Lecture 12 Flashcards
What did Max Weber argue that there are three primary bases of power in
societies :
Class
Status
Parties
What is class?
● Class is about power in the economic order.
● Classes differed based on the property they owned and the services they
offered.
What were Weber’s four classes?
● Large capitalists
● Small capitalists
● Specialists
● The working classes
What is status?
● Status groups have some kind of
social honour or prestige
through their social position
expressed during interactions.
● Social honour or prestige may be
positive or negative and the
status groups underlying this
honour are varied.
What is Social Media Siloing?
Silo: isolation and separation of people into homogeneous groups based on their preferences, beliefs, or viewpoints
Facebook: Influential friends have more influence on news-feeds
You are less likely to see friends who do not have influential networks
Explain the spikes and declines of income inequality in Canada:
Spikes: 20’s (building trains, and large manufacturing industries)
Declines: War ( and economic crisis afterwords)
Most equal: 1955-1980 (welfare introduced here)
Trends in Wealth Inequality:
Stable.
60% of Canada’s wealth = top 10% of ppl
20% of Canada’s wealth = Top 1% of ppl
around 5% of wealth = Bottom 50% of ppl
How do we measure Income Inequality in Canada?
Socio-economic status (SES)
Is Income inequality as big of an issue if we have lots of social mobility?
Inequality would be less of an issue
Is income based on parental income?
Yes it’s heavily related
What is an Achievement-based stratification system?
Social mobility occurs in an achievement-based system.
In this system, people’s rank depends on their accomplishments.
Those who work hard rise up the class ranks
What is an Ascription-based stratification system?
Determines an individual’s rank by their ascribed characteristics.
Ascribed characteristics refer to the features an individual is born with.
If people of certain ethnicities, religions, or genders hold certain ranks in
society because of who they are, it is an ascription-based system.
What is Intergenerational mobility?
occurs between generations, from
parent to child
What is Intragenerational mobility?
occurs within a single generation
What is intergenerational income elasticity?
which refers to the statistical relationship between a parent’s and a child’s
economic standings.
● Bigger number = bigger relationship between parent and childs income standing
Where does Canada stand with intergenerational income elasticities?
Middle
US and UK = Highest
What is Income Inequality like in the U.S?
Higher Income Elasticity number
Also very racialized- (only 2.5 of black children will move up)
What are social factors associated with mobility?
Education
Family background
Culture
Which two main skills predict adult incomes?
- Educational attainment and
- cognitive skills
- Gap between income with and without degrees is getting bigger
- most ppl with degrees have parents with degrees
What is one of the strongest predictors of the child’s academic achievement?
The socioeconomic status of a child’s parents
Achievement gap between high and low earner parents and academic achievement for their kids is growing
The children of the rich do better in school,
and those who do better in school are more
likely to become rich
What is Habitus (Bourdieu)?
A set of norms and expectations
unconsciously acquired by individuals
through experience and socialization as
embodied dispositions
Basically: Internalized traits that make us think certain ways depending on what group we are in
Doxa vs Habitus?
Doxa: Looking in mirror before leaving the house
Habitus: How you look at yourself in the mirror (not in social vacuum)
What is Cultural Capital?
External wealth converted into an integral part of the personal acculturation :
The age in which acculturation begins
The total time for “acculturation process ”
Ex. doing flash cards with child each night (will be useful later on)
or learning the piano
What is Social Capital?
Networks and connections
Why is Canada more equal then US?
Policy differences to ensure more social mobility
● The Canadian government invests more in schools, hospitals, and housing than the United States. ● These investments create support for individuals born into poverty to be more socially mobile and rise out of poverty.
Explain Global Inequality:
Global inequality = income inequality between countries
Poorest: Africa, India, Southeast Asia
What is Globalization?
a process of increasing interconnectedness of people, products, ideas, and places
What are the three main ways Globalization increases interconnectedness?
● The increase in physical or material connections
● The spatio-temporal element—places feel a lot closer.
● The cognitive element—the dissemination of ideas and culture throughout the world
Is globalization a linear evolution?
No, not just in one direction
The world is increasingly interconnected but there are times when countries or individuals become more isolationist
What are the three core theories of global Inequality?
● Modernization
● World systems
● World society
What is Modernization?
A societies internal features help / hinder development
Encourages all countries to strive to modernize in the same way as Western Europe and North America did
Explain is Rostow’s four stages of Modernization
- Traditional society
- Economic Take off
- Technological Advances
- Mass consumption
- Traditional society: Emphasize the importance of his tory and tradition, subsistence and spirituality, but not material abundance
- Economic Take off: Manufacturing increases and becomes more productive (domestic goods and exports)
- Technological Advances: All sectors of society become involved in market
production, and international trade arises - Mass consumption : Because consumers now have more dis pos able
income, they are able to consume more
What is World Systems theory?
- Core countries
Periphery countries
● Semi-periphery countries:
Based on Marxist principles
What are Criticisms of world systems theory?
● Some note how foreign trade has benefitted some countries, supporting their economies, not hurting them.
● Others argue foreign investment stimulates growth, not economic decline
What is Chang’s opinion in relation to world systems theory?
Calculated pull by the United States and other First World countries on the Third
World’s most valuable remaining resource: human labour
What is world society theory?
The institutions of world society
support and propagate norms
around issues such as democracy,
human rights, educational
expansion, and environmentalism
Provide scripts for how nation states,
organizations, and individuals should
enact and uphold these norms
What is Isomorphism with World Society theory?
countries become increasingly similar
--Tends to be individualism Also: Enlightenment and rationality
Biggest common theme with World Society theory?
Human rights!!!
What are INGO’s (World Society theory)?
● International not-for-profit
organizations performing public
functions but not established or run by
nation-states
● Private, voluntary and non profit
organizations that are oriented to
bring social and /or political change
What are crime rates tied to?
inequality (violent crime)
What are the three strategies for addressing global inequality?
- Development assistance:
- Debt Relief
- Labour Migration
- Development assistance:
-Financial aid to support a country’s
economic, social, and political development
-goal: reduce global poverty - Debt Relief:
-Many developing nations are burdened with insurmountable debts.- Called for forgiveness of debts
- Labour Migration:
- The potential gains to poor-country citizens and their governments through remittances
- But this is problematic (as seen in Chang)
Note about debt and Europe vs third World:
America forgives debt from Europe after ww2 without interest
Charges super high interest on third world countries
