Sociology 460 Athabasca University

Sweatshop

A workplace characterized by low wages, lack of benefits, long hours, and poor working conditions.

Gig Economy

An economy characterized by part-time, low paid, temporary positions.

Class Struggle

The struggle between capitalist and worker

The Communist Manifesto

A document discussing class struggle

Proletariat

Marx's term for the working classes. People who work so that capitalists can accumulate.

Social Class

A division of people based on their relationship to accumulation.

Mechanical-Turk

An Amazon marketplace enabling businesses to crowdsource their exploitation.

Bourgeoisie

The "accumulating" class

Micro tasking

Small tasks. Made possible by the internet technologies

Logic of Accumulation

The basic logic of class-based society.

The Family

Capitalists/Royalty/Patricians- anybody devoted to the accumulation of cash

WWIII

According to Dr. S., ___ is being waged in cyberspace using advanced communication technologies

Field of Documentation

The sum total of the documentary record kept about you. Includes your school transcripts, criminal record, and any data gathered online

Karl Marx

Wrote the Communist Manifesto. Spoke of a class struggle

Panopticon

An ideal prison designed by Jeremy Bentham

Observe, judge, and evaluate

The basis of power in the modern system of panoptic behavioural control

Mercer Family

A mega rich family trying to influence global politics using panoptic surveillance technolgoy

Mortality rate

The number of deaths in a population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of deaths per 1,000 individuals per year.

Advanced Panoptic Technology

"Social media" platforms like Twitter and Facebook that provide for "total observation"

Overmind

Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction like characterization of God.

Overlords

A race of beings tasked with overseeing the "Overmind's" plan

Transcendance

In the novel "Childhood's End," a loosely defined state of existence "beyond" physical reality in some way.

Boundaryless exploitation

Exploitation without reprieve

Microwork

The smallest unit of work in a virtual, global assembly.

The Ideology of the Alpha

The notion that nature is organized into "alphas" and "betas," in a natural system where alphas are dominant, aggressive, and have that "killer instinct," and betas are naturally submissive and compliant.

Regime of Accumulation

The prevailing organisation of production, including how income is distributed, how consumption is arranged

Propertied Class

Those who enjoy "concentrated ownership of corporate stock."

Global Network Society

The global society linked together by computer networks.

Globalisation

The growing interdependence and interpenetration of human relations alongside the
increasing integration of the world's economies

Independent Television

Television independent of corporate revenues.

Knowledge Society

A society in which information and information exchange occupy a central role in production, distribution, and accumulation

Jobless Growth

Increasing productivity (how many things can be produced) without also increasing the number of jobs needed to produce it

International Division of Labour

A division of tasks between countries in the production of goods

Laissez-Faire

Idea that government should play as small a role as possible in economic affairs.

Performativity

When something (like information) is produced only because it has practical utility

Post-traditional society

Giddens - a society in which everything is questionable.

Information Imperialism

When a societies information emanate (movies, news, cultural productions, etc.) from a dominant and overbearing center.

Information Stratification

The fact that people have unequal access to information

Transnational Corporation

A corporation reaching beyond or transcending national boundaries

Wage flexibility

The ability of real wages to change in response to changes in demand for and supply of labour, rather than against union or national rates

Mode of Regulation

Norms, habits, laws, control networks that ensure Capitalist Accumulation

Information Rich

Those with access to information and information resources

Labour Flexibility

Moving jobs as required by the productive systems in society

Post-fordism

A "flexible" system of production characterized by labour flexibility, wage flexibility, flexibility of production, and flexibility of consumption

High-tech sweatshop

A pejorative term for a workplace characterized by low wages, lack of benefits, long hours, poor working conditions, and the use of high-technology, like computers, etc.

Amazon Turk

An exploitative Micro-tasking platform. An online, virtual sweatshop

Hidden Curriculum

The social-class socialization of modern schools

Millenarianism

The expectation that the end of the world is near and that a new earthly paradise is at hand.

The New Man

According to the "Religion of Technology, an engineer--someone capable of realizing technological utopia

Mechanical Arts

A Medieval term used to describe technical arts and crafts designed to provide technological control over the environment.

The New Adam

According to David Noble, the engineer capable of exerting technological control over the environment.

Freemasons

Advocates of the "useful arts," and strident supporters of the perfectionist project of the religion of technology

Religion of technology

The belief that technology is the root cause and source of humanity's salvation

Masculine Millennium

A world without women. A primordial patriarchal paradise rooted in a sexist conceptualization of technology, and male domination and control.

The Great Instauration

A misogynist book by Francis Bacon subtitled "The Great Restoration of the Power of Man over the Universe."

Technological Priesthood

A group of (usually) men who cheerlead for technology, using patriarchy and religious thinking to supports its proliferation

Technological Heretics

A group of who doesn't share the uncritical optimism of the technological priesthood--critics of the impact of technology of children, women, the underprivileged, etc.