Final Exam Concepts Flashcards
enfranchisement policy
Enfranchisement is a legal process for terminating a person’s Indian status and conferring full Canadian citizenship. Enfranchisement was a key feature of the Canadian federal government’s assimilation policies regarding Aboriginal peoples. Voluntary enfranchisement was introduced in the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and was based on the assumption that Aboriginal people would be willing to surrender their legal and ancestral identities for the “privilege” of gaining full Canadian citizenship and assimilating into Canadian society. Individuals or entire bands could enfranchise. In the case where a man with a family enfranchised, his wife and children would automatically be enfranchised. However, very few Aboriginal people or groups were willing to abandon their cultural and legal identities, as anticipated by the colonial authorities. Enfranchisement would become legally compulsory with the Indian Act of 1876, which stood until 1961. Over time, Aboriginal people have been enfranchised for serving in the Canadian armed forces, gaining a university education, for leaving reserves for long periods – for instance, for employment – and, for Aboriginal women, if they married non-Indian men or if their Indian husbands died or abandoned them.4
occupational (vertical and horizontal) gender segregation
Refers to the concentration of women in specific occupations. Vertical refers to women being stuck in jobs that are lower paying or lower class and Horizontal refers to women being concentrated in jobs of a certain nature such as nursing
monopoly and oligopoly
Monopoly: Complete ownership over an industry such as the Irving families ownership over all significant private mass media outlets in New Brunswick.
Oligopoly: The domination of a market by four or fewer firms
These types of ownership puts the relevant corporations in a very strong position with regard to both pricing and setting terms of labor contracts. Consumers have little choice with regard to alternative products, and workers with regard to alternative employment opportunities.
tax avoidance versus tax evasion
Tax avoidance by the rich is a massive industry that includes both legal and illegal aspects. The legal part is made up of a huge array of think-tanks, lobbyists, and public relations firms pitching the case for low taxes on the rich to government officials, lawmakers, and the public. In addition, an army of tax lawyers and accountants serve wealthy clients by handling their financial affairs in ways that minimize their tax burdens.
This becomes illegal when income is not reported to tax authorities , including by hiding it offshore to avoid detection, thereby making it tax evasion.
Tax avoidance is legal whereas tax evasion is illegal.
Glass-Steagall Act
In order to reconstruct the economic and social institutions of the country (and to save the capitalist system), the post-Depression administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) introduced an extensive package of reforms known as the New Deal. One of these many reforms was the passage of
The Glass-Steagall Act (1937) re-regulated the banking sector and re-imposed strict controls designed to end the speculative trade in stocks, bonds, mortgages, and other financial products. These controls remained in place until 1980 when the banks were again de-regulated under the administration of President Reagan.
the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999; and banks and other financial institutions resumed their speculative trading with new (often “toxic”) financial products—such as levered buyouts (LBO), credit defaults swaps (CDS), and sub-prime mortgages. The market returned to a state of financial anarchy not seen since the 1920s.
neoliberalism
the current neoliberal view of the global economy is based on the practical assumption that unfettered free trade between nations—even if accompanied by growing inequality—is the best proven strategy for economic growth. Neoliberal economists continue to favour the deregulation of markets, the privatization of public-sector enterprises and services, corporate tax cuts, and the increased mobility of capital and labour—often through plant relocation and labour outsourcing to cheaper-factor markets. For neoliberals, the creation of wealth is the optimal strategy for securing economic growth.
Since the early 1980s, with the rise of neoliberal economic policies (Reaganomics in the United States and Thatcherism in the United Kingdom, among other countries), there has been a relentless global trend towards ever greater inequality. This trend, and the policies behind it, have greatly increased the debt loads of many countries and have often compromised their national sovereignty.
FIRE group of industries
Financial, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) group of industries best captures the Occupy movements in Canada because these groups of people make up the highest paid group in Canada and fastest growing group. One quarter of Toronto’s 1% top income earners.
-In 2006, the top 1% employed in FIRE services earned more than 19.2 times what the
average Torontonian worker earned. This gap has increased more than 206% from
1991, when the same ratio stood at 9.3.
public choice theory
public choice theory, is “the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science”.[1] Its content includes the study of political behavior. In political science, it is the subset of positive political theory that studies self-interested agents (voters, politicians, bureaucrats) and their interactions, which can be represented in a number of ways – using (for example) standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory.[1]
Public choice analysis has roots in positive analysis (“what is”) but is often used for normative purposes (“what ought to be”) in order to identify a problem or to suggest improvements to constitutional rules (i.e., constitutional economics).[1][2][3]
causes versus correlations
Causes are determined through direct evidence that one things is the cause of the other. While this is the ultimate goal of scientific endeavors, causation is often uneasy to determine and becomes especially difficult within the social sciences.
Correlations are more often used in studies like sociology, where the cause of success for example could be ones intelligence, their upbringing, their SES, among other things. For this reason it is important to discriminate between correlation vs. causation. If a successful millionare happens to be very intellgient and have a hard work ethic, we should hesitate to use these explanations as the singular causes. Other contributions could be socially provided oppurtunities, good home, high SES, and excellent mentorship.
four maxims of “smiling discrimination”
four maxims: (1) unfounded different and (usually worse)treatment, (2) multiple interpretations of the situation, (3) socially acceptable reasons for one’s actions and (4) the consequent absence of the legal punishment.
- Worse treatment based on appearance rather then actual dangerousness. If a discriminatory attitude lacks an obvious objective reason, occurs repeatedly and is accompanying by humiliating gestures (imitation of smoking marihuana, drug-pusher’s jargon or even the lack of a polité form when requesting the person to move) such an attitude will certainly negatively influence one’s views of the racial attitudes in the society at large.
- Another common feature of “smiling discrimination” is its ambiguity, resulting in potential multiple interpretations of allegedly discriminatory behavior. Thus, the interpretation of “smiling discrimination” is in many cases very subjective, and that is perhaps the reason why many accuse minority persons of oversensitivity and over interpretation. Moreover, people who have nevěr been exposed to “smiling discrimination” will probably fail to understand that visible minorities go through more than one such situation in their lives: These include relatively trivial hassles, such as being seated or served last in restaurants, double verifying of credit cards or larger bills, obvious pointing out of the price of more expensive goods; or much more serious underestimating of the value of one’s property, education or experience.
3. The third characteristic feature of "smiling discrimination" is its seeming fairness and objectivity. Some hold the opinion that subtle discrimination is not really discrimination as racial profiling is based on the high crime rates involving people of color, and thus, grater law enforcement is justifiable and actually logical. This approach translates into more frequent police searches in low class or multicultural neighborhoods, or more frequent stopping and carding of drivers of color. W. Scot, however, points out the inaccuracy of such statistics, which, as he states, are "more a reflection of police activity than actual criminal behavior".2 As the police focus their surveillance on crimes that take pláce in poor neighborhoods, they are more likely to detect and arrest offenders from this type of background. Scot further notes that another issue that may negatively affect the crime-rate statistics is the racial distinction of the offender, which is often based on skin-color and completely ignores ethnicity. As a result, the greater law enforcement is almost always based on inaccurate data and stereotypical assumptions.
- While it is relatively easy to penalize open forms of discriminatory behavior by fines or even imprisonment, smiling discrimination is difficult to prove and punish. The young Caribbean in the case study was treated “differently, on the basis of a category” and “worse than others” which corresponds with the definition of discrimination according to most modem dictionaries, and thus, he actually was discriminated against, even though none of his human or civil rights were violated. Nevertheless, many outside observers would probably hesitate to consider this situation as a form of discrimination. Indeed, due to the ambiguity of interpretation, very few if any charges were pressed in these cases in Canada.
bootstrapping ideologies
Bootstrapping ideologies are inward looking framing devices that argue that people are wholly responsible for their lot. These ideologies argue that if you have got it bad it is your own fault and only you have the power to change this. The name comes from the idea that one must pull themselves up by their bootstraps and go to work, get educated, or change thier enviroments. This takes the blame away from toxic institutions and lack of social policies or ineffective laws and places the whole responsibility on the person.
