The extremely high interdependencies of modern society, however, can no longer be neutralized in this way – either in strata-specific contact systems of face-to-face interactions, or, in particular, on the level of status and roles. Thus it has become possible to reject stratification as a principle also in ideological terms. The question of functional equivalences remains unsolved in that the problem cannot be simply superseded by lessening the need for integration in modern society. This question remains open as far as our special problem of non-politicizable power is concerned. It would appear that at present two main possible solutions compete with one another. Both gain increasing significance with the reduced importance of social stratification in bourgeois society and both already clearly show symptoms of overloading – namely 'juridification' and 'democratization'.

DEFINE: Clarifies juridification and democratization as competing functional equivalents to stratification in modern society.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 772