Test #2: 8

Question 1

What was Karl Marx’s guiding question?

Answer 1

• How do people produce their means of sustenance?

- he believed to understand humans, we must understand how they live

Question 2

How did Marx say we produced our sustenance?

Answer 2

Always social so he deemed them:

-relations of production

Question 3

What comes with relations of production?

Answer 3

-a ruling class whose position gives them control over others

Question 4

What is the mode of production?

Answer 4

• relations and forces of production (capitalism, feudalism)

- forces of production are how someone produces like hunter-gatherer, agricultural etc.

Question 5

How did Marx say history unfolded or progressed?

Answer 5

• existing modes of production are replaced by new modes of production
• through revolutionary changes

Question 6

How did Marx see modes of production?

Answer 6

• unstable, contradictory even

- they easily break down and evolve

Question 7

What acts like an economic base?

Answer 7

• modes of production

- superstructure spreads ideology

Question 8

What type of split did Marx see early on?

Answer 8

-those who value material production and this who value mental production

Question 9

What was the capitalist mode of production characterized by?

Answer 9

• class divisions between the bourgeoisie and proletariat
• they own capital
• sell their labour
• the accumulation of surplus value

Question 10

What two forms of exchange make up surplus value?

Answer 10

• commodity 1 –> money –> commodity 2

- money 1 –> commodity –> money 2

Question 11

Explain more about exchange 1, commodity 1 –> money-> commodity 2?

Answer 11

• worker exchanges labour for wages to buy things

- goal is use-value (worker wants money for the food)

Question 12

Explain more about exchange 2, money 1 –> commodity –> money 2?

Answer 12

• using capital to invest in something
• only works if the money produced is greater than the principal amount
• the goal is more money (capital)

Question 13

What was a key question for Marx or the goose that lays the golden egg?

Answer 13

-How to create surplus value?

Question 14

What three ways did Marx outline for creating surplus value?

Answer 14

• create more for less (automation, depressing wages)
• expand to new markets (imperialism, privatization)
• eliminate competitors (monopolies, concentration of wealth)

Question 15

What did Marx say drove the Bourgeoisie and was the cause of breakdown?

Answer 15

-create surplus value

Question 16

What is capital accumulation and what was it inspired by?

Answer 16

• its neo-marxism, inspired by Marx

- a focus on capitalist pursuits of surplus value to explain major historical changes at a global and local scale

Question 17

What did Neo-marxist geographer David Harvey distinguish in terms of capital accumulation?

Answer 17

• regimes of accumulation

- modes of social and political regulation

Question 18

What did Harvey mean by regimes of accumulation?

Answer 18

-primary process for accumulating surplus value

Question 19

What did Harvey mean by modes of social and political regulation? What is an example? (4)

Answer 19

• forcing the behaviour of individuals into a configuration
• keeps the regime of accumulation functioning
• an ex) government regulations on monopolies or even ensuring labour supply via public education

Question 20

What is an example of capital accumulation?

Answer 20

-the Fordist-Keynesian regime

Question 21

What is the Fordist-Keynesian regime? (4)

Answer 21

• mass production of goods concentrated in one place
• higher wages and government assistance helps stimulate consumerism
• labour is formal, long term and unionized
• government is active in regulating economy, redistributing wealth and delivering services

Question 22

When was the government known as the welfare state?

Answer 22

-under the Fordist-keynesian regime

Question 23

What happened in the 1970s?

Answer 23

• Fordism no longer provided a viable method of accumulation

- Western economies slipped into economic crisis

Question 24

What did the economic crisis in the 1970s cause?

Answer 24

• it created a vacuum that was filled by a new economic theory
• neoliberalism

Question 25

What was neoliberalism?

Answer 25

- political economic theory - liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills - private property, free market and free trade - role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework that does this

Question 26

As a policy, what was neoliberalism associated with?

Answer 26

- rollback of the welfare state - deregulation of the economy - privatization of public services - crime and punishment and workfare policies

Question 27

What did the crime and punishment and workfare policies aim to do?

Answer 27

- coerce people into the market system | - punishing the poor

Question 28

What did the popularization of neoliberalism occur alongside?

Answer 28

-a flexible regime of accumulation

Question 29

What is a flexible regime of accumulation?

Answer 29

- free trade agreements allowing capital to move to the most lucrative locations - mass production is replaced by niche markets and just-in-time manufacturing and delivery - unionization declines and work becomes more precarious, informal

Question 30

What did Harvey associate the popularization of neoliberalism with?

Answer 30

-this process was driven by the upper class

Question 31

What did Burawoy and Wright develop?

Answer 31

- a concept of sociological Marxism | - based on extending Marx's theory of the contradictory reproduction of class relations

Question 32

What did Burawoy and Wright say class relations were based on?

Answer 32

- relations of production - the sum total of the rights and powers that different actors have - over their inputs in the productive process - the outputs that result from production

Question 33

What were inputs and outputs for Burawoy and Wright?

Answer 33

- inputs were labour, land or capital | - outputs were the products they helped to produce

Question 34

What are class relations then according to Burawoy and Wright?

Answer 34

-when the rights and powers of people over productive resources are unequally distributed

Question 35

How did Burawoy and Wright say class relations were exploitative in 3 ways?

Answer 35

- the profit of exploiters depends on the profit loss of the exploited (workers) - this depends on the exclusion of workers to access certain resources - exclusion generates profits for explorers because it allows them to take the profits from the workers

Question 36

Why is the exploitative relationship inherently unstable according to Burawoy and Wright?

Answer 36

-because the exploding class depends on the willingness of the exploited class to keep labouring

Question 37

What are the four criticisms of neomarxism and marxism?

Answer 37

- economic reductionism - focused on private property as the basis for power to the exclusion of other sources - tendency to see elites as more rational, coherent and organized than reality - overly normative

Question 38

What is the criticism economic reductionism?

Answer 38

- is everything about capitalism | - what about cultural norms or human psychology to explain things instead of economics

Question 39

What was the criticism focused on private property as the basis for power to the exclusion of other sources? (3)

Answer 39

- Weber argued class was determined by property and skill, and distinguished economic class from social status - Bourdieu distinguished economic, cultural and social capital - also, racism, sexism, homophobia etc.

Question 40

What was the criticism overly normative?

Answer 40

- should theory just describe the way the world is? | - or should it describe the way the world ought to be?

Question 41

What question do Fourcade and Healy answer in their book?

Answer 41

- What is the impact of digital technologies, tracking, big data and artificial intelligence algorithms on processes of - inequality and stratification

Question 42

What three processes at the core of how markets are being changed via technology did Fourcade and Healy highlight?

Answer 42

- Dragnets - scores - behavioural interventions

Question 43

What are dragnets by Fourcade and Healy?

Answer 43

- devouring as much information as possible | - argue organizations gather data just to gather data

Question 44

What are scores by Fourcade and Healy?

Answer 44

- big data becomes the basis for classifying or scoring people - übercapital

Question 45

What is übercapital?

Answer 45

- when big data becomes the basis for moral judgements about people - even though we do not fully understand how those scores were created

Question 46

What happens to those who accrue übercapital?

Answer 46

-advantages such as better prices, service, kinder consideration and higher standing across markets

Question 47

What are behaviour interventions by Fourcade and Healy ?

Answer 47

-designed to act in certain ways -predict their responses to certain stimulations (addictiveness of our phones)

Question 48

What becomes the new basis for class divisions according to Fourcade and Healy?

Answer 48

-übercapital