Final Exam Review Questions Flashcards
Outline Marx’s, Weber’s, and Durkheim’s theories of social power and inequality, in general and as they relate particularly to modern societies, and describe the differences and similarities among these three perspectives, evaluating their respective strengths and weaknesses. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
Marx defines social power and inequality through class systems which are created through means of capitalism. The three classes he defined were the capitalists, the proletariats, and the landlords. Social power was primarily held by the owning classes but especially through the capitalists who owned the means of production. This class would gain power by keeping the wealth of the workers surplus labor. Marx’s theory is important because it noted the importance of social organizations effect on the people and how this could oppress and alienate workers. Unfortunately, Marx’s prediction was wrong because where he thought workers would continually get pushed deeper in oppression and would come together to battle against the dominant class, things turned out to become much more complicated.
Like Marx, Weber used class to discuss social stratification, however he also used the concepts of Status (the positive or negative honor or prestige, value that is perceived by others and therefore more important than economic gain) and Party, or the ability to organize effectively. Additionally, Weber conceptualizes class in terms of differential opportunities for individuals in the market, whereas Marx focuses on the social relation of capital and labor in production. Weber acknowledges these, but they are less central to his theory. What Marx regards as systematic exploitation, Weber sees as a structured inequality of life chances contingent on differential possession of scarce goods (capital, land) or skills (types of labour). Weber reserved the concept of class for economically determined stratification. He defined a class as being composed of people who have life chances in common, as determined by their power to dispose of goods and skills for the sake of income. Property is a class asset, but it is not the only criterion of class. For Weber, the crucial aspect of a class situation is, ultimately, the market situation. Weber identifies four main classes as opposed to Marx’s two. These classes are: the manual working class, the petty bourgeoisie, the property-less white collar workers, and the dominant entrepreneurial and propertied groups. Weber’s analysis is often considered pluralist because not only the economic opportunities of class in social inequality but also other factors such as status and party or the ability to organize effectivley. This is unlike Marxists analysis which primarily considered economic factors.
Unlike the former theorists Durkheim argues that inequality is necessary so different roles and motivations are prescribed to different classes of people. Social and moral forces limit and regulate potentially unlimited desires. However, because industrialization only prescribes one set of goals for men to achieve men will inevitably become failures and be more incentivized to take their lives. Durkheims theory of stratification is similar to the others in that the demands of stratification systems pressures men to act against their own interests and alienate them from autonomous choice
Explain why the functionalists believe that social stratification is universal, desirable, and inevitable in human society, and identify some of the basic criticisms raised by some sociologists (such as Melvin Tumin) in their criticisms of the functionalist theory of social inequality. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
Society is an organic system whose various components work together to contribute to the health of the system. Some of the positions within the system, though, are more important than others for the survival of the society.
For a society to remain healthy, the most functionally important positions must be filled by the most qualified people. However, the number of people with the talent and/or the training to fill these roles is limited.
Individuals must be induced to spend the time, effort, and financial resources that training requires.
Consequently, society allocates greater rewards to those positions that are more important and require scarce talents.
Inequality is an unconsciously established system through which societies fill the most
crucial positions with the most skilled persons.
Some degree of inequality is inevitable because it contributes positively to the functioning of societies.
Whereas functionalists look for different functional components, conflict theorists look for competing interest groups, exploitation, and struggle. Class,
race, and gender are the principal factors that shape ―who gets what,‖ not the unconscious operation of a harmonious social system. Accordingly, conflict
theorists’ divergent metaphor leads them to criticize Davis and Moore’s formulation on many counts. Unequal wages, conflict theorists argue, may have
more to do with elites dominating their workers than with talent, training, or functional importance. Or, a conflict theorist might highlight the fact that some
people may earn more money primarily because they were born white or male or upper class.
Identify some of the social dysfunctions (or social pathologies) that are commonly associated with inequality across a wide range of industrial societies. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
Countries that are increasingly unequal have been shown to have higher rates of crime, teenage pregnancy, health problems, and decreased life spans
The authors of the spirit level argue that these increased afflictions are due to the increased stresses and hostilities that are included in societies where people are made more aware of their status.
Higher rates of crime may be attributed to under priveleged males fighting for status, nearly all violent crimes are linked to social feelings of shame or threats to status. Some believe that early stressors predispose men to make risky behaviors and go for quantity rather then quality when it comes to parenting/sexual relationships. People are more likely to distrust others in societies with greater inequality.
Teenage pregnancy is thought to be an avenue for girls to become adults and increase their status by becoming parents. Girls growing up under greater stressors have been shown to sexually develop faster and are much more likely to have sexual experiences earlier.
Health problems increase from stressors relating to social standing and obesity from eating fast food. Fast food may be seen as a form of status for the poor where eating out can be seen as a treat for families, status for urban youth, or western identity for immigrants. Diseases of affluence such as heart disease is caused by stressors in the workplace, where tough deadlines and distress caused from ones lowly position decreases immune functioning and increased blood pressure.
People being more status conscience within these societies leads them to develop fragile egoism where their sense of self is inflated and unrealistic, thereby leaving them open for feelings of anxiety when proved otherwise. This contributes to mental illness such as narcissism and overall increased anxiety/depression for more unequal nations.
Discuss in detail how the corporate elite in Canada today has learned how to translate its economic wealth into political power and privilege, and through its lawyers, political lobbyists, agents, and representatives, has exercised a major influence on government legislation and policy to its own financial advantage. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
Because business groups are much smaller then the median population who would wish for more equality they are more easily organized. Additionally, they command substantial amounts of financial, technical, and human resources.
The corporate elite spent around 25 billion in lobbying expenditures, employing around 10,000 full-time lobbyists in comparison to citizen group lobbyists with 500 staff members and about 50 million in annual funding. Corporations use this power to serve their own interests for example by dropping the corporate tax rate from 18%-15% between 2010 and 2012.
Political power and privileges’ may also be gained when corporations make direct donations to favored political parties with expectation that their financial support will win some preferential treatment when it becomes elected into office. These funders often are represented from particular industries such as oil or tobacco and will pursue industry interests (such as drilling rights to previously restricted areas, lower carbon tax or sin tax) they will also attempt to secure corporate tax cuts and tax shelters, greater freedom to move i.e. import/export capital and cheap foreign labor as well as reductions on government spending on social programs. They are always opposed to tax and spend government policy
Rich capitalists make up the advisory board in which government asks these individuals for advice regarding political/economic decisions to make and who to give loans too. This group is made up mostly by the financial sector through representatives of Canadas main banks and then mostly by the travel sector Additionally, regulating agencies do more to protect corporations then anything i.e. Bell’s monopoly over western Canada. Government may also protect corporations from foreign competition. Titans from the corporate world often move to beuracratic positions.
Additionally, the mirrored status of the economically powerful and the political powerful has historically allowed close ties to develop between these groups, thus allowing them an extra foot in the door for influencing public policy.
Compare and contrast the different types of explanation, as well as the three main discourses, that have been used in this course to explain the causes of poverty, and show how each type of discourse implies (or entails) a distinct approach to public policy in regards to poverty. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
The distinction between individual and structural explanations for the causes of poverty has a long history, and constantly reappears in many forms and guises. For many centuries, public authorities continued to distinguish between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. Whereas the poverty of the deserving poor was attributed to causes beyond the control of the individual—such as accident or disease—the poverty of the undeserving poor was attributed to the perverse qualities of the individual (beggar, vagrant, or vagabond)—such as sloth, laziness, ignorance, intemperance, criminality, and so on. In other words, there has always been a moral dimension to definitions and explanations of poverty, whereby society could either blame the misfortunes of poverty on “fate” (the deserving poor), or on the “degeneracy” of the poor, themselves (the undeserving poor). This moral, or judgmental, dimension still remains with us today, although in less explicit terms.
views on the causations of poverty:
Individual Explanations: In the most general sense, individual explanations ascribe the primary causes of poverty to (alleged or imputed) characteristics of the poor, themselves. Individualist explanations explain poverty in terms of the supposed deficiencies and weaknesses of the poor: their lack of motivation to work; their deviant lifestyles; their vulnerability to addiction and intemperance; and their general moral turpitude. In other words, the poor are stigmatized and blamed for their poverty; they are seen as remaining poor because they embrace a lifestyle that leads to poverty.
Structural Explanations: In contrast, structural explanations focus on the institutional mechanisms that combine to trap the poor at the bottom of the social pyramid, and to prevent them from achieving upward social mobility. This type of explanation is critical of societal structures of social inequality and stratification, and sees the persistence of poverty as a form of social injustice as well as an economic and social problem. Some versions of the structural perspective (Marxian versions) also propose that the poor constitute a useful underclass in capitalist society. The unemployed (and underemployed) serve as a supply of surplus labour that exerts a downward pressure on the general level of wages. In other words, a pool of poor and unemployed people prevents wages from rising too high, since capitalists can always replace the employed with the (presently) unemployed. Thus structural explanations blame the system rather than the poor for poverty, and suggest that the persistence of poverty remains in the interest of the rich and powerful in society.
Cyclical Explanations: Cyclical poverty, which is commonly found in societies of the Global South, is frequently caused by environmental and ecological catastrophes: natural or socially induced famines, or natural disasters such as floods, droughts, storms, crop infestation by pests, and so on. Because of erratic weather events associated with climate change and global warming, cyclical poverty has become an increasing problem for those “risk societies” (see Beck 1992) located in the tropical zones.
The three discourses (way by which society chooses to understand a phenomenon):
- The Moral Underclass Discourse (MUD) essentially views poverty as reflecting the motivational and moral
failings of those who are poor. Poverty is a cultural phenomenon whereby people living in poverty come to be so by virtue of lacking skills and adopting deviant habits, lifestyles, and attitudes. Related to this discourse is concern about overly generous welfare and other program benefi ts creating dependency and precluding motivation to join the active workforce. Levitas sees a gendered discourse as well. As a result of these personal failings, males are seen as becoming delinquents and criminals whereas females are seen as becoming unwed mothers.
-Extremely low social assistance benefits across Canada
-Reduction of eligibility for employment insurance in Canada
-Poor-bashing by Canadian governments and media - The Redistributionist Discourse (RED) views poverty as resulting from systematic exclusion of individuals
from the economic and social resources required for participation in society. Much of this results from the operation of the market as a primary arbiter and distributor of resources within a society. Problems of poverty do not result from individual failings but by the failure of society to meet the economic and social needs of its citizens. It fails to do so by providing meagre benefits, lack of employment and educational opportunities, and low wages. Poverty is both a cause of and result of individuals being excluded from participation. The responses to poverty should be based on issues of citizenship and the basic rights that should be provided under such citizenship.
-Hands-Off Campaign to end clawback of the National Child Benefit to social assistance recipients
-Growing Gap Report and similar initiatives from the Centre for Social Justice
-Numerous reports and statements from the National Council of Welfare - The Social Integration Discourse (SID) is about including people who have been excluded from society by virtue of their living in poverty. It is very much influenced by European-Union concepts focused on engaging those outside the workforce to be employed. The SID discourse could be about reducing exclusion and need not be limited to issues of paid employment. However, Levitas argues that this is usually the direction taken whereby active involvement
in the market is emphasized, while citizenship rights and entitlement to benefits are deemphasized.
-Vibrant Communities Initiative
-Laidlaw Foundation Inclusion Initiative
-Workfare Initiatives across Canada*
Identify and explain at least four different explanations that have been advanced in the readings for this course to explain the persistent gender gap between in the earnings (wages and salaries) of men in Canada and those of women. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
- The Family Gap: women have historically remained heavily overrepresented in certain types of “non-standard” employment. This term refer to forms of employment that have little or no job-stability, nor any job benefits such as union membership, a collective agreement, medical coverage, holiday or sick pay, or other entitlements that are normally granted to stable (“standard”) employees in both public and private sectors. Non-standard employment includes part-time work, temporary work, fixed-term contracting and subcontracting, self-employment, and homework.
Most explanations for the causes of women’s entrapment in these non-standard forms of employment (sometimes called “the secondary labour market”) emphasize that because of the typical unequal division of household labour, women still remain the primary care-givers for children, as well as the primary domestic workers (cooking, cleaning, and provisioning) within the family home. Besides the time spent in this unequal division of labour, the other major obstacle to gender parity in the workplace has been the costs that maternity (childbirth and child rearing) disproportionately impose on women in terms of reduced wages, more temporary interruptions to employment, and reduced job security. Although maternity imposes heavy costs on women’s employment, and often erects barriers to promotion, this is certainly not the case for men. The family gap exists for working mothers, but not for working fathers. In some countries, the costs of maternity for women are borne by the state through generous maternity leaves, while in other countries, women pretty much have to fend for themselves and their families. Thus Sweden offers a generous maternity leave policy, with 56 weeks paid at 80 percent of citizens’ salary, and 13 additional weeks paid at a fixed rate thereafter. Denmark gives its working women over one year’s maternity leave at 100 percent salary. In Canada, the present period of maternity leave may extend from 17 to 52 weeks at 55 percent of the regular wage. The United States is the only developed country in the world that doesn’t mandate some form of paid
maternity leave, although companies with over 50 employees are obliged to offer three months of unpaid time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. - Women’s Extra-Pecuniary Choices and Values:
There is evidence to show that for some women, their sources of job satisfaction may include extra-financial criteria—such as the intellectual challenges or the humanitarian goals of the job. These factors may influence a woman’s employment decisions and may result in trade-offs in which pay raises or promotions may be sacrificed for other sources of job satisfaction.
Women’s employment choices may also be strongly influenced by humanitarian motives that may cause them to choose the helping professions over more lucrative careers in other employment sectors. Also, women may place greater importance on the quality of their work environment (trust relationships, social solidarity) then simply on income and earnings. However, there is also some evidence to suggest that lower self-esteem among women may cause them to de-value their skills, qualifications, and experience. Low self-esteem can help to reduce a woman’s comparative advantage in the workplace. These are some of the factors that have been used to explain why women have often appeared less economically competitive in the workplace than their male counterparts. - Sexism—Institutional and Individual:
persistence of gender discrimination, prejudice, segregation, stereotyping, harassment, and even outright sexual abuse. These sexist practices may be separated into institutional practices and individual practices. Institutional practices of gender segregation, stereotyping, and discrimination are often associated with non-standard forms of employment that may disadvantage women in their promotional, educational, and training opportunities. Non-standard jobs are less secure and provide very few benefits and entitlements. Also, they may not be always be fully covered by federal or provincial employment-equity legislation. However, even when employed in full-time permanent positions, women may experience gender discrimination, harassment, and even sexual abuse. Recent revelations of sexual abuse in the RCMP and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) are sober reminders that gender inequality remains deeply entrenched, even in public sector institutions in Canada. - Occupational Segregation:
women have historically remained heavily overrepresented in certain sectors of the labour force—especially in clerical, sales, and service occupations, as well as in the “helping professions” (nursing, healthcare, social work, counselling, teaching, recreation, and fitness). This type of occupational and industrial segregation is sometimes called horizontal segregation—an indicator that measures the concentration (or overrepresentation) of women in certain occupations of industries across the labour market. In contrast, vertical segregation indicates the concentration (or overrepresentation) of women at the lower levels of the occupational or industrial hierarchy. Strong evidence of vertical segregation often implies the existence of structural barriers to the promotion and upward occupational mobility of women at work.
There are a number of factors that can contribute to occupational gender segregation. Some of these factors include inadequate educational credentials and entrance qualifications (although this differential has sharply declined in recent years). Also, occupational stereotyping, gender discrimination, and even workplace harassment have traditionally denied women access to certain types of employment—such as fire-fighting, engineering, mechanics, heavy equipment operation, construction work, and so on. Finally, an older generation of women, themselves, may continue to hold socialized (and gendered) expectations of what constitutes “appropriate employment” for women
Define and explain the difference between the vertical and the horizontal occupational segregation of women in the labour market. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
Occupational segregation is a phenomenon that exists in different forms. Often, a distinction is made
between horizontal and vertical segregation, with the former designating a concentration (or
overrepresentation) of women in certain fields of activity or employment. The latter, sometimes also
referred to as hierarchical segregation, relates to the concentration (or overrepresentation) of women at
certain levels of the hierarchy, regardless of the sector of activity.
Describe some of the major examples of institutional racism suffered by Indigenous peoples in Canada—through government policy and state institutions—and briefly comment on the long-term consequences of these injustices for Aboriginal communities across the country. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
Establishment and inadequate investment in ‘Indian Reserves’ segregated the natives from the rest of Canada and left them in poverty due to inadequate funding. Reserve life mirrors that of third-world countries where houses are overrun with mold, have unclean drinking water, and general shabby conditions.
The Indian Act of 1876, was made in purportedly to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples but instead gave the government structural control over indigenous peoples lands, language, resources, identity, and cultural practices. This act was paternalistic and early versions required natives to give up their status as Indian in order to engage in many privilege’s as a citizen. Women who married non-native would lose their status as Indian. Additionally, the Department of Indian Affairs was constructed to oversee the cultrual, economic and political lives of indigenous peoples.
Residential Schools tried to reform indigenous people towards Christian/western values. Their methods were often violent and the institutions were marked by physical and sexual abuse. Children were taken away from their homes in hopes of dissolving indigenous culture.
Bill C-45 allowed companies to buy and sell indigenous land for industrial development without any form of compensation for indigenous communities, thereby endangering their health/environment by nearby development and taking away their land from them.
Other structural problems include the increased likelihood of indigenous people being incarcerated for their sentences, indigenous victims receive less credibility, have longer wait times in health care institutions, fewer referrals, and disrespectful treatment.
While many consequences of these policies endangered the natives immediate land or health, the effects of the residential schools in particular created substantial substance abuse problems, violence, parental problems, depression, and suicide. Many of these problems have since stuck with many indigenous people as these familial problems have lingered within continues generations.
Explain what you understand to be the “myth of the free market” as a natural mechanism (of supply and demand) for the rational distribution of wealth and income in society. Describe some of the ways in which the market is a “social construct” (as well as a legal and political construct), rather than simply a “natural mechanism.” Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
The myth of the free market is the misunderstanding that a unregulated market would be the most efficient and proper means of reallocation of resources. This is likely false for the following reasons.
- Markets almost always have regulations and can even be understood as a creation of the state. Property rights for example is government protected ownership and although it benefits everyone, it disproportionally helps the rich. Corporations rely on laws that allow for incorporation. Professions such as lawyers, doctors, and psychologists enjoy monopoly over their industry because laws require these professionals to be licensed. Different assigned rights defined the market, rights to unionize, the right to copywrite intellectual or creative property, all these rights define a persons ability to control the products of their labor and to engage with the market.
- Those who argue for the free market usually argue that it is the most efficient and natural way to do business. However, the Great depression begs to question this argument. The great depression was largely a result of huge concentrations of wealth and inactive spending by the rich. This lead to a huge hit to the economy that was only later fixed by government spending in the war effort. Less restrictions on taxation (or practices that satisfy the ideal of the free market) concentrate wealth in the hands of the few and generally lead to less spending by the rich, whereas redistributive efforts to the poorer leads to higher spending to saving ratio and which is better for the economy.
Therefore the idea of the free market is mythical because 1. markets are always constructed by the government and 2. because government intervention is often more efficient then laissez-faire policies
List and explain some of the economic policies associated with neoliberalism, and provide some examples of governments that introduced and adopted these policies. Ensure that your account demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of the relevant course readings.
Economic policies associated with neoliberalism typically include relaxation on social policy/ support systems and lower taxation. Neoliberalism argues that interference in the market creates inefficiencies that will slow down the market
