What we call an instinct
and what we call an institution
essentially designate procedures of satisfaction.
On the one hand, an organism reacts instinctively
to external stimuli, extracting from the
external world the elements
which will satisfy its tendencies and needs;
these elements comprise worlds
that are specific to different animals.
On the other hand, the subject institutes
an original world between its tendencies
and the external milieu,
developing artificial means
of satisfaction.
These artificial means liberate an organism
from nature though they subject it
to something else, transforming tendencies by
introducing them into a new milieu.
So money will liberate you from hunger,
provided you have money;
and marriage will spare you from
searching out a partner, though it subjects
you to other tasks.
[...]
The institution is always given as
an organized system of means.
It is here, moreover,
that we find the difference
between institution and law:
law is a limitation of actions,
institution a positive model for action.
[...]
Such a theory will afford us the following
political criteria: tyranny is a regime
in which there are many laws
and few institutions;
democracy is a regime
in which there are many institutions,
and few laws.
Oppression becomes apparent
when laws bear directly
on people, and not on
the prior institutions that protect them.
[..]
This is the paradox of society:
we are always talking about institutions,
but we are in fact confronted
by procedures of satisfaction.
and the tendencies satisfied by such
procedures neither trigger
nor determine the procedures.
[...]
What is more, if needs find in the institution
only a very indirect satisfaction,
an "oblique" satisfaction, it is not enough to say
"the institution is useful,"
one must still ask the question:
useful for whom?
For all those who have needs?
Or just for a few?
Or only for those who control
the institution (the bureaucracy)?
One of the most profound sociological problems
thus consists in seeking out
the nature of this other instance,
on which the social forms
of the satisfaction of tendencies depend.
The rituals of a civilization?
 
