soc 101 final exam

August Comte (1798-1857)

He founded the foundations of modern sociology, deemed sociology a “social physics”, wanted soc to be an objective/”scientific” subject, and cut history into 3 distinct periods (THE LAW OF 3 STAGES)

the law of 3 stages

theological (authority is god/church), metaphysical (authority is philosophers), positive (scientists/researchers)

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

believed in D.L. and that the job becomes easier when you have it, it’s the key that unites us all together, and it creates social stability

he also created 2 forms of solidarity and the organismic analogy

Durkheim major stage 1: pre-industrial

People were connected through mechanical solidarity, believed it had 3 major aspects to it:

• Low division of labor

• High collective consciousness

• ruled on repressive laws

inter-connectedness was almost automatic, homogeneous, people were ruled by moral code

Durkheim major stage 2: industrial

Society is organized through organic solidarity, has 3 major aspects:

• High division of labor

• Low degree of collective consciousness

• Restituted laws

organismic analogy (Durkheim)

believed society was one giant living organism and just like our body has a natural hierarchy of importance (the brain), so do we as social beings

• Aka: we need to be okay with people getting paid more than us

• We’ve internalized that we’re inferior and need to conform to those with power

• Feeds into the stigma that some people are smarter than others

• Feeds into individualism and meritocracy

Max Weber (1864-1920)

believes division of labor in the modern era functions within a bureaucracy (4 forms), created 3 types of authority, and the iron cage

4 forms of bureaucracies (Weber)

all are rule bound (1), all are hierarchal (2), all are standardized (3), and rely on efficiency (4)

3 types of authority (Weber)

charismatic

• based on individual personality, leadership is short lived bc so are they

traditional

• Based on tradition and the way things used to be (divine right → kings, queens)

• People believe that things in the past are faultless

rational-legal

• Best form of supporting democracy because it’s based on rationality and it’s supported through the legal system

• Our society needs to be based on national rules to guide us

iron cage

Weber started to view bureaucracy as this because our society became disenchanted and lost its magic, bureaucracy only helps those on top bc it assumes they have the qualifications

Karl Marx

Coined the fact that when the enclosure movement happened, peasants owned nothing but their labor power, created the prereqs to capitalism, believed humans are naturally creative and we’re the only animals that produce what we consume, knew that scarcity is a myth bc we’re creative enough to replace whatever goes away

enclosure movement

legally kicked peasants off their land and led to the french revolution

what are the prereqs to capitalism? (Marx)

the enclosure movement and the rise in technology ALONG WITH:

• more workers than jobs available= capitalist has all the leverage

• division of labor = jobs are easier, workers are easier to replace

• Commodification of everything = removes blame from capitalists because you chose to commodify yourself and sell your labor

• Exploitation of labor = low wages so workers have to keep coming back every day

Bourgeoisie vs proletariat

the rich capitalists who own most of the work vs the working class who do the work

Division of labor (Marx)

When you divide up work, work becomes easier, when work becomes easier, more people can do it, if more people can do the work, there’s more competition, if there’s more competition for simple work, wages go down.

Wages

there needs to be more workers than jobs available for this to go down, this keeps workers coming back every day, based on subsistence pay

What’s deeply rooted and included in capital?

Power

Capitalism’s goal

To increase profit and decrease cost

Profit

A concept that will always overrule human concern, need, and safety

What is the reserved army of labor?

A term Marx uses to refer to people who are unemployed. Employers can hire from this → more people are then willing to take less pay to ensure a job.

Commodification

the transformation of people, labor, goods, etc into something that can be bought and sold

racism

the unequal power relationship that exists between white people and POC that is reflected, produced, and reproduced through every single major social institution

prejudice

negative attitude towards a group or person

discrimination

acting out one’s prejudice

institutional racism

racism that’s executed through policy and written into law

key points from reading: wage labor and capital- Karl Marx

• The worker produces wages for themself, not the actual material they’re making

• Cost of production of labor power: the cost required for maintaining the worker as a worker and of developing him into a worker

• Social relations and class systems are tied to production

• Capital consists of subsistence, labor, raw materials, and an exchange of values

• Increase of capital = increase of working class (they feed off each other and need each other)

• Growth of productive capital:  growth of the power of accumulated labor over living labor

as labor becomes more unsatisfying, ____ (Marx)

competition increases and wages decrease

key concepts from reading: white privilege and male privilege (Peggy McIntosh)

• similar to male privilege, white privilege is denied and protective to keep the interlocking hierarchies in place

• white people are conditioned to not notice their privilege and remain ignorant and defensive to it

• have entitlement to things they didn’t earn

• something that’s easily forgotten and looked past by the beholder

• author believes the word “privilege” holds too much connotation for being something others must want

key concepts from reading: Stanford news on racial disparities

• disparities in home ownership, health, wealth, employment for black and brown families

• earnings gap between POC and white people creates disparities

• “two Americas” = racial disparities that have remained unchanged, creating 2 Americas where groups of people experience different versions of life

• equalizing starting conditions: odds are stacked against POC the second they’re born. if starting conditions were equalized to their white counterparts, it might reduce some systemic struggle

Reading: Newman ch.10 & 11

• 4 historical types of social stratification: slavery, caste systems, estate, and social class

kay points from video: A Class Divided

Video: How racism makes us sick

information vs knowledge

something that is and something that does (changing the world)

when inequality becomes normalized, it’s understood as ____

common sense

what happens when we don’t question things?

they rarely get criticized and change rarely occurs

educare

nurturing someone to therefore pull them out of the darkness of ignorance