A. Structured inequality in the things that count in a particular society; may be based on age, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, or social class... this was the definition our department used when we offered just one inequality class, under the old quarter system.
B. Layering of society based on social classes, which in turn are defined in terms of position in the economic system... this is the definition we are using now
A. Conservative thesis: inequality as the basis of order and authority... e.g. the divine right of kings in the medieval Christian West, or Confucius (p. 10) in ancient China or Martin Luther and the peasant revolt in Germany... social inequality is inevitable, because of what it contributes to society as a whole and those at the bottom need to accept the authority of those in higher positions
B. Radical antithesis: inequality as injustice and the basis for change...Plato's Republic or the Isaiah passage in the Old Testament. Inequality exists primarily for the advantage of the rich and powerful; those at the bottom of any stratification system are the exploited and the oppressed and the direction of change should be toward justice and equality.
See exhibit 1.1 for a summary chart of these positions across time and space
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Marx
" Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case." Engels, funeral oration upon Marx's death
A. Marx's economic sociology. The central problem of any society is its economic organization, which in turn produces patterns of inequality. Those inequalities are the key to understanding both stability and change.
1. How is society organized to apply a particular technology to a given environment?
Ancient Athens as the birthplace of democracy or as a slave/class society in which the freedom and privilege of the few was based on the exploitation of the many.
2. Economic base ultimately determines superstructure.
Economic base includes: Technology, Relations of Production, Social classesSuperstructure includes: Education system, Religion, Arts, Political System (including Criminal Justice), Mass media (new since Marx's time).
3. Class conflict
a. Economic organization always generates class inequalities, and the dominant class always tends to be well organized. But those in the weaker classes often misunderstand their own oppression (no secret why--see superstructure).
b. Under certain conditions, those with less power and privilege become conscious of their shared interests and organize themselves for change. (not necessarily the most disadvantaged classes that get organized). What are those conditions?
1)Concentration and/or communication.
2)Role of the intellectuals (like Marx) (the Communist Manifesto aimed at the new class of factory workers becoming important in France in the 1840s)
3) Contradictions in the current system.
What is the contradiction that that Marx believed would eventually bring down capitalism?
4) All of this is in the long run inevitable, in Marx's theory. Under capitalism, for example, the big business class (those he called the bourgeoisie) has no choice but to produce the working class (explain this) and in their own competition for profits they are ultimately driven to exploit that class and produce the conditions for their own overthrow.
d. Revolution would be the eventual result (why not reform???) but Marx never clear on what the revolution would be like. E.g. need it involve violence? Product of revolution would be first socialism (control of economy by the government) and later communism ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs")
B. Sociology of capitalism. Examples: General Motors, Wal-Mart
1. Defining characteristic: markets (supply and demand) determine not only the value of goods and services but the value of labor. Workers as "commodities." (What was an aerospace engineer worth when I went to graduate school in Seattle in 1970?)
2. Driving force: profit
3. Strengths of capitalism:
a. Technological innovation
b. Massive increase in productivity and production
c. Expansiveness: capitalism inevitably creates a world system
"The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls." (Marx)
4. Weaknesses of capitalism
a. Impoverishment of the vast majority... in the long run.
b. Class simplification: the working class (proletariat) and big business (grand bourgeoisie)
c. Crises of overproduction (depressions) that heighten the contradictions between an economy that in terms of resources and labor could produce enough for all but is actually producing unemployment and poverty on a large scale.
d. Alienation: systems that people create take over their lives and people lose track of their creativity. Even the capitalists are not free, but the alienation of the working class is particularly dramatic. "The more they work the less they have," not just materially but in terms of alienation from human freedom.
e. Eventual loss of legitimacy, which Marx thought would bring revolution