Mass action in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

refers to the situations where numerous people behave simultaneously in a similar way but individually and without coordination. For example, at any given moment, many thousands of people are shopping - without any coordination between themselves, they are nonetheless performing the same mass action. Another, more complicated example would be one based on a work of 19th-century German sociologist

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas prof ...

, ''

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ''The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'' (german: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus) is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original ...

'': Weber wrote that

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...

evolved when the

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

ethic influenced large number of people to create their own

enterprise Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterpri ...

s and engage in

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exch ...

and gathering of

wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an ...

. In other words, the Protestant ethic was a force behind an unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that led to the development of capitalism. A

bank run A bank run or run on the bank occurs when many clients withdraw their money from a bank, because they believe the bank may cease to function in the near future. In other words, it is when, in a fractional-reserve banking system (where banks no ...

is mass action with sweeping implications. Upon hearing news of a bank's anticipated insolvency, many bank depositors may simultaneously rush down to a bank branch to withdraw their deposits. More developed forms of mass actions are

group behavior Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (''intra''group dynamics), or between social groups ( ''inter''group dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision ...

and

group action In mathematics, a group action on a space is a group homomorphism of a given group into the group of transformations of the space. Similarly, a group action on a mathematical structure is a group homomorphism of a group into the automorphism ...

Epidemiology meaning

In epidemiological (disease) models, assuming the "law of mass action" means assuming that individuals are homogeneously mixed and every individual is about as likely to interact with every other individual. This is a common assumption in models such as the SIR model.

Popular culture

This idea serves as the main plot theme in author

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (1 ...

's work, ''

Foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

''. In the early books of the series, the main character,

Hari Seldon Hari Seldon is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series. In his capacity as mathematics professor at Streeling University on the planet Trantor, Seldon develops psychohistory, an algorithmic science that allows him to predic ...

, uses the principal of mass action to foresee the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. (In later books the principle is augmented with more recent developments in mathematical sociology.) With this, he hopes to reduce that dark age to only one thousand years, ostensibly by creating an

Encyclopedia Galactica The ''Encyclopedia Galactica'' is the name of a number of fictional or hypothetical encyclopedias containing all the knowledge accumulated by a galaxy-spanning (Type III in Kardashev scale) civilization. The name evokes the exhaustive aspects of ...

to retain all current knowledge.

Epidemiology meaning

Popular culture

See also

Footnotes

Further reading