Soc 100 - Class Flashcards
Mechanical Solidarity vs Organic Solidarity
Mechanical: United by similarity, effective in small homogenous societies
Organic: United thru difference, big heterogeneous societies
What did Durkheim think increased with the increase of division of labor?
Volume and Density of pop.
requires more specialisation to keep greater number of people together.�
Absolute vs Relative Poverty
Absolute - measured by universal standard, ability to get food or shelter
Relative: how far behind riches are you in your society (how much control over work or independence)
Around 10% of children in Canada live below the ________________ level defined by the government�. Define.
low-income cut-off (LICO)
-determines minimum income needed to meet expenditures for size of family
Culture of Poverty
Oscar Lewis’s term for values, norms & behaviour patterns of some urban poor, which left them ill-suited to urban life.
Often embraced hedonism, accepted marginalised status, didn’t see selves rising�
-Dominant groups argue that society is open: those at the bottom are the ones who simply didn’t work hard enough to succeed.
Moral Hazard
-means that ppl feel they can take risks because they are not immediately responsible for the consequences
Free market theorists emphasise moral hazard – need for punishments in system for those who don’t work.
Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punish describes emergence of a new type of crime from 18th century onwards:
Delinquency.
An ill-disciplined individual; petty criminal, perhaps including minor public disorder.
Someone not really ‘trained’ to lead responsible life of good, hardworking citizen.
Lumpenproletariat
Delinquents are the lumpenproletariat of the world of crime: small-time criminals, vagabonds, drunks, hooligans.
Condemned for their lack of work ethic and failure to take responsibility for their lives. No structure, no long-term job, no plans – in short, no life plan.
Differential Association
Theoretical explanation for crime suggesting it’s learned by associating with other criminals and with those who hold law in contempt.
What did Edwin Sutherland deny in his White Collar Crime?
Denied link between poverty and criminal outlook.
-Fun: If corporations really were people, it has been argued, they would be classified as psychopathic.
Inter vs Intragenerational Mobility
Inter: Children improve on parents’ social rank
Intra: Individual improves rank in own lifetime
Vertical vs Horizontal Mobility
Vert: Moving up or down social ranks
Horiz: Moving across them, to similar fields
Societies with strongest ______ ______ have most mobility.
welfare support
-US ranks very low, whilst Sweden ranks very high.
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Workers who had ___________ had significantly lower rates of stress-related illness.
Karasek & Theorell showed that workers who had control over tasks (not subject to orders of others) had significantly lower rates of stress-related illness.
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Strata
Strata = merely units of measurement
Ranks society as a whole by one principle (eg wealth) then compares people as statistical groups (quantiles, e.g. “top 20%”).
�-just statistical constructs, no objective unity
Classes
Describes social system, and identifies specific locations or positions within it, defined by structural relations and role in overall system.
-objective structures, individuals unconsciously defined by class
Groups
Self-identified groups (aristocracy, artists etc) gain power by seizing certain instruments of social control or sources of wealth
�-Groups define selves, exist because of shared interests
Productive vs Distributive Classes
Productive: Groups defined by position within structure of production, like Marx’s classes: what do they do?
�Distributive: Classes defined by their share of the rewards of society: how much do they get? (Weber)
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Estates
Classes defined by laws, & granted specific rights & privileges. Like feudal aristocracy.
Post-Industrial Society
Used to describe modern Western societies, which were formerly industrial centres, but which have now transitioned to service economies with less manual labour.
Petty Bourgeoisie
Small businesses, one or two employees, or self-employed (middle class)
-Opposed to vanilla bourgeoisie, which is big businesses, profits from exploiting labor
Systems of Stratification: Economic Class
Determined by “market situation”: what access do you have to property?
Systems of Stratification: Social Status Group
Defined by “style of life… expected of all those who wish to belong.” (p.932)
Lenski suggests that _____ _____ is the fundamental system of stratification
physical force (“the power to take life”)�
Status Inconsistency
An individual’s rank in one class system may differ from his/her rank in another.
Often leads to anxiety or radicalism.
-e.g. high educatin but low wealth
Ascribed Status vs Achieved
Ascribed: A status or social rank based on unchangeable or inborn characteristics, e.g. gender, race. You can’t just acquire or lose this status. (gender, ethnicity)
�Achieved: Status or social rank that you have ‘earned’ by your actions; in theory, anyone could gain or lose this rank or position.
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Theorists of race and gender argue that life-chances of any individual are determined at least by :
class, gender and race in different ways.� -e.g. Situation of middle-class African-Americans different from inner-city poor African-Americans; may face less prejudice�
How do dimensions in intersectionality interact?
Each dimension shapes the other (e.g. gender, race, class), but neither dimension can be reduced to the other: racialised hierarchies are distinct from class, and vice versa.
Historical circumstances lead to each shaping the other.
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Anomie vs Alienation
Anomie:
-MOSTLY, a WEAKENED CONNECTION to the social WHOLE (durkheim, correlated w suicide)
Alienation: separation of the person from his/her nature as a free producer and creator (Marx, alienating labor)
Melvin Seeman’s five key dimensions of alienation
Sense of Powerlessness: feeling out of control. (alienation)
Meaninglessness: work appears purposeless. (both)
Normlessness: sense that work lacks any guiding intelligence of oversight. (anomie)
Isolation: feeling of being cut off from other workers. (anomie)
Self-estrangement: lack of personal fulfillment in job. (alienation)
Mental labourers vs material
mental: view over whole process, control those beneath them, as well as having view over them
material: under orders from mental laborers, depend on orders to perform
Non-standard work arrangements
So-called ‘McJobs’: short-term, low-skill jobs with limited future prospects.
Often involves part-time work, multiple jobs, lack of security. May be self-employed�
Trend in canada of long-term vs short-term jobs in canada? Manufacturing jobs?
General decline in long-term jobs in secure positions in Canada and across developed world:
Decline in manufacturing industry, and increase in easily-transferrable service jobs.
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Deskilling of Jobs. Leads to…
improved technology (including computers) means work is more automated & needs less training – so employers need fewer workers, or can employ lower-skilled. �-LACK of security, undermines wrkers
Taylorism or Scientific Management. Why bad?
Aims at absolute maximum efficiency in the workplace, especially factories.
Trains workers to follow exact procedures, and ‘manages’ them like machines.
�-Dehumanizes workers, no autonomy, treated like animals or machines, cogs in a machine
Monopoly Capital
Giant corporations that dominate economy, excluding small businesses, and leaving workers with few options but to work for them.
Harry Braverman’s _____ __ ______ ______ traces increasing ____ and ______ of work into two groups:
Labor & Monopoly Capital (1974) traces increasing homogenisation and polarisation�:
-Small number of high-skilled, high-paid individuals.
-Large mass of increasingly-unskilled workers.
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Blue collar AND _____ _____ both become deskilled.
White Collar.
it becomes proletarianised, put under constant watch by overseers, regimented, and controlled.�
Free Labourer. How still not ‘free’?
Modern workers, able to choose who they work for – except for themselves!
Contrast with feudal serfs, who were bound to specific aristocratic lords.
-Not bound to serfs, but bound instead to capitalism as a whole
How is capitalism inherently exploitative (marx)?
: the workers have no choice but to work for capitalists; profits of bourgeoisie come from paying workers as little as possible.
Marxist Erik Olin Wright’s three principles of exploitation
Inverse interdependence principle: capitalists’ well-being depends on deprivation of workers.
Exclusion principle: capitalists make it difficult for workers to escape by excluding them from resources.
Appropriation principle: capitalists take labour of workers by paying less than its real value.
Class Conflict
Social struggles caused by confrontation of interests between structurally-defined classes. May be long-term persistent class struggle or open revolutionary class war�.
Class Consciousness
Both an individual’s awareness of being a member of particular class, and self-identity as class member… …and a class’s awareness of its real group interest in the long run.
\_\_\_\_\_ or \_\_\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_\_\_\_ rely on & develop class consciousness: they serve as form of organisation for working classes. They encourage... -Falling because of...
Trade or Labour Unions rely on & develop class consciousness: they serve as form of organisation for working classes.
Unions encourage social solidarity of workers.
�-Fall in Union Membership related to pressures of globalisation: unions undermined by possibility of outsourcing jobs to cheaper parts of world.
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Three outlined truths/principles in Communist Manifesto
“The history of all hitherto-existing society is the history of class struggle”: classes always fighting for social supremacy. Under capitalism, conflicting interests of bourgeoisie and proletariat lead to ever-greater immiseration of proletariat. This coincides with periodic crises of capitalism, due to falling rates of profit and economic problems.
