anso 2

Social Fact

Manners of acting, thinking, and feeling that exist outside the individual and are invested with coercive power. They shape and control human behavior without us always realizing it. (Example: giving gifts at Christmas 🎁)

Social Cohesion

The glue that holds societies together. How societies stay connected, stable, and unified

Common Consciousness

The shared beliefs, ideas, and social facts that exist within a society. It’s the collective story that binds people together

Social Integration

How connected people feel to their society. A sense of belonging, of being part of something larger

Social Dysfunction

When something goes wrong in the social system. For example, when tradition breaks down and common consciousness weakens, people can feel lost and disconnected

Labor

For Marx, what makes us human. The way we change nature to meet our needs by working together

social constraint

labor when it’s organized unequally

Historical Materialism

The idea that material conditions (how resources, tools, and labor are organized) are the foundation of society. History moves through changes in this material base

economy

how labor and resources are organized

Superstructure

everything built on top material world: politics, culture, religion, family, laws,

Mode of Production

The way a society organizes labor and resources at a given time. Defined by forces of production + relations of production

Forces of Production

The technical, scientific, and material parts of the economy. Tools, technology, factories, land, resources, human labor, and social technologies like the assembly line and mass production

Relations of Production

The social relationships around labor. Who owns what? Who works for whom? Do people work for wages or produce for themselves? This defines class positions.

Means of Production

The materials and tools you need to labor and produce goods. Factories, machines, land, resources, technology.

Capitalist Class

The class that owns the means of production. They control factories, resources, and the labor of others.

Working Class

The class that does not own the means of production. They own only their labor, which they must sell for wages to survive.

Exploitation

Marx’s view, the gap between what workers produce and what they are paid. The capitalist keeps the difference as profit

Crisis of Overproduction

A contradiction in capitalism. Production becomes so developed that workers (who are also consumers) can’t afford to buy what’s being made, because wages are kept low. This creates economic instability

Revolution

The intense class conflict that Marx believed would eventually overthrow the current relations of production and lead to a new, more just mode of production

Hegemonic Culture

A dominant set of ideas that are persuasive, taken for granted, and spread throughout society. It makes the ruling class’s interests seem natural and inevitable, keeping people from questioning the system.

Conflict Theory

The paradigm (founded by Marx) that sees power as the driver of social change. Society is shaped by conflict between groups competing for resources, and that conflict can lead to transformation.