Midterm

Question 1

What is a social fact?

Answer 1

a system of beliefs or practices that are outside of the individual and internalized through coercive power.

Question 2

what is the sociological imagination?

Answer 2

link between biography and society.. understand self through historical context, historical context is made up of individuals

Question 3

what are the objectivity doctrines?

Answer 3

the claims, methods and results of science are not, or should not be, influenced by scientists’ perspectives, values, commitments, or personal interests.

Question 4

What is standpoint theory?

Answer 4

knowledge claims are shaped (and limited) by personal experiences and perspectives. (passive)

Question 5

What is situated knowledge?

Answer 5

all knowledge reflects the researcher’s experiences and perspectives but, by acknowledging our subjectivity and incorporating other perspectives, we can produce more accurate and complete accounts. (active)

Question 6

What is normal science?

Answer 6

slowly accumulating detail in accord with established broad theory, without questioning or challenging the underlying assumptions of that theory

Question 7

When does a paradigm shift happen?

Answer 7

When normal science encounters an anomaly that is too problematic and shakes faith in current paradigm

Question 8

What is community?

Answer 8

Community arises when individuals with shared interests or concerns relate to one another in a relatively durable way

Question 9

Is community pre-determined?

Answer 9

no. it emerges from these practices and the experience of “being in community” they create.

Question 10

What are some antecedents to American individualism?

Answer 10

The “protestant ethic”—wealth is a sign of God’s favor and evidence of good morals
The idea of the “social contract” in which individuals came together as a society in order to protect their interests, was key to early Liberal political philosophy
Benjamin Franklin—“God helps those who help themselves.”

Question 11

What is Tocqueville’s self interest rightly understood?

Answer 11

“helping your neighbor inadvertently helps yourself” resolving the tension between individual and community:
The personal advantage of each member of the community consists in working for the good of all. Working for the benefit of the community or society provides benefits that the individual alone cannot procure (roads, school systems, military defense, a legal system).

Question 12

What is the problem with the individualism and community pendulum swing theory?

Answer 12

Inegalitarian Exclusion (i.e. racism)
Political Scientist Rogers Smith argues that these two “ideals” have always existed in tension with racial exclusion.

Question 13

What is market fundamentalism

Answer 13

by helping yourself, you inadvertently help your neighbor

Question 14

What does Shklar mean when she says that American citizenship is shaped by legacy of slavery

Answer 14

citizens defined their standing by distinguishing themselves from slaves, women, paupers and Native peoples

Question 15

How does citizenship contrast with dependency

Answer 15

In the 1840s, people who worked for a wage were considered dependent because they had no property of their own and depended on their employers

Question 16

What does the definition of dependency leave behind?

Answer 16

1) housewives, 2) paupers, 3) Native Americans, and 4) slaves.Enslaved persons were seen as standing “at the opposite pole from full citizenship.

Question 17

Race consciousness emerged in 17th century contexts of _____ and the ____.

Answer 17

New World colonization, the slave trade

Question 18

race as folk classification system

Answer 18

One drop rule” (“amateur biology”)•Variation in racial classification across contexts (U.S. and Brazil, for example)

Question 19

What is racial formation or racial structure?

Answer 19

The totality of social, economic, political and ideological practices that reproduce and reinforce white privilege.

Question 20

What is racialization?

Answer 20

the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group

Question 21

What is colorblind racism?

Answer 21

racial inequality as a result of nonracial dynamics

Question 22

key points of the neoclassical paradigm

Answer 22

Individuals are selfish but rational.
•The market coordinates their behavior to produce efficient and broadly beneficial outcomes.
•Attempts to plan or regulate markets are inefficient.
•Markets go through cyclical crises,but are self-correcting.
•Profits “trickle down” to all levels of society

Question 23

key points of the Keynesian paradigm

Answer 23

Individuals, acting in the market, are not always fully rational, but often act to harm their own interests, the environment, the economy as a whole.
•The economy requires coordination for its different parts to work in harmony.
•The government, because it represents the interests of all citizens, should be the conductor.
•The government’s most important role is to exert a countercyclical force during downturns.
•Whether that counter-cyclical spending is on “guns” (military spending) or butter (social programs), the impact is to stimulate the economy

Question 24

Parts of the New Deal prgram

Answer 24

Job creation, gov spending on infrastructure, creating a safety net, new forms of regulation

Question 25

Keynesian programs in post war era

Answer 25

Military spending continued to shore up the economy until the 1960s and 70s
•The GI Bill that provided education to returning veterans •Veteran’s Administration home loan programs
•Federal spending on interstate highway system
•in a context of economic expansion, businesses could afford to pay their employees enough to buy the products that they made: houses, cars, televisions, and other consumer goods

Question 26

What is Fordism?

Answer 26

businesses could afford to pay their employees enough to buy the products that they made: houses, cars, televisions, and other consumer goods

Question 27

What is stagflation?

Answer 27

Lyndon Johnson overstimulated the economy with a “guns and butter” Strategy, pursuing the War on Poverty at home while intensifying the Vietnam War.

Question 28

what are some examples of the revival of the neoclassical paradigm after the ‘60’s?

Answer 28

Reductions to state spending
Privatization of public institutions (schools, prisons, military)
Deregulation

Question 29

What is the colonial division of labor?

Answer 29

primary and raw materials from “underdeveloped” countries, manufactured goods from colonies

Question 30

Turning India from a Famed Textile Producer to a Raw Materials Exporter

Answer 30

British tariff rates in the 19th c. (high rates on textiles entering England, low rates on British textiles going to India, low rates on cotton from India) converted India from a manufacturer of high-quality cloth to an exporter of raw cotton. Production of homespun cotton cloth (khadi) became an important symbol of the 20th century independence struggle. The swadeshi movement, inspired by M. Gandhi, boycotted British products and sought to revive domestic handicraft production.

Question 31

what are 3 ways that colonialism changed the world?

Answer 31

1. Colonialism destroyed pre-colonial communities and their industries, agricultures, knowledge, and systems of governance.
2. Colonial ideas about “progress” and “race” continue to structure global relationships.
3. The “colonial division of labor” established trade relations that set the stage for continuing relations of “unequal exchange” in later periods.

Question 32

What is the concept of comparative advantage?

Answer 32

Goods should be produced where it is most efficient (cheapest) to produce them. Different kinds of production will find their proper place in the global economy based on where it is most efficient to produce them. Because efficiency is measured by price, most efficient means where it is cheapest to produce them.

Question 33

What happened at the Bretton Woods convention

Answer 33

Established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world’s major industrial states
•Established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank
•The conference established stable but adjustable currency exchange rates.
•By signing the agreement, each country agreed to maintain the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value that was linked to the dollar;
•the dollar was linked to gold reserves.

Question 34

What does the WTO do?

Answer 34

Regulates trade between participating countries
•Provides a framework for negotiating trade agreements
•Provides a dispute resolution process to enforce adherence to WTO agreements signed by member governments

Question 35

What happened after Bretton Woods?

Answer 35

Nations as key actors in global trade –> corporations key actors

Question 36

what is the race to the bottom?

Answer 36

Competition that is structured around cost-cutting, rather than technology or labor process improvements

Question 37

What does Sachs believe about communities?

Answer 37

communities are repositories and laboratories for knowledge and ideas

Question 38

What is cosmopolitan localism?

Answer 38

A condition characterized by the balance between being localized (rooted in a place), AND open to global flows of ideas, information, people, things and money.

Question 39

Does Bello think we should replace the IMF and WTO with regional institutions

Answer 39

yea

Question 40

The emergence of ideas of growth and progress as “common sense”

Answer 40

The Enlightenment brought a new faith that empirical science, technology and experimentation would lead to constant improvements in the human condition.

Question 41

Dominant narratives of economic history emphasize “_____,” defined as innovation, efficiency gains and production increases

Answer 41

progress

Question 42

As GNP increased, overall life satisfaction….

Answer 42

stayed the same

Question 43

What are Schor’s 4 principles of plenitude

Answer 43

1. self-provisioning
2. new allocation of time
3. true materialism (conscious consumerism)
4. investing in our communities (building social capital)

Question 44

What is intensive versus extensive growth?

Answer 44

intensive: set pool of resources
extensive: more inputs for more outputs, shift burden to other sectors.. shift problem around and treat environment as externality

Question 45

what is market value?

Answer 45

In neoclassical economics, the value of an object or service is seen as the price it brings in an open and competitive market, as determined by the demand for the object relative to supply. Many neoclassical economic theories equate the value of a commodity with its price. If there is no market to set a price then there is no economic value.

Question 46

T/F all labor has market value

Answer 46

no

Question 47

The HDI combines which factors

Answer 47

1-Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity.
2-Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary school enrollment.
3-Standard of living, as measured by gross domestic product per capita.

Question 48

What was the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress

Answer 48

To address increasing concerns about the adequacy of current measures of economic performance, in particular those based on GDP figures, in measuring societal well-being, and economic, environmental, and social sustainability.

Question 49

What is the materiality paradox?

Answer 49

As the use of goods to meet basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) is overshadowed by their role as symbolic communicators (to convey social status, construct identity, and to differentiate from or join with others), the goods themselves become less important, and their social meanings more salient. At the same time, their material impact on the planet intensifies because symbolic consumption relies heavily on fashion and novelty and thus high turnover of goods

Question 50

What is fast fashion

Answer 50

a production paradigm characterized by speed, geographical distance, predominance of large named brands,outsourced production, an important role for marketing and advertising, and competition to lower prices

Question 51

What are the four different ways to define citizenship according to Shklar?

Answer 51

standing (dependent versus free)
nationality
“good citizen”
ideal republican