Sociological Theory Midterm

Marx — What is capitalism?

A system where productive property is privately owned, most people sell their labor for wages, and production is organized for profit. Marx focuses on the unequal relationship between those who own the means of production and those who must work for them.

Marx — What does it mean to call capitalism a contradiction?

Capitalism contains built-in tensions: owners benefit from lowering labor costs while workers benefit from higher wages; production is collective but profit is privately controlled; businesses need consumers to buy goods while also trying to minimize wages.

Marx — Wage labor

Workers sell their labor power to an employer for wages but usually do not own the workplace, product, or profit. APPLICATION CLUE: someone depends on selling their labor to survive.

Marx — How does Marx define social class?

Mainly by relationship to the means of production, not simply by income. Ask: Does this person own productive property, or must they sell their labor?

Marx — Bourgeoisie vs. proletariat

Bourgeoisie = owners of the means of production. Proletariat = workers who must sell their labor for wages.

Marx — Alienation

Workers become separated from control and meaning in their work. They may be alienated from the product, the work process, other workers, and their own creative human potential.

APPLY MARX — A call-center worker must follow a script and is timed on every call. What concept?

Alienation from the labor process. The worker has little control over how the work is performed; management organizes the process for efficiency and profit.

Marx — False consciousness

When people misunderstand their class interests or accept ideas that obscure structural class relationships. Example: treating low wages entirely as an individual failure while ignoring the organization of labor and ownership.

Marx — Class consciousness

Awareness that members of a class share common interests and a common relationship to the economic system. Example: workers recognize shared wage problems and organize collectively.

Marx — Exploitation

Workers produce more value than they receive back in wages; owners can claim the surplus because they own the means of production. It is structural and does not require an employer to be personally cruel.

Marx — Class conflict

Conflict arising because owners and workers have competing material interests. Owners generally seek lower labor costs and greater control; workers seek higher wages, security, safer conditions, and more control.

APPLY MARX — A company posts record profits and then lays off workers to raise shareholder returns. How would Marx analyze it?

As a contradiction and class conflict within capitalism: workers create value, but ownership gives capital control over profit and employment decisions. Profit incentives can conflict with workers’ security.

Marx — Original works to recognize

The Communist Manifesto (with Engels): class struggle and capitalism. Capital/Das Kapital: capitalism, labor, commodities, exploitation. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844: alienation.

Durkheim — What is a social fact?

A socially created way of acting, thinking, or feeling that exists outside the individual and exercises social pressure or constraint. Examples: laws, money, language, grading systems, norms.

APPLY DURKHEIM — College deadlines existed before you enrolled and carry consequences if ignored. What concept?

Social fact. The deadline system is external to the individual and constrains behavior.

Durkheim — Collective consciousness

Shared beliefs, values, and moral understandings that help bind members of society together.

Durkheim — Social solidarity

The social bonds that connect people to one another and to society. Durkheim distinguishes mechanical and organic solidarity.

Durkheim — Mechanical solidarity

Cohesion based on similarity: people share similar work, beliefs, customs, and lifestyles. More characteristic of smaller, less specialized societies.

Durkheim — Organic solidarity

Cohesion based on specialization and interdependence. People do different jobs but depend on one another, as in a hospital or modern economy.

MECHANICAL vs. ORGANIC solidarity

Mechanical = similarity holds people together. Organic = differences and division of labor make people interdependent.

Durkheim — Anomie

A social condition of weakened, unclear, or disrupted norms, often during rapid social change. It is not simply loneliness; it is insufficient or unstable social regulation.

APPLY DURKHEIM — New technology changes dating and communication so quickly that people no longer agree on basic etiquette. What concept?

Anomie. Social change has moved faster than stable norms can develop, weakening regulation and leaving expectations unclear.

Weber — Verstehen

Interpretive understanding of social action from the actor’s point of view. Ask what the behavior means to the person doing it, not merely what the behavior looks like.

APPLY WEBER — Two students skip class: one is bored, one must work to pay rent. Why does Verstehen matter?

The observable behavior is identical, but its subjective meaning is different. Weber argues that sociological explanation must interpret the meaning motivating social action.

Weber — Stratification: class, status, party

Class = economic or market position. Status = social honor or prestige. Party = organized power used to influence decisions or achieve goals.

APPLY WEBER — A famous activist has modest income but enormous prestige and political influence. What does this show?

Class, status, and party do not have to align. The person may have modest class position but high status and significant organized power.

Weber — Traditional authority

Legitimate power based on custom and long-standing tradition. People obey because 'this is how it has always been done.' Example: hereditary monarchy.

Weber — Charismatic authority

Legitimate power based on devotion to a leader believed to possess extraordinary qualities. It depends heavily on personal loyalty and can be unstable.

Weber — Legal-rational authority

Legitimate power based on formal rules, laws, offices, and procedures. People obey the authorized role, not necessarily the individual personality.

APPLY WEBER — You follow a university official’s decision because their office is authorized by formal rules. What authority?

Legal-rational authority. Legitimacy comes from the office and institutional procedures.

Weber — Rationalization

The increasing organization of social life around efficiency, calculation, predictability, standardization, rules, measurement, and control.

APPLY WEBER — A restaurant uses timers, scripts, portion measurements, performance dashboards, and algorithmic scheduling. What concept?

Rationalization. Human activity is increasingly organized through efficiency, measurement, predictability, and control.

Simmel — Big idea

Society is continually created through social interaction. Simmel looks for recurring forms or patterns of interaction that appear across very different situations.

Simmel — Content vs. form

Content = the motive, interest, goal, or emotion bringing people together. Form = the recurring pattern the interaction takes, such as competition, exchange, conflict, cooperation, or domination.

APPLY SIMMEL — Students compete for scholarships and companies compete for customers. What is the shared form?

Competition. The content differs—education versus profit—but the social form is the same.

Simmel — Social types

Recognizable social positions produced through relationships with others, not merely personality types. A social type exists because of how someone is positioned within interaction.

Simmel — The stranger

A social type who is simultaneously near and distant: part of the group but not fully rooted in it. This partial distance can make the stranger seem objective or invite disclosure.

APPLY SIMMEL — A new employee belongs to the team but is asked for an outsider’s perspective. What concept?

The stranger. The employee is socially near enough to participate but distant enough to be viewed as comparatively objective.

Mead / Symbolic interactionism — Big idea

People act based on meanings, and those meanings develop through social interaction. Focus on symbols, interpretation, identity, role-taking, and feedback.

Mead — The I

The spontaneous, creative, unpredictable response of the individual to a social situation.

Mead — The Me

The socialized part of the self containing internalized expectations, norms, and imagined reactions of others.

Mead — Generalized other

The broader attitudes and expectations of the community or society that a person learns to take into account.

APPLY MEAD — A teen wants to post a weird funny video but worries friends will judge it. Identify I and Me.

I = the spontaneous desire to post it. Me = awareness of friends’ expectations and possible judgment. The self emerges through interaction between both.

APPLY SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM — Why can a 'like' on social media matter?

A like is a symbol. It has no inherent social value, but people learn to interpret it as approval, attention, popularity, or status through shared meanings.

Structural functionalism — Big idea

Society is an interconnected system of structures and institutions. Ask how each part contributes to social order, stability, or dysfunction.

Structural functionalism — Social structure vs. social institution

Social structure = relatively stable pattern of social relationships or arrangements. Social institution = organized system addressing recurring social needs, such as family, education, government, economy, religion, or healthcare.

Functionalism — Function vs. dysfunction

Function = consequence that contributes to operation or stability of a social system. Dysfunction = consequence that disrupts or harms system functioning.

Merton — Manifest vs. latent functions

Manifest function = intended and recognized consequence. Latent function = unintended or less obvious consequence.

APPLY MERTON — College teaches course content but also creates friendships and dating networks. Identify functions.

Education/credentialing = manifest function. Friendships, dating networks, and professional connections = latent functions.

Structural functionalism — Key figures

Herbert Spencer: organic analogy. Durkheim: solidarity and social integration. Talcott Parsons: social systems and roles. Robert Merton: manifest/latent functions, dysfunctions, middle-range theory, structural strain.

Parsons — Sick role

Illness is also a social role. The sick person may be temporarily excused from normal duties and not blamed for illness, but is expected to want to improve and seek/cooperate with competent care.

CRITIQUE — What is a limitation of Parsons’ sick role?

It fits short-term acute illness better than many chronic illnesses, disabilities, or stigmatized conditions, where 'getting well' may not be possible or blame may still occur.

Merton — Structural strain theory

Deviance can emerge when society strongly promotes cultural goals but access to legitimate institutional means is unequal. Classic example: the American Dream plus unequal opportunity.

Merton — Conformity

Accept culturally valued goals AND legitimate means. Example: pursue financial success through education and legal employment.

Merton — Innovation

Accept cultural goals but reject/bypass legitimate means. Example: pursue wealth through fraud because conventional opportunities seem blocked.

Merton — Ritualism

Reduce or abandon commitment to the cultural goal but continue following legitimate rules and routines.

Merton — Retreatism

Reject both conventional cultural goals and legitimate means; withdraw from both.

Merton — Rebellion

Reject existing goals and means and seek to replace them with new goals and a new system.

Durkheim anomie vs. Merton strain

Durkheim: anomie is weakened/unclear norms and insufficient regulation, often during rapid change. Merton: strain comes from a mismatch between culturally promoted goals and unequal access to legitimate means.

Marx vs. Weber on inequality

Marx centers class around relationship to the means of production and conflict between owners and workers. Weber sees inequality as multidimensional: class, status, and party can vary independently.

Marx vs. Durkheim

Marx emphasizes conflict, exploitation, ownership, and competing class interests. Durkheim emphasizes integration, regulation, solidarity, and the forces that maintain social order.

Mead vs. Simmel

Both analyze interaction. Mead focuses on socially created meanings and development of the self. Simmel focuses on recurring forms or patterns of interaction across different kinds of content.

APPLICATION — Structural functionalism and inequality

Ask both functions and dysfunctions. Possible functions: role allocation or incentives. Possible dysfunctions: wasted talent, unequal opportunity, distrust, instability. Do NOT simply say functionalists think inequality is 'good.'

APPLICATION — Symbolic interactionism and social media

Analyze symbols such as likes, emojis, follower counts, and profile photos; meanings attached to them; I vs. Me; role-taking; generalized other; and how feedback shapes identity and behavior.

APPLICATION — Marx and gig work

Ask who owns the platform, who controls prices and conditions, who performs labor, who receives profit, whether workers are alienated, and where class interests conflict.

APPLICATION — Same scenario, different theory: AI attendance system at college — Weber

Rationalization: attendance becomes measured, standardized, predicted, and managed through bureaucratic technology and rules.

APPLICATION — Same scenario, different theory: AI attendance system at college — Mead

Attendance scores become symbols; students imagine how the institution interprets their behavior and adjust themselves according to the institutional 'Me.'

APPLICATION — Same scenario, different theory: AI attendance system at college — Functionalism

Manifest function: identify struggling students. Latent functions: increased surveillance or conformity. Dysfunctions: false flags, distrust, or unequal effects on working/caregiving students.

ESSAY RULE — What turns a term into an application answer?

Do not stop at naming the concept. Use: OBSERVATION → CONCEPT → WHY IT FITS → WHAT THE THEORY REVEALS ABOUT SOCIETY.