SOCI 102

Final Exam Review

What is Marx Conception of class

What is Marx Conception of class

• capitalist system enforces people into one of two classes

  • bourgeois

  • proletarian

who are the bourgeois

section of class that own the means of production

who are the proletarian

• all working class

• work for the bourgeois

what is the Sub-class in terms of Marxists conceptions of class

• smaller class (petite bourgeois)

• small business owners

• not part of exploitative class

What is the fraction in terms of Marxists conceptions of class

• Sectors of the economy (financial vs extractive vs manufacturing)

• Different fractions of capitalist society exploiting labour, wanting to make money

• Can have competing interests

what is an example of competing interests in fractions

• landlords depending on governments not putting a cap on rent so as to be able to continue raising rents

• factories wanting rent to stay down to take pressure off needing to increase worker salaries

What broad trend does Marx’s view explain

smaller numbers of people getting richer and richer at the expense of more people enduring poverty

role of the state in capitalism

• state laws, institutions and policies represent interests of capital

• the state may advance policies objected to by some capitalists interests

  • government raising taxes to pay for infrastructures although capitalists/big business interests may object its for the greater good of capitalism

Marxist theory of Contradiction

• structural incompatibility of certain features or processes within capitalists society

  • factories having machines in place of manual labour

  • capitalism thrives off competitiveness

    • growing economic inequality and insecurity diminishing competitiveness

      • diminishes ability for consumers to uphold capitalist society

surplus value

• difference between total cost of producing a commodity and amount capitalists get for commodity

  • capitalists strive to maximize at expense of workers

competitiveness of capitalism

• consumers benefit the most when there’s more competition

  • lower prices

• capitalism becomes less competitive overtime due to inability to produce wealth

Sources of growing inequality and instability

• privatization

• growth of monopoly capitalism

• crisis of production

• Economic globalization

Privatization

• loss of ‘the commons’

• source of growing inequality and instability

growth of Monopoly capitalism

• source of growing inequality and instability

• established businesses can afford to produce things at lower costs, squeezing out competition

• rich get richer, poor get poorer

• long term tendency (small companies bought out by big businesses until they’re super corporations)

crisis of production

• source of growing inequality and instability

• overproduction'

• once everyone who can afford to buy something does, no one is buying anything

• continuous search for new markets

economic globalization

• source of growing inequality and instability

• looking elsewhere for labour

Global economy role in capitalism

• rise of transnational cooperations

  • walmart

  • CNN

  • nike

• can pressure the government to abide by their rules

  • threat to move Labour elsewhere if the government raises taxes

Three Types of Capital (Pierre Bourdieu)

• economic

• social

• cultural

  • expressed through habitus

economic capital

• material aspect immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in form of property rights

• stocks

• cash on hand

• investment properties

social capital

• people you know/are connected to

• advantageous connections

• how dense your social network is

cultural capital

• what you know

• how much what you know is valued in society

• familiarity with the legitimate culture within a society

what are Habitus

• the way you present yourself

  • habits of thoughts

  • internal resources

  • way you see the world based on past experience

  • how you react to different situations

• express the types of capital

• how we represent ourselves gives clues about ourselves and our backgrounds that can be picked up on

  • typically disadvantage people with less economic capital

Primary resource industry changing

• Canadas plentiful resources have begun to shrunk

  • forestry

  • fishing

  • mining

• Result of Canadas changing economy

Canadian manufacturing changing

• a lot less employment

  • can be done elsewhere for cheaper

  • people are being replaced by machinery

  • bringing in cheaper goods from elsewhere

• Result of Canadas changing economy

Canadian service industry changing

• polarization of work

• rise of information economy

• people getting less grunt work

• most service sector jobs replaced by beaurpcratic work

advantages of unions

• wage increase in traditionally low-paid jobs

• gains of unions spill into wider society

  • employment standards

  • unemployment insurance

  • health benefits

  • sick leave

measures of prosperity

• GDP

  • market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year

ethnicity

• the social distinctions and relations among individuals and groups based on cultural characteristics

race

perceived physical or genetic characteristics

ethnocentrism

• the tendency to judge the customs and behaviours of those belonging to other cultures from the perspective of ones own culture

• can be positive or negative (mostly negative)

racism

At an ideological level

• The belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities

• Belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

what do most sociologists argue about race

• ethnocentrism has likely always been part of the human experience

• racism appears modern

colonialism

• a practice of domination, involving the subjugation of one people to another

• led to a new social dichtomoy

  • ‘self’ and 'other’ ; ‘the West and the rest’

  • the ‘scientific’ classification of these ‘others’ reflected colonial power (externally imposed labels)

Modern colonial period

• roughly 1500-1900

• indigenous populations directly ruled, displaced, or exterminated

• justified ideologically ‘the white mans burden’

settlers colonies - colonialism

• a bunch of settlers moving into native land overwhelming and pushing out the native population

• those coming in believe arrogantly they could do what they want

dependencies - colonialism

• British coming and setting up a system of government

• allowing them to take over the economy and achieve British needs

  • india

plantation colonies

• slaves brought in to places where there was opportunity for slave labour

  • Jamaica

  • Haiti

manifestations of racism

• ideological racism

• official racism

• systemic racism

ideological racism

• may take ‘scientific’ or ‘religious’ forms

• marginalized today

official racism

• legalization of racial segregation

• denial of right to vote, hold jobs, get a education, busses you can be on, what restaurants you can attend

• ‘Jim Crow’ laws

systemic racism

• indirect/unofficial but persistent discrimination/inequality

• environmental racism is another form

Transition from sharecropping to slavery in Southern USA

• slavery officially outlawed in 1865 following civil war

• blacks hoped they would be granted parcels of land (didn’t happen)

• southern economy was ruined

• a deal was struck and former slaves were provided with equipment and seed by plantation owners

• blacks would give roughly 1/3 - 1/2 of crops they grew to owners

Performative Language

• expressions that count as actions in and of themsleves

  • difference between saying ‘i’ve been thinking about quitting’ and telling your boss ‘I quit’

• invokes a set of social expectations

• bind one to certain actions

• give others the right to hold them accountable

Johnson and ‘I love you’

• example of performative language

• the words have high cultural value

• play a key role in altering reality and a source of attention and trouble

• when used and reciprocated for the first time in a romantic relationship → expectations and understandings that connect individuals shift

Johnson and “why don’t people vote”

• the structure of the US political system is put together in a way to discourage people from registering or voting

  • by taking away potential for their vote to make a difference

    • Impossible for minority points of view to be represented in state or federal legislature unless minority voters can put together majority across entire district

Gerry mandering

• practice of an ecological factor resulting in low voter turnout

  • States divided into congressional districts

  • Every ten year state legislatures redraw district lines based on population counts from latest census

• Lines drawn to maximize number of districts where substantial majorities of voters favor the incumbent party

Johnson and “why is there poverty”

• poverty is both a structural aspect of the system and an ongoing consequence of how the system is organized and paths of least resistance that shape how people participate

how does capitalism promote poverty

• drive for profit generates poverty by placing high value on competition and efficiency

  • motivates companies to control costs (keep wages low, replace people with machines, replace full-time with part time)

  • economic system is organized in ways that encourage accumulation of wealth at one end and create conditions of scarcity that make poverty inevitable at the other

industrial capitalism

• Economic system we have producing and distributing wealth

• Allows a small amount of elite to control most of the capital (factories, machinery, tools) used to produce wealth

  • encourages accumulation of wealth and income by elite

  • leaves relatively small portion of total income and wealth top be divided among the rest

Johnson and “making mens violence invisible”

• observable pattern of ‘not seeing’ gender pattern repeated routinely

• dominant groups in our society control virtually every major social institution

• mens violence perceived as having nothing in common with one another or the male population

  • Instead of something arising from a system of male privilege

    • Violence is a path of least resistance for men to follow or support other men

issues with acknowledging the reality of male violence

• risk of confronting core principles of patriarchal worldview

• must face its connection to violence

• have to stop telling ourselves its nothing more than actions of a few evil individuals

Raelian phenomenon

Adherents believe in

• Extraterrestrial beings/visitations

• Alien contributions to human civilization

• intervention and/or salvation

Substantive definition of religion

• focus on some essential feature of religion

  • belief in spiritual beings

• some religions less concerned with dogma

Functional definition of religion

• Focus on functions of religions

  • a group attempt to struggle with ultimate problems

What is religion

• A social construction

  • Difficult concept to understand because there’s no exact definition

• Helps people understand their place in the world

• Helps people cope with fear of death or the meaning of life

Dimensions of Religion

• Belief

• Ritual

Belief - Dimensions of religion

• simple vs elaborate rites of passage

  • baptism

  • christening

  • first communion

  • bar mitzvah/batmitzvah

Ritual - Dimensions of religion

• Literal ritual

  • rain dance

  • animal sacrifice

• Symbolic ritual

  • Ramadan

• Experience

• Community

  • functional part

  • idea people want to share their belief

Classical Approaches of Religion and Sociology

• Human knowledge (Auguste Comte)

• Social control (Karl Marx)

• Social solidarity (Emile Durkheim)

• Social Change (Max Weber)

Human knowledge approach

• Auguste Comte

• Saw religion as slowly, gradually fading

• progressive stages of human knowledge

  • religious

  • metatphysical

  • scientific

• a scientific society and God could not co-exist

• A scientific society and religion could

• Saw God and religion as separate entities, and God’s ‘death’ should not lead to the death of religion

Social control approach

• Karl Marx

• religion is ‘the opium of the people’

• allows legitimation of elites right to rule

• distraction from real causes of suffering of the oppressed

• Believed that it was a tool of social control used to maintain an unequal status quo

  • should be abolished.

Social solidarity approach

• Emile Durkheim

• encourages unselfish behaviour needed by the group

• provides social cohesion and social control to maintain society in social solidarity

• Direct contact with collective consciousness and effervescence

• a stable society in the absence of religion is hard to imagine

Collective conscience

• our shared thinking

• our shared worldview

• shared point of reference

• religious institutions help develop this in a conscious way

Collective effervescence

• feeling people get in a religious ritual that there’s something bigger than you going on

  • transforming of maintaining you

• a shared experience

reification

• A cognitive occurrence in which something that doesn’t possess thing like characteristics in itself comes to be regarded as a thing

Social change approach

• Max Weber

• religion is a force for social change

  • religion gave rise to the spread of modern capitalism

• Humans have an inner compulsion to understand the world as meaningful and unified

  • reality of suffering interferes with this

Ethos

• The influence of certain religious ideas on the development of an economic spirit

  • promotes the idea time is money

    • inactive contemplation is valueless, or even directly reprehensible if it is at the expense of ones daily work

Religion in promoting the bourgeois

• with consciousness of standing in the fullness of God’s grace and being visibly blessed by him the bourgeois business man could follow his pecuniary interests as he would

  • feel that he was fulfilling his duty

• power of religious asceticism provided him with sober conscientious, and unusually industrious workmen

  • clung to their work as to a life purpose willed by god

Asceticism

• severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence

  • typically for religious reasons

• since asceticism undertook to remodel the world, material goods have gained an increasing and inexorable power over the lives of men

The polity

• State or system of government

Government

• Composition of officials at any given time

What exercises sovereignty over a territory including the Ministry of Health, education, labour, and military, are always there exercising power

• The state

What do social movements typically challenge?

• The government

  • not state

All the things we’re doing actively in society, not controlled by the government, expressing our will in a form that keeps society vibrant

Civil society

What are the three sectors of society

• Government

• Business

• Civil society

Social movements are collective challenges that

• Coordinate voluntary action of non-elite members of society

• Offer programs changing the distribution of social goods

• Create-counter ideologies

Can social movements become political parties

Yes

What do successful (radical) social movements typically produce

• Counter (reactionary) movements

  • Provoked when people are upset with something provoked in social order → redistribution of social goods

Example of a Social Good

• Clean air

• Clean water

• Right to vote

• Literacy

• Having schools that teach different curriculum

When do counter movements arise

• When a social movement may be seen as successful or gaining success

• When a social movements goals are seen as a threat to another group

• When allies are available to support the mobilization of a counter-movement

What are collective behaviour approaches to social movements

• Deprivation theory and social strain theory

• Resource mobilization theory

• Cultural approaches

What is deprivation theory

Social movements born when certain groups feel they are deprived of a specific good, service, or resource

• Not everyone experiencing deprivation can formulate a social movement

What are the branches of deprivation theory

• Absolute deprivation

  • The proponents of absolute deprivation treated these grievances of the affected group in isolation from that groups position in society

• Relative deprivation

  • Proponents of relative deprivation regarded a group to be in a disadvantage position vis-à-vis some other group in that society

Criticisms of deprivation theory

Fails to explain why in some cases deprivation fails to ignite the birth of a social movement

• For a social movement to be born, deprivation needs to be present along with other factors the deprivation theory overlooks

Structural strain theory (Neil Smelser 1963)

Any developing social movement needs six factors to grow

• Structural conduciveness

• Structural strain

• Growth and spread of generalized belief

• Precipitating factor

• Mobilization

• Response of authorities

Criticisms of structural strain theory

• Consensus and stability result partly from domination

• Social conflict is a normal feature of social life

Resource Mobilization Approach

• importance of availability of suitable resources in the birth of a social movement

  • When individuals in a society have certain grievances, they may be able to mobilize the necessary resources to do something to alleviate those grievances

• Resources

  • Money

  • Labour

  • Social status

  • Knowledge

  • Support of media and political elite

Criticisms of resource mobilization theory

 Strong  “materialist” orientation in that it gives primacy to the presence of appropriate resources (especially money) in explaining the birth of social movements

Culture in social movements

• They redefine identities

  • Change or reinforce a sense of community

• ‘New social movements mainly oriented to civil society

Framing theory

• Consider ways movements create and proselytize understandings of the world

  • How these meanings help from a sense of collective identity and common purpose

• Frame problems in certain ways to appeal to and relate to certain groups

Collective action frames

• Diagnostic frames

• Prognostic frames

• Motivational frames

What is a diagnostic frame

All about identifying the problem

• What is the problem

• How do understand the problem

• Who are the guilty agents

What is a prognostic frames

What are you doing about a problem

What is a motivational frames

How do you convince/motivate people to join a movement

Example of Importance of Frame Allignment

Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream speech”

• Diagnostic frame - blacks have yet to attain their full guaranteed rights in American society

• Prognostic frame: determined collective action can change the situation

• Motivational frame: “I have a dream” of a fair and just society in which everyone may prosper

The Nation of Islam (1930s onward)

Founders: Fard Muhammad; Elijah Muhammad

• Combined religious and ethnic nationalist ideology to re-instill a sense of black collective identity

The Nation of Islam Today

• No longer a highly visible/active social environment

• Now embraces orthodox Sunni Islam

• A distinct black Muslim identity (and institutions) remain intact

Political Process Theory

• Treats social movements as a type of political movement in that the origins of a social movement are traced to the availability of political opportunities

• Looks at social movements in question to that of the state– or the power of government in charge

Criticisms of political process theory

• Focuses too much on political circumstances

• Ignores cultural factors that might be strong enough to mitigate the effect of the political factors

What is the emphasis of the political opportunities approach

• The openness of the state

• The stability among elites

• Support within the elite for a particular movement

• The level of state repression