Theory Midterm

Requirements for Social Order

• Coordinated Action

• Cooperation

Requirements for Theory

• Statement on causal relations and causal mechanisms

Situational Mechanisms

• How macro-social phenomenon affect individuals and their internal states

Behavioural Mechanisms

• How behaviour/individual action is shaped by internal states caused by social phenomenon

• Depends on how people are motivated, differs by theorist

Transformational Mechanisms

• How individual actions produce group level phenomenon

• Reactions are informed by the reactions of others

Instrumental Rationality

• Determined by expected consequences for one’s behaviour and how others will respond

Value Rationality

• Belief in value of action for its own sake regardless of prospect of success

Affectual Rationality

• Determined by actor’s specific state of feeling

Traditional Rationality

• Determined by ingrained habituation

Meaningful Orientation

• Classification for all types of social action

• Personal subjective meaning is attached to all actions taking into account the behaviour of others

Goldilocks Theory of Capitalism

• Conditions in England after the plague were juuust right for capitalism to emerge

• Peasants were free from serfdom but landlords still had control

• Rent became competitive, a market emerged, and people have to innovate and specialize to fund their lives

• In France, Peasants won and did not have to specialize due to no market

• In Eastern Europe, Landlords won so peasants did not have to specialize due to serfdom

Agency View (Methodological Individualism of Weber)

• Social phenomena can be explained in terms of actions and motivations of individuals interacting with one another

• May be intentional (rational or irrational) or unintentional (socialized or innate)

• Ex. Inflation is the result of the individual action of all buyers and sellers shaping the larger economic structure

Structure View (Methodological Holism of Durkheim)

• Social phenomena exists in terms of operations of macro-social categories

• Individuals will do certain things in certain structural contexts but not other

• Ex. You will most likely live as a serf if you are born into serfdom

Gradational Approach to Inequality (Individualistic)

• Inequality is a ladder where people have more or less of something

Relational Approaches to Inequality (Structuralist)

• Inequality is the structure of social relations wherein the advantages of some come at the disadvantage of others

Monadic Attributes of Inequality (Achievement Model)

• Any property of a unit that’s magnitude can be defined without reference to other units

• Ex. Your weight is the number on the scale regardless of how heavy/light you are compared to others

Monadic Processes of Inequality (Achievement Model)

• The mechanisms causing the magnitude of a unit are generated autonomously

• Ex. Your genes and lifestyle habits impact your weight

Relational Processes of Inequality (Exploitation Model)

• The mechanisms determining the magnitude of an individual unit depend upon the mechanisms generating the magnitude of the same unit for other individuals

• Ex. Access to food, diet knowledge, access to exercise equipment, etc. contribute to weight differences

Conditions for Exploitation

• Inverse Interdependent Welfare Principle

• Exclusion Principle

• Appropriation Principle

Inverse Interdependent Welfare Principle

• The material welfare of exploiter depends on deprivation of exploited

Exclusion Principle

• Deprivation of exploited involves asymmetrical exclusion from access to productive resources

Appropriation Principle

• Those who control the productive resources appropriate the labour of the exploited

Irrational Behavioural Psychology

• Circumstances of poverty produce irrational behaviours that further commit to poverty

• Bandwidth: Impairment of cognition due to circumstances of poverty

Rational Adaptation

• Behaviour of impoverished is rational for them but not in general society

• Rejects Diminishing Marginal Utility (Idea that first dollar is most valuable)

• Metaphor of 100 bee stings vs 1 bee sting and working for a single dab of ointment

Social Stratification Approach to Inequality

• Individual attributes cause unequal material conditions

Opportunity Hoarding Approach to Inequality

• Unequal Social Positions are protected by social exclusion

• Advantage of some depends on exclusion of others

Economic Approach to Human Behaviour

• All human activity is made of rational choices to maximize benefits under constraints

• Assumes markets (not literal) coordinate actions of different participants to generate mutually consistent behaviour

• Preferences are stable predictors of responses to various changes

Rational Choice Theory

• Your action is optimal given your beliefs of how the world works

• Your beliefs are well supported given the evidence

• The evidence is a result of optimal investment in information gathering

• Theory is subjective and predictive

Failures of Rational Choice Theory

• Indeterminacy

• Irrationality

Game Theory

• Uses rational choice theory in cases of strategic interaction between individuals

• Tit-For-Tat is most effective method because it is kind, forgiving, clear, and predictable

Rational Ignorance

• Cases where the benefit of gaining sufficient information is outweighed by belief that the commitment to attaining said information is not worthwhile

• Ex. My single vote doesn’t matter enough to warrant the time it takes to become an informed voter

Tragedy of the Commons / Free Rider problems

• Situations where mutual cooperation benefits everyone but not as much as you would individually benefit to defect while others cooperate

• Mutual defection results in worst result for everyone

• Ex. Overfishing in a lake

Game Theoretic Definition of Power

• The will to impose free rider situations on others to your benefit

• Ex. Employer imposing an arms race on employees between going home on time or staying late for promotion

Threshold Models

• Snowball effect started by unconditional cooperators

• Ex. 5% will cooperate on their own, 10% need 5% to already cooperate to cooperate themselves, a further 10% need 15% to cooperate, and so on

• There is a point where too few cooperates will be worse off and a point where too many cooperates will be worse off

• Ex. Too few people signing up for war will certainly be killed but everyone signing up will cause all industries to collapse

General Solutions to Collective Action Problems

• Rational Selfish Actors over continued interactions

• Changes to payoff matrix

• Irrational Agents using wishful thinking

• Rational non-selfish agents using conditional altruism

Assurance Games

• Cooperation is great benefit to all

• Defections always leaves you worse off or equally as bad as cooperating

• Involves adding costs to defection and benefits to cooperation