbr.org/2012/11/accelerate
If order requires hierarchy, perhaps that means emergent orders are coincident with emergent hierarchies.
Define the order book, the list of products available.
The social network distributes information about products available, creating localized order books. Follow thy model and it leads to semantics of order books as the social networks and production networks become neatly isonormal. Isonormal means the panning tree representing one network is similar in shape to another.. We get truck driver talk, a separate grammar created the truck driver social network. But it closely matches the trade book, the stuff they carry around.