CH-9-11 Economy and Politics – SOC Sociology 2020 : Chapter Notes

This Document Contains Chapters 9 to 11 Chapter 9 Economy and Politics LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Identify and describe the various types of authority. 2. Describe the various types of economic systems. 3. Discuss the nature and extent of deindustrialization and downsizing in the United States. 4. Discuss the trend of global offshoring. 5. Describe the various types of government. 6. Discuss the various aspects of political behavior in the United States. 7. Compare and contrast the various power structures in the United States. 8. Discuss sociological perspectives on war and peace. CHAPTER SUMMARY The economy is a social institution dedicated to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. We depend on it to coordinate and provide for our wants and needs. The structure of the economy reflects and reinforces our core values. Economies are not static. While the U.S. economy continues to be shaped by changes brought about during the Industrial Revolution, technological innovation and globalization have led to deindustrialization, the systematic, widespread withdrawal of investment in basic aspects of productivity, such as factories and industry. Companies may relocate from northern regions to southern regions or outside the United States to benefit from lower wage rates. Downsizing refers to reductions in a company’s workforce as part of deindustrialization. Offshoring has transferred work to foreign contractors. The social costs of deindustrialization and downsizing include unemployment, underemployment, loss of spending power, and loss of family cohesion. The process of deindustrialization was part of a larger economic shift toward a global economy consisting of complex, worldwide networks of producers and consumers. The resulting interdependent connections increased the possibility that, if one part of the system collapsed, it could have global consequences. That is precisely what happened starting in 2007 when a global financial collapse occurred. The resulting economic crisis, often referred to as the Great Recession, had significant and long-term consequences. A record percentage of young people turned to higher education, but at the same time, 43 percent of recent college graduates reported they were working in a job that did not require a college degree, a sign that good jobs were hard to find even for those with a degree. The workforce in the United States has been constantly adapting to economic changes such as these for many decades. Historically, this has resulted in expansion of diversity in the labor force. Sociologists have always been interested in how power is achieved and maintained. According to Max Weber, power is the ability to exercise one’s will over others, even if they resist. There are two basic sources of power within any political system. Force is the actual or threatened use of coercion to impose one's will on others. Authority is power that is recognized as legitimate by the people over whom it is exercised. Weber identified a useful classification system for authority. Legitimate power based on traditional authority is conferred by custom and accepted practice. Power based on formally agreed upon and accepted rules, principles, and procedures of conduct is known as rational-legal authority. Charismatic authority refers to power made legitimate by a leader’s exceptional personal or emotional appeal to his or her followers. An economic system is a social institution through which goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed. Two basic types of economic systems distinguish contemporary industrial societies: capitalism and socialism. Capitalism is an economic system in which owners of private property compete in the marketplace in pursuit of profits. Adam Smith described four basic principles of capitalism in The Wealth of Nations (1776). In his view, humans are naturally motivated to seek the greatest profit on their investments, including social and cultural exchanges. We do so in competition with each other in the marketplace, which keeps prices in check. The law of supply and demand means that the "invisible hand" of the marketplace will cause prices to rise when demand is high or supply is low (or to drop when supply is high or demand is low). All of this means that governments should abide by the principle of laissez-faire, meaning they should allow everyone to compete freely in the capitalist marketplace without government intervention. In practice, capitalist systems vary in the degree to which the government regulates private ownership and economic activity. Some goods and services, such as fire protection, are considered too important to the public good to be left in private hands. Governments in capitalist economies also frequently intervene to prevent the formation of monopolies, in which some aspect of the market becomes controlled by a single business. Socialist theory was developed and refined in the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Under socialism, the means of production and distribution in a society are collectively owned. Marx believed that socialism would inevitably supplant capitalism because, in a world where we are capable of providing for everyone's needs, the laborers that capitalism depends upon will revolt against the unequal distribution of wealth found in capitalism. In practice, most national economic systems are mixed economies that combine elements of both capitalism and socialism. An informal economy, where transfers of money, goods, or services take place but are not reported to the government, operates within the confines of the dominant macroeconomic system in many countries. The struggle for power and authority involves politics, the competition between individuals or groups over the allocation of valued resources. Politics takes place within the context of a political system—a social institution that is founded on a recognized set of procedures for implementing and achieving society's goals. Government represents an institutionalized form of authority. There are a variety of forms. In a monarchy, government is headed by a single member of a royal family, usually a king or queen. In an oligarchy, a few individuals rule. A dictatorship is a government in which one person has nearly total power to make and enforce laws. Totalitarianism involves virtually complete government control and surveillance over all aspects of a society’s social and political life. Democracy means government by the people. In a representative democracy, citizens elect political leaders to make decisions on behalf of the people. Representative democracies differ in the systems they use for electing political leaders, which can have significant influence on the type of politics a country has. Social scientists have devoted much study to the power structure of the United States. The pluralist model holds that many competing groups within the community have access to government, so that no single group is dominant. Pluralists stress the ways in which large numbers of people can participate in or influence governmental decision making. Critics charge that this model does not account for the ability of political elites to keep some topics out of the realm of political debate, as well as for how some segments of society (e.g., racial minorities) have historically been excluded from the political process. Karl Marx believed that society is ruled by a small group of individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests, a view known as the elite model. Sociologist C. Wright Mills put forth a model similar to Marx when he argued that in the United States power rests in the hands of a power elite—a small group of military, industrial, and government leaders who control the fate of the country. Mills felt that the power elite was a self-conscious, cohesive unit. G. William Domhoff also subscribes to an elite model in describing power in the United States, but stresses the role played by elites from within networks of several types of organizations that do not necessarily share membership or have identical goals. However, he finds that the most influential members of the elite are still largely White, male, and upper class, and that overall they do work together to advance their larger interests. In the United States, voter participation rates were highest from 1848–1896. The rate fluctuated throughout the 20th century. In 2008, voter turnout hit a 40-year high. Historically, voter turnout has been particularly low among members of racial and ethnic minorities, the poor, and the young. Marginalized groups lack political strength. Progress toward the inclusion of minority groups in government has also been slow, and many other nations have a higher proportion of women in their national legislatures than the United States. Conflict is a central aspect of social relations. War is defined as conflict between organizations that possess trained combat forces equipped with deadly weapons. Terrorism is the use or threat of violence against random or symbolic targets in pursuit of political aims. Sociologists have considered peace to be both the absence of war and a proactive effort to develop cooperative relations among nations. Sociologists and other social scientists who draw on sociological theory and research have tried to identify conditions that deter war. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources 1. In what ways is the American economy changing? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: economy, deindustrialization, downsizing, offshoring 2. What are the key sources of power in political systems? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: power, force, authority 3. What are the key types of authority in political systems? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: authority, traditional authority, charismatic authority, rational-legal authority 4. What are the key types of economic systems in contemporary societies? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: capitalism, laissez-faire, monopoly, socialism, mixed economy, informal economy 5. What are the main types of government? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: politics, political system, monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, totalitarianism, democracy, representative democracy 6. What models have been used to describe the power structure of the United States? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: pluralist model, elite model, power elite 7. How and why do sociologists study war and peace? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: war, terrorism, peace LECTURE OUTLINE I. Economic Change • The economic and political systems we construct have consequences for individuals, influencing the course of their lives. A. Industrialization • Economy: a social institution dedicated to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. • U.S. economy continues to be shaped by changes brought about during the Industrial Revolution. • Sociology developed as a discipline in part to come to terms with economic transition from a preindustrial to an industrial society. • Industrial Revolution drove society to become more urban and industrial. B. Deindustrialization • Refers to systematic, widespread withdrawal of investment in basic aspects of productivity, such as factories and plants. • Need for labor decreases due to technological advances, as well as relocation of plants to lower the prevailing wage. Example: Moving plants from cities to suburbs, and then from the U.S. to a country with a lower rate of prevailing wages such as China. • Downsizing refers to reducing the size of a company’s workforce. The goal is to increase efficiency and reduce costs in the face of growing worldwide competition. • Outsourcing has been occurring in the U.S. domestically for generations. • Offshoring is the transfer of work to foreign contractors. Example: Global call centers in India. • Made possible by the fact that many developing nations have skilled, English-speaking labor forces and low wages, and by advances in telecommunications. • The social costs of deindustrialization and downsizing cannot be overemphasized. Macro level: community unemployment due to plant closings. Micro level: loss of family spending power, loss of family cohesion, marital discord, and underemployment. • There is a downside to offshoring for foreign workers as well. C. The Great Recession • Interdependent connections resulting from deindustrialization and global economy increased possibility that, if one part of the world economic system collapsed, it could have global consequences. • 2007: beginning of global financial collapse, resulting in economic crisis, or “Great Recession”. • Unemployment became a widespread problem. • In the United States a record percentage of young adults turned to higher education, but high proportions of college graduates reported trouble finding jobs that used their degrees. • Recovery from the Great Recession mainly felt by the rich, corporations. D. The Changing Face of the Workforce • During World War II, when men were mobilized to fight abroad, women entered the workforce in large numbers. • With the coming of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, minorities found numerous job opportunities opening to them. • The number of Black, Latino, and Asian-American workers continues to increase at a faster rate than the number of White workers. • As workforce has become more diverse, companies have sought ways to adapt, including workplace diversity programs. II. Power and Authority • Sociologists have always been interested in how power is achieved and maintained. A. Power • Max Weber defined power as the ability to exercise one’s will over others. • Power relations can involve large organizations, small groups, or even people in intimate relationships. • Weber conceived of power as a continuum based on the extent to which it is accepted as legitimate by those over whom it is exercised. • At one end is power based on force, the actual or threatened use of coercion to impose one’s will on others. • At the other end is authority, power that is recognized as legitimate by the people over whom it is exercised. B. Types of Authority • Max Weber developed a useful classification system for authority. He identified three ideal types. 1. Traditional Authority • Legitimate power conferred by custom and accepted practice. Example: A king or queen. • Authority rests in custom, not personal characteristics, technical competence, or written law. 2. Charismatic Authority • Refers to power made legitimate by a leader’s exceptional personal or emotional appeal to his or her followers. Examples: Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King Jr. • Authority is derived more from the beliefs of followers than from the actual qualities of leaders. • Political leaders increasingly depend on TV, radio, and the Internet to establish and maintain charismatic authority. 3. Rational-Legal Authority • Authority based on formally agreed-upon and accepted rules, principles, and procedures of conduct that are established in order to accomplish goals in the most efficient manner possible. • Bureaucracies are the purest form. • In societies based on rational-legal authority leaders are seen as having specific areas of competence and authority but are not thought to be inspired with divine inspiration as in some traditional societies. III. Economic Systems • The term economic system refers to the social institution through which goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed. • For the most part people accept the legitimacy of the economic systems within which we operate. • Analyzing the characteristics of the dominant economic systems of our time allows us to better understand how and why events happen as they do. A. Capitalism • An economic system in which owners of private property compete in the marketplace in pursuit of profit. • Value under capitalism is determined based on what people are willing and able to pay for available goods and services. • Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, which laid out the four basic concepts of capitalism: pursuit of profit, competition in the market, the law of supply and demand, and laissez-faire (the principle that people should compete freely in the marketplace without government intervention). • In their pursuit of profits, capitalists may try to secure monopolies, control of a market by a single firm, violating the principle of competition in the marketplace. • Governments often respond by intervening in the marketplace—through policies such as antitrust legislation—to ensure sufficient competition, thus violating the principle of laissez-faire. • Some goods and services (such as police, roads, education, etc.) are deemed important enough for the public good to be provided for all, even at the expense of government intervention. B. Socialism • Under socialism, the means of production and distribution are collectively rather than privately owned. • Value under socialism determined by the amount of work it takes to produce products and the use we get out of those products. • Karl Marx laid out basic tenets of socialism through variety of publications in the 1800s, including The Communist Manifesto. •Tenets include: Humans must produce, Production makes us uniquely human, We pour ourselves into our products, Economy determines society, and Scarcity and distribution are obstacles to the good of society. • Marx believed that socialism would supplant capitalism because capitalism relies on the efforts of the working class but primarily benefits the capitalist class. • In practice, socialist ideal of collective ownership has been difficult to attain. Example: bureaucratic inefficiency, political corruption, and insufficient productivity of Soviet Union. • Violence in the name of the state also a problem. C. The Mixed Economy • An economic system that combines elements of capitalism and socialism. • In practice, most countries have mixed economies. • There has long been a debate in the United States about the degree to which the government should be involved in the economy, but the economic upheaval of the Great Recession challenged people’s commitment to laissez-faire principles. D. The Informal Economy • Transfers of money, goods, or services that take place without being reported to the government. Example: Bartering goods and services, unreported tips, illegal transactions. • Operates within the confines of the dominant macroeconomic system in many countries. • Despite its apparent efficiency, it is dysfunctional for a country’s overall political and economic well-being, and can also be dysfunctional for workers. IV. Political Systems • The struggle for power and authority inevitably involves politics, the competition between individuals or groups over the allocation of valued resources. • Politics takes place within the context of a political system, the social institution that is founded on a recognized set of procedures for implementing and achieving society’s goals. • Government represents an institutionalized form of authority. These formal systems of authority take a variety of forms. A. Monarchy • A form of government headed by a single member of a royal family, usually a king, queen, or some other hereditary ruler. • In earlier times, many monarchs claimed that God had granted them a divine right to rule. • They typically governed on the basis of traditional forms of authority, sometimes accompanied by the use of force. • In modern times, they serve primarily ceremonial roles. B. Oligarchy • A form of government in which a few individuals rule. • Flourished in ancient Greece and Egypt, but now often takes the form of military rule. Example: Some developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America where small factions of military officers have forcibly seized power. • When the meaning of the term is stretched to include larger ruling groups, Communist governments such as that in China can be seen as oligarchies. • Some argue that many industrialized nations of the West should be considered oligarchies (rather than democracies), because only a powerful few—leaders of big business, government, and the military—actually rule. C. Dictatorship and Totalitarianism • A dictatorship is a government in which one person has nearly total power to make and enforce laws. • Dictators rule through force, although they may exercise some charisma as well. • Typically dictators seize power rather than being freely elected or inheriting power. • Dictators frequently develop such overwhelming control over people’s lives that their governments are called totalitarian. • Totalitarianism involves virtually complete government control and surveillance over all aspects of a society’s social and political life. Examples: Germany under Hitler, the Soviet Union under Stalin, North Korea. D. Democracy • Democracy literally means “government by the people.” • Popular rule is generally maintained through representative democracy, a form of government in which certain individuals are selected to speak for the people. • If citizens in a democracy are unhappy with the current direction of things, they can vote to establish new policies or elect new leaders • Sociologist T. H. Marshall established three main categories of citizenship rights: civil rights, political rights, and social rights. • Debates over social rights are due, in part, to a basic tension between core values in the United States, and largely because the principles of equality (essential to democracy) and competition (essential to capitalism) do not always see eye to eye. V. The Power Structure in the United States • Sociologists study whether “we the people” genuinely run the United States through our elected representatives, or if a small elite behind the scenes controls both the government and the economic system? A. The Pluralist Model • A view of society in which many competing groups within the community have access to government, so that no single group is dominant. • Although some groups may have more power in certain areas and at certain times, no core group at the top that can consistently advance its interests at the expense of others.• Robert Dahl’s study of decision making in New Haven found that although the number of people involved in any important decision was small, community power was diffuse. • Sociologist G. William Domhoff argued that Dahl and other pluralists had failed to trace how local elites who were prominent in decision making belonged to a larger national ruling class. • Dianne Pinderhughes has criticized pluralist model for failing to account for the exclusion of African Americans from the political process. This critique applies to other racial and ethnic minorities. • New communications technologies like the Internet are increasing the opportunity for the average citizen to be heard. B. Power Elite Models • Karl Marx believed that 19th-century representative democracy was essentially a sham. He argued that industrial societies were dominated by relatively small numbers of people who owned the factories and controlled natural resources. • Government officials and military leaders were servants of the capitalist class. Key decisions made by politicians reflected the interests of the dominant business owners. Like others who hold an elite model of power relations, Marx believed that society is ruled by a small group of individuals who share political and economic interests. 1. Mills’ Model • C. Wright Mills put forth a similar model to Marx’s in The Power Elite. He described a small group of military, industrial, and government leaders who controlled the fate of the U.S.—the power elite. • Mills suggested that the power elite operates as a self-conscious, cohesive unit. • The power elite is not a conspiracy, but a community of interest and sentiment among a small number of influential people. • Mills failed to clarify when the elite opposes protests and when it tolerates them. He also failed to provide detailed case studies. • Observers have noted that members of the business elite are closely interrelated. This elite is wealthy, powerful, and cohesive, and overwhelmingly White and male. 2. Domhoff’s Model • G. William Domhoff agrees that a power elite runs the United States. • However, he stresses the role played by elites from within networks of organizations including the corporate community, policy formation organizations, and the social upper class. • The groups overlap, and members with connections in more than one sphere have more power and influence. • Those in that latter group are still largely White, male, and upper class. Women and minority men hold a few key positions, but are still underrepresented. • The three groups do not necessarily agree on specific policies. A corporate-conservative coalition has played a large role in both political parties. A liberal-labor coalition is based in unions, environmental organizations, minority groups, liberal churches, and the university and arts communities. • Suggests that the interests of power elite are not always uniform, but that they do work together to advance their larger interests. VI. Political Participation in the United States • U.S. citizens take for granted many aspects of their political system. As a representative democracy, the system depends upon all individuals having equal access to and input into the political process. A. Voter Participation • In 2013, just over 31 percent of registered voters saw themselves as Democrats, over 39 percent as independents, and 24 percent as Republicans. • Historically, voter participation rates were highest from 1848–1896. • In the 2012 election between incumbent President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, turnout was down slightly after hitting a 40-year high in 2008. • Compared to other countries with national legislative-body or parliamentary elections, the United States ranks 145th out of 198 countries in voter turnout. • If participation declines, government operates with less of a sense of accountability to society. This is most serious for the least powerful individuals in the United States. • Voter turnout has been particularly low among racial and ethnic minorities and the poor. • The segment of the voting population that has shown the most voter apathy is the young. B. Race and Gender in Politics • Marginalized groups lack political strength. Examples: Women did not get the vote until 1920, African Americans were largely disenfranchised until 1965. • It has taken these groups some time to develop their political power and begin to exercise it effectively. • Progress toward the inclusion of minority groups in government has been slow as well. • Many critics within minority communities decry “fiesta politics”—the tendency of White power brokers to visit racial and ethnic minority communities only when they need electoral support and want photo ops. • Media are more likely to report on a female candidate’s personal life, appearance, and personality than a male candidate’s. • Women account for at least half the members of the national legislature in only two countries: Rwanda and Andorra. • As of 2013, the United States ranked 93rd among 188 nations in the proportion of women serving as national legislators. • Fifty-seven countries have adopted some kind of quota system for female representatives. VII. War and Peace • Conflict is a central aspect of social relations. • Sociologists Theodore Caplow and Louis Hicks defined war as conflict between organizations that possess trained combat forces equipped with deadly weapons. A. War • Sociologists approach war in three ways: (1) global view (focus on how and why two or more nations become engaged in military conflict); (2) nation-state view (focus on interaction of internal political, socioeconomic, and cultural forces); (3) micro view (focus on social impact of war on individuals and groups they belong to). B. Terrorism • Formally defined, terrorism is the use or threat of violence against random or symbolic targets in pursuit of political aims. • For terrorists, the ends justify the means. They believe the status quo is oppressive and that desperate measures are essential to end the suffering of the deprived. • The media is an essential aspect of contemporary terrorism. • Terrorism is a global concern. Since September 11, 2001, governments around the world have renewed their efforts to fight terrorism, including heightened surveillance and social control, to both positive and negative effect. C. Peace • Sociologists have considered peace both as the absence of war and, more broadly, as a proactive effort to develop cooperative relations among nations. • From 1945 to the end of the 20th century, the 25 major wars that occurred between countries killed a total of 3.3 million people. • The 127 civil wars that occurred within the same timeframe resulted in 16 million deaths. • Conditions found by sociologists to deter war include: international trade, immigration, foreign exchange programs, and activities of international charities and activist groups called nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Red Cross and Amnesty International. • Many analysts stress that nations cannot maintain their security by threatening violence. Peace can best be maintained by developing strong mutual security agreements, which requires active diplomacy. KEY TERMS Authority Power that is recognized as legitimate by the people over whom it is exercised. Capitalism An economic system in which the owners of private property compete in the marketplace in pursuit of profit. Charismatic authority Power made legitimate by a leader’s exceptional personal or emotional appeal to his or her followers. Deindustrialization The systematic, widespread withdrawal of investment in basic aspects of productivity, such as factories and plants. Democracy In a literal sense, government by the people. Downsizing Reductions in a company’s workforce as part of deindustrialization. Dictatorship A government in which one person has nearly total power to make and enforce laws. Downsizing Reductions in a company’s workforce as part of deindustrialization. Economy A social institution dedicated to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Elite model A view of society as being ruled by a small group of individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests. Force The actual or threatened use of coercion to impose one’s will on others. Informal economy Transfers of money, goods, or services that are not reported to the government. Laissez-faire The principle that people should be able to compete freely, without government intervention, in the capitalist marketplace. Mixed economy An economic system that combines elements of both capitalism and socialism. Monarchy A form of government headed by a single member of a royal family, usually a king, queen, or some other hereditary ruler. Monopoly Control of a market by a single business firm. Offshoring The transfer of work to foreign contractors. Oligarchy A form of government in which a few individuals rule. Peace The absence of war, or more broadly, a proactive effort to develop cooperative relations among nations. Pluralist model A view of society in which many competing groups within the community have access to government, so that no single group is dominant. Political system The social institution that is founded on a recognized set of procedures for implementing and achieving society’s goals. Politics The competition between individuals or groups over the allocation of valued resources. Power The ability to exercise one’s will over others even if they resist. Power elite A small group of military, industrial, and government leaders who control the fate of the United States. Rational-legal authority Authority based on formally agreed-upon and accepted rules, principles, and procedures of conduct that are established in order to accomplish goals in the most efficient manner possible. Representative democracy A system of government in which citizens elect political leaders to make decisions on behalf of the people. Socialism An economic system under which the means of production and distribution are collectively owned. Terrorism The use or threat of violence against random or symbolic targets in pursuit of political aims. Totalitarianism Virtually complete government control and surveillance over all aspects of a society’s social and political life. Traditional authority Legitimate power conferred by custom and accepted practice. War Conflict between organizations that possess trained combat forces equipped with deadly weapons. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 9-1: Marx and Marxism Analyzed Despite extensive criticism, Karl Marx’s theory of rebellion has not been analyzed directly in cross-national research. The failure of proletarian revolutions to occur in the world’s most developed countries has discredited some of Marx’s important predictions. With this in mind, sociologist Terry Boswell and political scientist William J. Dixon (1993) contend that recent cross-national studies of rebellion and political violence reveal a perplexing positive effect of economic development on rebellion (controlling for income inequality and political democracy in these nations). Boswell and Dixon argue that a proper understanding of Marx’s theory can explain this finding. According to these researchers, economic development leads to class conflict by creating, expanding, and organizing the proletariat. Under capitalism, production is centralized and concentrated on facilitating workers’ organization and joint action. The result, according to Marx, is a more polarized class structure with the proletariat growing in size and power. At the same time, class exploitation accelerates. Consequently, there are two contradictory trends: growing wealth in the capitalist class and growing exploitation of the working class. Why, then, have revolts not typically occurred in the capitalist societies? Boswell and Dixon suggest that the conventional explanation is “class compromise.” Overall growth in a country’s economy can allow the proletariat to achieve relative prosperity (nothing, of course, like the wealth of the bourgeoisie). Marx talks about secondary exploitation through mortgages, loans, and land rents, which can lead the self-employed (i.e., the peasantry) to form alliances among themselves and with artisans and small merchants (the petty bourgeoisie). Although not fully developed by Marx, this view of secondary exploitation does offer insight into peasant rebellions. With a Marxist interpretation of rebellion research in mind, Boswell and Dixon developed a novel measure of class exploitation in a cross-national regression analysis of violent rebellion in 61 countries. The dependent variable used as a measure of revolution was the number of deaths from violent rebellions against the state from 1973 to 1977. To measure class exploitation, Boswell and Dixon used the total value of goods in manufacturing in excess of a nation’s wages and salaries. In addition, they drew upon income inequality as measured by the richest 20 percent of a country’s population. After statistical analysis, the researchers found (as Marx might have expected) that the effect of class exploitation on revolt is conditioned by market crises, or what we refer to as economic recessions. In such times, as Marx speculated, class conflict intensifies. Most of this tension is manifested in day-to-day struggles on the job. However, in a time of market crisis or national recession, these conflicts can become nationwide and can be directed at the state. “Class compromise” is typically lacking because capitalists tend to be opportunistic in order to secure their positions. In summary, Karl Marx’s theory helps to explain the frequent but perplexing finding that economic development can instigate violent rebellion. Development creates the industrial proletariat and the conditions for its organization (class consciousness). As Marx anticipated, revolt in industrial countries was offset by the relative affluence of the working classes. Yet, as the researchers’ cross-national comparison shows, market crises coupled with class exploitation can facilitate rebellion (as Marx himself might have expected). Source: Terry Boswell and William Jo Dixon, “Marx’s Theory of Rebellions: A Cross-National Analysis of Class Exploitation, Economic Development, and Violent Rape,” American Sociological Review 58 (October 1993): 681–702. 9-2: In Defense of Socialist Planning As communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, there was rejoicing not only within these countries but in the democracies of the West. Some observers viewed this collapse as a clear validation of unfettered “free market” policies that would prohibit governmental intervention in and regulation of national economies. However, economist Robert Pollin and political columnist Alexander Cockburn insist that socialist planning remains an essential tool for broadening democracy and making the world’s economies better serve people’s needs. As part of their defense of socialist planning, Pollin and Cockburn identify and challenge what they see as some pervasive myths regarding socialist and free market economies. Myth 1: Socialist Central Planning Has Been a Disaster. Pollin and Cockburn acknowledge that central planning under socialist governments had significant failures because the lack of democracy in these nations led to the creation of stifling, all-powerful bureaucracies. Nevertheless, socialist planning was responsible for some substantial achievements. While Western democracies suffered through an intense depression in the period 1929 to 1937, Soviet industrial growth averaged more than 12 percent. When the Communist party came to power in China in 1949, life expectancy was approximately 40 years; by 1988, it had reached 70 years. Over the period 1952 to 1978, industrial growth in China averaged 11.2 percent, thereby establishing the foundation for economic modernization in a previously agricultural nation. Finally, in terms of such health and social indicators as life expectancy, infant mortality, and rate of literacy, Cuba comes out far better than any other Latin American country. Myth 2: Government Intervention under Capitalism Has Also Been a Failure. In countering this myth, Pollin and Cockburn point to the example of Latin America. During the 1930s, most Latin American governments instituted interventionist policies intended primarily to encourage domestic manufacturing. These policies were fairly successful over a number of decades. Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil all began producing consumer goods, developed machine-building capacity in the 1960s, and began to export on the world market in the 1970s. Per capita income in the region was generally high during the 1950s and 1960s. Although these interventionist policies eventually led to failure, it was primarily because the Latin American economies were never able to break their dependence on foreign capital from the United States and Europe. Pollin and Cockburn observe that, contrary to this myth, in Japan and South Korea, the great “miracles” in the region are not and never have been free market economies. In both nations, the state is dominant in planning and strategic financing; it provides business firms with export subsidies, protection, and cheap money. Moreover, the alleged “free market” was restricted, since both Japan and South Korea limited intervention by foreign corporations, especially during periods of rapid economic growth. Source: Robert Pollin and Alexander Cockburn, “The World, the Free Market and the Left,” The Nation 252 (February 25, 1991): 224–232, 234–236. 9-3: Working Women in Nepal Nepal, a small and mountainous Asian country of about 25 million people, has a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of just $1,370 per year. (The comparable figure in the United States is $36,110.) But gross domestic product seriously understates the true production level in Nepal, for several reasons. Among the most important is that many Nepalese women work in the informal economy, whose activities are not included in the GDP. Because women’s work is undervalued in this traditional society, it is also underreported and underestimated. Official figures state that women account for 27 percent of GDP and form 40 percent of the labor force. But Nepalese women are responsible for 60 percent of additional nonmarket production—that is, work done in the informal economy—and 93 percent of the housework. Most women workers cultivate corn, rice, and wheat on the family farm, where they spend hours on labor-intensive tasks such as fetching water and feeding livestock. Because much of the food they raise is consumed at home, however, it is considered to be nonmarket production. At home, women concentrate on food processing and preparation, caregiving, and other household tasks, such as clothes making. Childbearing and rearing and elder care are particularly crucial activities. Yet, none of these chores are considered part of GDP; instead, they are dismissed as “women’s work,” both by economists and by the women themselves. The figures on housework and nonmarket production in Nepal come from an independent economic study. To compile them, researchers had to adapt the conventional accounting system by adding a special account dedicated to household maintenance activities. When they did so, women’s “invisible work” suddenly became visible and valuable. Not just in Nepal but in every country, economists need to expand their definitions of work and the labor force to account for the tremendous contributions women make to the world economy. Sources: Menna Acharya. Labor Market Developments and Poverty: With Focus on Economic Opportunities for Women. Kathmandu, Nepal: Tanka Prasad Acharya Foundation/FES, 2000; Carl Haub. World Population Data Sheet, 2004. Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, 2004; Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre. Human Development in South Asia 2000. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press for Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre, 2000. 9-4: The Worldwide Jobs–Skills Mismatch The want ads go on forever, but even in the best of times, millions are seeking work and even more want a better job. Rich countries still have millions of people living in poverty. What is wrong with these pictures? We are seeing a mismatch between the skills that people have and the jobs that are available. The growth of the service and high-tech, information-based economy at the expense of manufacturing, translates directly into shifts in employment. Economist Jeremy Rifkin has written of the emergence of a knowledge class that is responsible for keeping the worldwide high-tech economy going. This kind of expertise calls for workers with high skills; skills that are difficult to come by among the ranks of the unemployed, whether in Massachusetts or Madagascar. At the same time, many unemployed, especially those who have been downsized, are overqualified for low-paying, service economy jobs, which call for few skills. The most visible illustration of this mismatch between jobs available and skills needed can be seen among those who emigrate from developing nations to the cities of industrial countries, where the abilities of the knowledge class are most valued. These new arrivals are attracted by higher standards of living, but their lack of technological skills relegates them to poor-paying service sector jobs, such as food service, custodial work, and support services in hotels and retail establishments. Foreign labor plays a significant role in many industrial countries—constituting 10 percent or more of the total labor force in the United States, Germany, and Austria and more than 20 percent in Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. Because they send money back home to their families, these foreign workers are an important source of revenue for their homeland, but their generally unskilled jobs make them more vulnerable to unemployment in economic downturns than native-born workers. The mismatch of jobs and skills is spreading to the developing nations. For example, the pattern of deindustrialization associated with northern industrial cities in the United States is now beginning to take root in Mexico. The relatively new factories were considered state-of-the-art at the time they were built in the early 1990s to serve multinational corporations. However, they are already downsizing as they become even more automated. Machines are replacing workers in every developing country, and, increasingly, the remaining jobs require the skills associated with the knowledge class. Economic planners in high-tech-oriented Singapore worry that many older workers there will soon face unemployment because of their outdated skills. In the United States, 84 percent of the population has attained at least a high school degree, but a high school education is now considered insufficient for most highly skilled jobs. Outside Europe, North America, and a few Asian countries, 40 to 60 percent at most have attained that level of education. At the same time that the level of education required for skilled workers worldwide is increasing, there has been little progress to match those needs. Shifting skill requirements, and ineffective educational systems have combined to marginalize many immigrant groups around the world as well as native-born peoples left behind by the information and technology boom and the escalation of skills required. 9-5: Military-Industrial Complex With the possible exception of George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant, no president has been so readily identified with his military exploits in wartime as Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is ironic, then, that Eisenhower chose in 1961 to warn the nation against the danger of an alliance between the military and industry: In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. From remarks made by Eisenhower during his retirement from public service, we know that he was not overly concerned about the military-industrial complex. However, for advocates of the power elite model, Eisenhower’s remarks were an unusually honest warning from someone who should know. 9-6: Who Rules? The text presents two models of power structure, pluralist and elite. What methodology is used in researching the distribution of power in a community? Three research designs have been developed for the study of community power: the reputational approach, the positional approach, and the issues approach. The reputational approach attempts to identify people who have a reputation for being influential in community decision making; this is typically done by asking knowledgeable people who they consider the most influential. The positional approach is more direct; it simply assumes that people who fill the formal positions of a community (mayor, councilors, etc.) exercise power. Finally, the issues approach attempts to analyze the actual process of decision making with respect to specific issues that are significant for a community. In some ways, the methodology selected often directs a researcher to either the “pluralist” or the “elitist” camp. For example trying to determine “who rules” by virtue of reputations or positions tends to lead to a small, finite number of people, if not an elite. On the other hand, the issues approach (especially if several diverse issues are analyzed) tends to lead to a more pluralist conclusion. 9-7: Work and Alienation: Marx’s View For millions of men and women, work is a central part of day-to-day life. Work may be satisfying or deadening, and the workplace may be relatively democratic or totally authoritarian. Although the conditions and demands of people’s work lives vary, there can be little doubt of the importance of work and workplace interactions in our society and others. All the pioneers of sociological thought were concerned that changes in the workplace resulting from the Industrial Revolution would have a negative impact on workers. Émile Durkheim argued that as labor becomes more and more differentiated, individual workers will experience anomie, or a loss of direction. Workers cannot feel the same fulfillment from performing one specialized task in a factory as they did when they were totally responsible for creating a product. Max Weber suggested that impersonality is a fundamental characteristic of bureaucratic organizations. One result is the cold and uncaring feeling often associated with contemporary bureaucracies. But Karl Marx offered the most penetrating analysis of the dehumanizing aspects of industrialization. Marx believed that as the process of industrialization advanced within capitalist societies, people’s lives became increasingly devoid of meaning. While Marx expressed concern about the damaging effects of many social institutions, he focused his attention on what he saw as a person’s most important activity: labor. For Marx, the emphasis of the Industrial Revolution on specialization of factory tasks contributed to a growing sense of alienation among industrial workers. The term alienation refers to the situation of being estranged or disassociated from the surrounding society. The division of labor increased alienation because workers were channeled into monotonous, meaningless repetition of the same tasks. However, in Marx’s view, an even deeper cause of alienation is the powerlessness of workers in a capitalist economic system. Workers have no control over their occupational duties, the products of their labor, or the distribution of profits. The very existence of private property within capitalism accelerates and intensifies the alienation of members of the working class, since they are constantly producing property that is owned by others (members of the capitalist class). The solution to the problem of workers’ alienation, according to Marx, is to give workers greater control over the workplace and the products of their labor. Of course, Marx did not focus on limited reforms of factory life within the general framework of capitalist economic systems. Rather, he envisioned a revolutionary overthrow of capitalist oppression and a transition to collective ownership of production (socialism) and eventually to the ideal of communism. See Émile Durkheim. Division of Labor in Society. Translated by Georg Simmel. New York: Free Press, 1933 (originally published in 1893). Also see Kai Erickson, “On Work and Alienation,” American Sociological Review 51(February 1986): 1–8. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to identify various business enterprises that attempt to monopolize products or services, and discuss why government is often hesitant to interfere. 2. Ask students to identify the common ideologies of conservative and liberal politics and compare both views with capitalism and socialism. Discuss the relationship of politics to economy. 3. Ask students to identify various socialistic practices in other nations and analyze their effects. Then, ask them to compare these effects to the effects of capitalistic practices and discuss the nature of capitalism versus socialism. 4. Ask students to identify various charismatic leaders who have intentionally or unintentionally corrupted members of a social group or even caused their deaths, and discuss the issues relevant to Weber’s views on charismatic authority. 5. Ask students to identify elements of the Iraq war that might support the elite model of power structure in the United States, and discuss the concepts and elements of Marx’s and Mills’ power elite models. 6. Ask students to identify recent United States government decisions that have changed the face of the American workforce, and discuss the changing nature of work in the United States. REEL TALK V for Vendetta (Warner Bros. Pictures, 2006, 132m). Set in a fictionalized, futuristic totalitarian Britain, the film tells the story of a young woman named Evey who is rescued from a perilous situation by a masked vigilante who goes by the name "V." Charismatic, highly skilled in combat and subterfuge, and viewed by some as a terrorist and some as a freedom fighter, V works to ignite a revolution and urges the citizens of Britain and the world to fight back against the tyranny and oppression of the current government ruled by the Norsefire party, or simply “the Party.” As Evey uncovers the truth about V's mysterious background she simultaneously learns much about herself, eventually emerging as his ally in the culmination of V’s plan to bring down the totalitarian regime and restore freedom and justice back to society, even at great cost. Director: James McTeigue. Evey: Natalie Portman. V: Hugo Weaving. Topic: Power, Government, Terrorism. Chapter 10 Social Class LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Describe the various systems of stratification. 2. Define social mobility and identify the various types of social mobility. 3. Discuss the impact of various social factors on social mobility. 4. Discuss the various sociological perspectives on stratification. 5. Identify the methods used to measure stratification. 6. Discuss the distribution of wealth and income. 7. Discuss the issues surrounding the study of poverty. 8. Discuss the relationship between stratification and life chances. CHAPTER SUMMARY Marx, Weber, and Durkheim all highlighted the significance of class differences and sought to understand both their causes and consequences. Social class is a touchy subject in the United States; many people deny that it exists. The term social inequality describes a condition in which members of society have different amounts of wealth, prestige, or power. Sociologists refer to social inequality that is built into the structure of society as stratification, the structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society. To help understand stratification systems, recall the distinction between ascribed and achieved statuses. An ascribed status is a social position assigned to a person without regard for his or her unique talents or characteristics. Race, gender, and ethnicity are examples of ascribed statuses. An achieved status is a social position attained by a person largely through his or her own efforts, such as becoming a corporate executive or graduating from college. There are four major systems of stratification. The most extreme form of legalized social inequality for individuals and groups is slavery, in which some people are owned by others as property. Castes are hereditary ranks, usually religiously dictated, that tend to be fixed and immobile. The estate system, also known as feudalism, was a stratification system in which peasants were required to work the land of a noble in exchange for military protection and other services. A class system is a social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence social mobility. Sociologists commonly use a five-class model to describe the class system in the United States. The lower class is disproportionately comprised of Blacks, Hispanics, single mothers with dependent children, and recent immigrants. Social mobility is the degree to which one can change the social stratum into which one is born. Stories of upward social mobility are metaphors for the seeming permeability of modern class boundaries. In an open system, the position of each person is influenced by his or her achieved status. In a closed system, there is little or no possibility of individual social mobility. Horizontal mobility is the movement of an individual from one social position to another of the same rank. Vertical mobility is the movement of an individual from one social position to another of a different rank. It can be both upward and downward. Intergenerational mobility involves changes in the social position of children relative to their parents. Intragenerational mobility involves changes in social position within a person’s adult life. In Karl Marx’s view, social relations during any period of history depend on who controls the primary mode of economic production. He examined social relations within capitalism, and focused on the two classes that emerged as the estate system declined: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie is the capitalist class that owns the means of production, and the proletariat is comprised of working-class people who lack ownership of the means of production. According to Marx, the proletariat is exploited by the bourgeoisie, but this exploitation will inevitably lead to the destruction of the capitalist system because the workers will revolt. They will develop class consciousness—a subjective awareness of their common vested interests and the need for collective political action to bring about change—and overthrow capitalism in favor of a more equitable distribution system. To do this, though, workers will have to overcome false consciousness, attitudes that do not reflect their objective position that have been engendered by the dominant ideology of the capitalists. Unlike Marx, Max Weber insisted that social class does not totally define a person’s position within the stratification system. Weber identified three components of stratification—class, status group, and party—that work together to shape individual and group power. In Weber's definition, a class is a group of people who have a similar level of economic resources, including not just the means of production but also land and savings, as well as valuable knowledge and skills. A status group consists of people who share the same perceived level of prestige. This prestige is a social resource that can provide (or limit) opportunities in society. In Weber's formulation, party represents the capacity to organize to accomplish a particular goal. The civil rights movement in the United States is a classic example of people who lacked class and status group resources mobilizing the power of organization to achieve their aims. Pierre Bourdieu introduced the concept of cultural capital, our tastes, knowledge, attitudes, and ways of thinking that we exchange in interaction with others. For Bourdieu, because culture is hierarchically valued, it is a form of power. The cultural capital of the elite is tied to their control over economic and social resources, and can be used as a form of exclusion from jobs, organizations, and opportunities. Our cultural preferences are shaped by our social class positions. People of different classes often wear different styles of clothes, listen to different music, speak differently, and are otherwise easy to distinguish from one another. Sociologists use occupational prestige—the respect that and admiration that an occupation holds in society—as one way to describe the relative social class positions people occupy. The reputation that a specific person has earned within an occupation is their esteem. Socioeconomic status is a measure of social class that is based on income, education, occupation, and related variables. Income and wealth are material ways to measure social class, with income representing how much money someone receives over a specific period of time and wealth being the total value of all of someone's material assets (less debt) at a particular point in time. Income inequality is a basic characteristic of a class system. By all measures, income in the United States is unevenly distributed. Income inequality has increased steadily since 1970. Wealth in the U.S. is much more unevenly distributed than income. The top 20 percent of households in the United States owns over 87% of all wealth in the country. In 2011, 15 percent of the U.S. population was officially considered to be living in poverty. Absolute poverty refers to a minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below. Relative poverty is a floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison with the nation as a whole. In the United States, nearly one-third of those officially considered poor are not of working age. Many people who do work are poor. More than half of all households in poverty are headed by women. Some sociologists have used the term underclass to describe the long-term poor who lack training and skills. African Americans and Latinos are more likely than Whites to be persistently poor. The belief in upward social mobility is an important value in the United States. Occupational mobility has been particularly common among White males. Education, gender, and race are important factors in one’s upward mobility. Studies show that while social mobility in the United States is real, most people do not move very far up, or down, from the social position of their parents. Max Weber saw class as being closely related to people’s life chances. Occupying a higher position in a society improves individuals’ access to material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences. Another aspect of social inequality is the digital divide, the relative lack of access to the latest technologies among low-income groups, racial and ethnic minorities, rural residents, and the citizens of developing countries. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources 1. What are the major systems of stratification? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: stratification, slavery, caste, estate system, class system 2. What are the key factors in social mobility? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: social mobility, open system, closed system, horizontal mobility, vertical mobility, intergenerational mobility, intragenerational mobility 3. How do Marx, Weber, and other theorists view stratification? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: bourgeoisie, proletariat, class consciousness, false consciousness, class, status group, party, cultural capital 4. How is social class measured in the United States? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: prestige, esteem, socioeconomic status (SES), income, wealth 5. What are the issues and controversies surrounding the study of poverty? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: absolute poverty, relative poverty, underclass 6. How does class relate to life chances? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: life chances, digital divide LECTURE OUTLINE I. Understanding Stratification • Marx, Weber, and Durkheim all highlighted the significance of class differences and sought to understand both their causes and consequences.• Social class has long been a touchy subject in the United States. Some deny that it exists, and argue that individual effort alone determines one’s life outcome. A. Systems of Stratification • Social inequality describes a condition in which members of society have different amounts of wealth, prestige, or power. • Some degree of social inequality characterizes every society. • Sociologists refer to social inequality that is built into the structure of society as stratification—the structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in society. Control over resources enables one generation to pass on social advantages to the next. • To help understand stratification systems, recall the distinction between ascribed status and achieved status. • Ascribed status is a social position assigned to a person by society without regard for his or her unique talents or characteristics. • Achieved status is a social position attained by a person largely through his or her own efforts. 1. Slavery • A system of enforced servitude in which enslaved individuals are owned by other people, who treat them as property. • The most extreme form of legalized social inequality for individuals and groups. • Slaves in ancient Greece were prisoners of war or individuals captured and sold by pirates. Their status was not necessarily permanent or passed on to the next generation. In the U.S. and Latin America, slavery was an ascribed status, and racial and legal barriers prevented their being freed. • Today the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits slavery in all its forms, yet millions of people still live as slaves. 2. Castes • Hereditary ranks, usually religiously dictated, that tend to be fixed and immobile. Example: Four major castes, or varnas, in India. • Also an ascribed status; children assume the same position as their parents, and members are expected to marry within that caste. • Urbanization and technological advancements have brought more change to India’s caste system in the past two decades than the government has been able to effect since formally outlawing the practice in 1950. 3. Estates • Also known as feudalism. Peasants were required to work land leased to them by nobles in exchange for military protection and other services. • Nobles inherited their titles and property, and peasants were born into their subservient positions. 4. Social Classes • A class system is a social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence social mobility. • The boundaries between classes are imprecisely defined, and one can move from one stratum to another. • Class standing is heavily dependent on family and on ascribed factors such as race and ethnicity. • Sociologists use a five-class model to describe the class system in the U.S. Only 1 to 2 percent of the people in the U.S. are in the upper class, whereas the lower class (also called the under class) consists of approximately 15 to 20 percent of the population. The lower class is disproportionately comprised of Blacks, Hispanics, single mothers with dependent children, and recent immigrants. B. Social Mobility • Movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society’s stratification system to another. • Stories of upward social mobility are metaphors for the seeming permeability of modern class boundaries. 1. Open Versus Closed Stratification Systems • An open system is one in which the social position of each individual is influenced by his or her achieved status. Encourages competition among members of society. • A closed system is one in which there is little or no possibility of individual social mobility, such as slavery or caste systems. Social placement is based on ascribed statuses. 2. Types of Social Mobility • Horizontal mobility refers to the movement of an individual from one social position to another of the same rank. Example: A bus driver who becomes a hotel clerk. • Vertical mobility is the movement of an individual from one social position to another of a different rank. Can be upward or downward. Examples: A bus driver who becomes a lawyer; a lawyer who becomes a bus driver. • Intergenerational mobility involves changes in social position of children relative to their parents. Example: A film star whose parents were factory workers. • Intragenerational mobility involves social changes within a person’s adult life. Example: A teacher’s aide becoming a superintendent. • One way to define the “American Dream” is as upward vertical mobility that is intragenerational. The “American reality,” however, is that we tend to end up in positions relatively close to where we began. II. Sociological Perspectives on Stratification • Karl Marx argued that material resources were most important in social stratification. • Max Weber argued that three primary resources shape social position. • Pierre Bourdieu highlighted the significance of culture. • Three kinds of resources: material, social, and cultural. A. Marx on Class • His view was that social relations during any period of history depend on who controls the primary mode of economic production. • He examined social relations within capitalism. • He focused on the two classes that emerged as the estate system declined: the bourgeoisie—the capitalist class that owns the means of production, and the proletariat—the working-class people whose members lack ownership of the means of production, and are exploited by the bourgeoisie. • Marx predicted the exploited proletariat would eventually revolt and destroy the capitalist system after they develop class consciousness, a subjective awareness of common vested interests and the need for collective political action to bring about social change. • Often, this meant overcoming the false consciousness—an attitude held by members of a class that does not accurately reflect their objective position —engendered in the proletariat by the dominant ideology the bourgeoisie uses to maintain its powerful social, economic, and political interests. B. Weber on Power • Weber insisted that class does not totally define a person’s position within the stratification system. • He identified three components of stratification—class (a group of people who have a similar level of economic resources), status group (people who share the same perceived level of prestige), and party (the capacity to organize to accomplish some particular goal)—that work together to shape individual and group power. • Each of us has not one rank in society, but three, in which each rank influences the other two. Example: George W. Bush. C. Bourdieu and Culture • Pierre Bourdieu introduced the concept of cultural capital—our tastes, knowledge, language, and ways of thinking that we exchange in interaction with others. • For him, because culture is hierarchically valued, it is a form of power. • People in different social class positions possess different types of cultural capital. • The cultural capital of the elite is tied to their control over economic and social resources, and can be used as a form of exclusion from jobs, organizations, and opportunities. • Cultural capital is passed down in the same way as material capital; thus, social mobility requires a social and cultural transformation. D. Material, Social, and Cultural Resources • Material resources refer to economic resources that we own or control, including money, property, and land. • Social resources include prestige based on the position we occupy and connections based on the social networks we are a part of. • Cultural resources include our tastes, language, and way of looking at the world. III. Social Class in the United States • Social class differences impact our daily lives. A. Cultural Capital • Our cultural tastes are tied to social and material resources and can serve as a means of exclusion. Examples: Clothes, houses, vacations. • Our preferences are shaped by our social class positions. B. Status and Prestige • We rank people relative to each other. • Sociologists seek to describe those ranking systems and the advantages and disadvantages they convey. 1. Occupational Prestige • Prestige is the respect and admiration that an occupation holds in society. Example: My daughter, the physicist vs. my daughter, the waitress. • It is one way sociologists describe the relative social class positions people occupy. • Prestige is independent of the particular individual who occupies a job. • Esteem refers to the reputation that a specific person has earned within an occupation. 2. Socioeconomic Status • Socioeconomic status (SES) is a measure of social class that is based on income, education, occupation, and related variables. • In addition to occupational prestige, researchers add other variables to the mix to gain a more complete picture of social class standing. These include value of homes, sources of income, assets, years in present occupation, neighborhoods, and considerations regarding dual careers. • Society often undervalues, in terms of prestige and pay, work that is essential for our individual and collective survival. • Some organizations have tried to give a monetary value to women’s unpaid work. Example: the United Nations has placed an $11-trillion price tag on unpaid labor by women, largely in child care, housework, and agriculture. C. Income and Wealth • Income and wealth serve as the material foundation of social class. • Income refers to wages and salaries measured over some period, such as per hour or per year. • Wealth is the total of all a person’s material assets, including savings, land, stocks, and other types of property, minus his or her debt at a single point in time. 1. Income • Income inequality is a basic characteristic of a class system. • By all measures, income in the U.S. is unevenly distributed. • Income inequality has increased steadily since 1970. The income gap between the richest and the poorest groups is rising. • Americans do not appear to be seriously concerned about income and wealth inequality. 2. Wealth • Wealth in the U.S. is much more unevenly distributed than income. • The top 1 percent owns over 35 percent of all wealth in the United States, which is more than the bottom 90 percent combined. 3. Middle-Class Struggles • Middle incomes have remained steady or even fallen over the past 40 years, while the income shares of those in the top quintile, and especially the top 5 percent, increased substantially. • Sociologists have identified several contributing factors: (1) disappearing opportunities for those with little education; (2) global competition and rapid advances in technology; (3) growing dependence on the temporary workforce; and (4) the rise of new-growth industries and nonunion workplaces. • Observers have noted that U.S. living standards are improving, but accomplishing such goals as large homes, college degrees for children, and high-quality health care often means becoming a dual-income family, working longer hours, or taking multiple jobs. • As a result of the post-2008 economic downturn, many middle-class employees lost their jobs and the ripple effect led to increased bankruptcies and mortgage foreclosures. D. Poverty • In 2011, approximately 46 million people in the United States—15 percent of the population—were living in poverty. 1. Defining Poverty • Absolute poverty refers to a minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below. • A common measure is the federal government’s poverty line, a money income figure that the government adjusts annually to reflect the consumption requirements of families based on their size and composition. Many nations, including the United States, use some form of this criterion as the basis of their definition of poverty. • As of 2012, a family consisting of two adults and two children with a combined annual income of $22,811 or less fell below the poverty line, and a single person under the age of 65 must earn less than $11,702 annually to be officially considered poor. • By absolute standards, poverty has declined in the U.S., but it remains higher than in many other industrial nations. • Relative poverty is a floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society, whatever their lifestyles, are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison with the nation as a whole. • Even if today’s poor are better off in absolute terms than the poor of the 1930s or 1960s, they are still seen as poor relative to those above them. Someone who would be considered poor by U.S. standards would be well off by global poverty standards; hunger and starvation are daily realities in many regions of the world. 2. Who Are the Poor? • Our stereotypes about poverty are flawed. • The likelihood of being in poverty is shaped by factors such as age, race, ethnicity, and family type. • Since World War II an increasing proportion of the poor people of the U.S. have been women, many of whom are divorced or never-married mothers. • In 2011, 2.7 million people who worked full-time, year-round were in poverty. • Of those poor adults who do not work, many are ill or disabled, or are occupied in maintaining a home. • Many of the nation’s poor are either under age 18 or 65 years old or older. • In 2011, more than half of poor families in the United States were headed by women, reflecting the feminization of poverty. • William Julius Wilson has used the term underclass to describe the long-term poor who lack training and skills. • The overall composition of the poor changes continuously, as some move above the poverty line and others slip below it. • In 1996 Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, ending the longstanding federal guarantee of assistance to every poor family that meets eligibility requirements. It sets a lifetime limit of five years of welfare benefits and requires all able-bodied adults to work after receiving two years of benefits. • Most industrialized nations devote higher proportions of their expenditures to housing, social security, welfare, health care, and unemployment compensation than the U.S. does. • Poverty is about more than just money; poor people often lack the social network connections and educational credentials to help them get good jobs. E. Social Mobility • The belief in upward mobility is an important value in the United States. But the principle of opportunity does not necessarily match the practice of mobility. 1. Occupational Mobility • Has been common among males. Approximately 60 to 70 percent of sons are employed in higher-ranked occupations than their fathers. • There is a great deal of mobility, but much of it is minor. 2. Income and Wealth • Sons of low-income fathers have almost a 60 percent chance of rising above the lowest quintile, but only a 22.5 percent chance of reaching the median and a 4.5 percent chance of breaking into the top quintile. • Thirty-six percent of children with parents in the lowest quintile end up there themselves while only 7 percent make it to the top quintile. • Thirty-six percent of children with parents in the top quintile stay there while only 11 percent drop down into the bottom quintile. • The likelihood of ending up in the same position as your parents has been rising since about 1980. 3. Education • Education plays a critical role in mobility. • The impact of formal schooling on adult status is even greater than that of family background (although family background influences the likelihood that one will receive a higher education). • It represents an important means of intergenerational mobility. • It is a critical factor in the development of cultural capital. Thus, access to higher education plays an important role in social mobility. • The impact of education on mobility has diminished over the past decade. BA/BS degrees serve less as a guarantee of upward mobility now than in the past, because more people have them. • Intergenerational mobility is declining since there is no longer such a stark contrast between generations. 4. Race and Ethnicity • The class system is more rigid for African Americans than for members of other racial groups. • Black men with good jobs are less likely than White men to see their children attain the same status. • Adult Black children are less likely than adult White children to receive financial support from their parents. • Young Black couples are much more likely than young White couples to be assisting their parents. • Downward mobility is significantly higher for Blacks than for Whites. • The Latino population also faces substantial economic inequality. As of 2011, median wealth for non-Hispanic households was 15 times greater than Hispanic households, representing the highest disparity since at least 1984. 5. Gender • Traditional mobility studies have ignored gender. • Women’s employment opportunities are much more limited than men’s. • Women are more likely than men to withdraw from the labor force if their job skills far exceed the jobs offered them. • Large range of clerical occupations open to women offer modest salaries and little chance to advance. • Women find it harder to secure financing to start self-employment ventures than men do. • Women are unlikely to move into their fathers’ positions. • Women in the United States (and in other parts of the world) are especially likely to be trapped in poverty, unable to rise out of their low-income status. The mobility of daughters of low-income parents is severely restricted. IV. Life Chances • Max Weber saw class as being closely related to people’s life chances—their opportunities to provide themselves with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences. • Life chances are reflected in measures such as housing, education, and health. • Occupying a higher position in a society improves individuals’ life chances and brings greater access to social rewards. • People in the lower social classes are forced to devote a larger proportion of their limited resources to the necessities of life. • In times of danger, the affluent and powerful have a better chance of surviving. Example: The Titanic tragedy. • Class position affects people’s vulnerability to natural disasters. Example: Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the poor of New Orleans. • Another aspect of social inequality has emerged, the digital divide. This is the relative lack of access to the latest technologies among low-income groups, racial and ethnic minorities, rural residents, and the citizens of developing countries. KEY TERMS Absolute poverty A minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below. Bourgeoisie Karl Marx’s term for the capitalist class, comprising the owners of the means of production. Capitalism An economic system in which the means of production are held largely in private hands and the main incentive for economic activity is the accumulation of profits. Caste A hereditary rank, usually religiously dictated, that tends to be fixed and immobile. Class A group of people who have a similar level of economic resources. Class consciousness In Karl Marx’s view, a subjective awareness held by members of a class regarding their common vested interests and need for collective political action to bring about social change. Class system A social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence social mobility. Closed system A social system in which there is little or no possibility of individual social mobility. Cultural capital Our tastes, knowledge, attitudes, language, and ways of thinking that we exchange in interaction with others. Digital divide The relative lack of access to the latest technologies among low-income groups, racial and ethnic minorities, rural residents, and the citizens of developing countries. Estate system A system of stratification under which peasants were required to work land leased to them by nobles in exchange for military protection and other services. Also known as feudalism. Esteem The reputation that a specific person has earned within an occupation. False consciousness A term used by Karl Marx to describe an attitude held by members of a class that does not accurately reflect their objective position. Horizontal mobility The movement of an individual from one social position to another of the same rank. Income Money received over some period of time. Intergenerational mobility Changes in the social position of children relative to their parents. Intragenerational mobility Changes in social position within a person’s adult life. Life chances The opportunities people have to provide themselves with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences. Open system A social system in which the position of each individual is influenced by his or her achieved status. Party The capacity to organize to accomplish some particular goal. Prestige The respect and admiration that an occupation holds in a society. Proletariat Karl Marx’s term for the working class in a capitalist society, who lack ownership of the means of production. Relative poverty A floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society, whatever their lifestyles, are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison with the nation as a whole. Slavery A system of enforced servitude in which some people are owned by others as property. Social mobility Movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society’s stratification system to another. Socioeconomic status (SES) A measure of class that is based on income, education, occupation, and related variables. Status group People who share the same perceived level of prestige. Stratification A structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society. Underclass The long-term poor who lack training and skills. Vertical mobility The movement of an individual from one social position to another of a different rank. Wealth The total of all a person’s material assets minus debts at a single point in time. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 10-1: Status Inconsistency—Janitors and Tenants Sociologist Ray Gold interviewed apartment building janitors in Chicago. Since these janitors are unionized, they have relatively good wages and are eligible for rent-free apartments. But like people in most occupations, janitors have an image, in this case, unfavorable. They are viewed by tenants and the public as ignorant, lazy, and dirty. In addition, it is assumed that anyone, even if he or she has failed at everything else, can be a janitor. These stereotypes are reinforced by the menial tasks performed by janitors (such as emptying the garbage), the dirty clothes they wear, and the fact that many of them are foreign-born. These stereotypes make the janitor’s job difficult, since social relationships with the tenants are important. While making efforts to establish good relations with the tenants, janitors are well aware that their jobs are held in low esteem. Even people who are viewed as “good tenants” maintain a social distance from janitors. The janitors in Gold’s study commented on the jealousy expressed by tenants whenever janitors tried to better themselves. A raise in pay, a new automobile, or new furnishings in the janitor’s apartment lead to unkind remarks and sarcasm. And live-in janitors are never able to get away from these attitudes, since the building is their home. Professional ethics are something we associate with lawyers and psychiatrists, but Gold found that janitors have them as well. They frequently know a tenant’s personal secrets, and they must learn proper procedures for easing gracefully out of delicate situations. Both the professional behavior and the substantial income of janitors contradict tenants’ views of them as servants. But this conceptual conflict remains unresolved: middle-class tenants depend on janitors but do not regard the job as a middle-class occupation. Workshops for janitors and custodians, often held on college campuses, are furthering the janitors’ image of themselves as professionals. Yet there is little indication that tenants’ image of janitors is also improving. Source: See Ray Gold, “Janitors versus Tenants: A Status-Income Dilemma,” American Journal of Sociology 57 (March 1952): 486–493. 10-2: Measuring Social Class: Subjective and Reputational Methods In addition to the objective method of measuring social class, sociologists use two other techniques: the subjective method and the reputational method. The subjective method of measuring social class permits individuals to locate themselves within a system of social ranking. Class is viewed as a social rather than a statistical category. The subjective method assumes that people can identify their membership in a social class just as they would their race, gender or age; other types of social differentiation. In a sense, this method measures the class consciousness discussed by Karl Marx. Although it is easy to use, the subjective method has several shortcomings. In defining their own social class, people may reveal their aspirations rather than their actual positions; that is, they may respond with a type of false consciousness. For example, many people say they are “middle-class” when in fact their earnings and savings are too low for this classification. In addition, there is a general tendency for Americans to call themselves “middle-class” or “working class,” perhaps reflecting the importance of equality as a value in our society, and to avoid identifying with the elitist upper class or the disadvantaged lower class. National surveys show that an overwhelming majority of Americans define themselves as middle or working class. Thus, the subjective method may convey a false impression that there is little class differentiation in the United States. With the reputational method of measuring social class, class membership depends on the evaluation of selected observers. That is, you will be considered a member of a given social class if others see you that way. Like the subjective method, the reputational method views class as a social category. Sociologists using the reputational method call on a group of “judges,” who are familiar with a community and all its members, to rate the positions of various individuals within the stratification system. W. Lloyd Warner employed this technique in his detailed study of a community he called “Yankee City”; he determined a person’s social class by asking others how the person ranked within the community. (See Warner and Paul S. Lunt. The Status System of a Modern Community. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1942.) Of course, the reputational method is limited to studies of small communities or small groups. 10-3: Is There a “Culture of Poverty”? Anthropologist Oscar Lewis, in several publications based on research conducted among Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, identified what he called the “culture of poverty.” Lewis believed that poverty has a strong effect on family life and leaves a negative mark that upward mobility may not erase. In other words, the implication of Lewis’s “culture of poverty” is that the poor will continue to exhibit their deviant lifestyle—“living for today,” not planning for the future, having no enduring commitment to marriage, lacking a work ethic, and so forth—even when they move out of the slums. Lewis stressed the inevitability of living out the culture of poverty regardless of later events. See Oscar Lewis. Five Families. New York: Basic Books, 1959; Oscar Lewis. La Vida. New York: Random House, 1965. This argument has been widely employed to justify antipoverty programs designed to bring “middle-class virtues” to the children of the poor. It is also used to discourage giving poor people control over programs aimed at assisting them. To say that Lewis and similar thinkers have touched off a controversy is an understatement. Critics argue that Lewis sought out exotic, pathological behavior. He ignored behavior indicating that even among the poor, most people live conventionally and strive to achieve goals similar to those of the middle class. For example, archeologists at the University of Arizona have monitored trends in food utilization by examining household refuse—an example of unobtrusive measures—and found that low-income households went further than middle class households in choosing less expensive items, and that they wasted even less. William Ryan contends that lack of money is the cause of poor people’s problems and of any discrepancies in behavior; not inherent disabilities or aftereffects of child rearing practices. It is unfair, according to Ryan, to blame the poor for their lack of money, low educational levels, poor health, and low-paying jobs. See Ryan. Blaming the Victim, rev. ed. New York: Random House, 1976. In the debate over a culture of poverty, policy makers neglect to make a distinction between culture and subculture. The poor in the United States do not make up a culture unto themselves; they are one segment of the larger American culture. The behavioral patterns of the poor that arise out of their low-income status may constitute a subculture, but poor people still share most of the larger society’s norms and values. Social planners must develop fresh initiatives that recognize these similarities and yet respect the distinctive qualities of the subculture. See Charles A. Valentine. Culture and Poverty: Critique and Counter-Proposals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968, p. 218. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to find examples of disparity or inequality between freshmen and senior college students in the way each group is treated by college professors and students. Discuss caste and class systems to help explain some of the differences in perceptions. 2. Ask students to examine historical events that illustrate Marx’s concept of false consciousness in which the working classes readily supported causes put forth by powerful groups in society. Discuss how a false consciousness may develop and lead to people giving their life for those of another class grouping. 3. Ask students to search for evidence that supports the view that affluent persons tend to blame homeless people for being poor. 4. Ask students to interview their parents, grandparents, and other adult relatives to ascertain how their occupations have changed during their working careers, and discuss the frequency and types of social mobility. 5. Ask students to find advertising or periodical articles that illustrate the influence of the powerful groups controlling opportunities for less influential persons. REEL TALK Trouble the Water (Zeitgeist Films, 2008, 96m). An aspiring rap artist, Kimberly Rivers Roberts, and her husband, Scott, use a video camera to show what survival is all about after they are trapped in New Orleans by floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The directors combined this home video footage with archival news segments and verité footage shot over two years to document a remarkable journey. Directors: Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. Topic: Social class. Chapter 11 Global Inequality LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Discuss the impact of modernization. 2. Describe the significance of colonialism and multinational corporations. 3. Discuss stratification around the world. 4. Describe the significance of wealth and income distribution, poverty, and social mobility. 5. Discuss stratification in Mexico. 6. Describe the significance of Mexico’s race relations, status of women, and the borderlands. 7. Discuss the section on universal human rights. CHAPTER SUMMARY A few centuries ago, most people were poor. The Industrial Revolution and rising agricultural productivity resulted in explosive economic growth, but the ensuing rise in living standards was not evenly distributed across the world. Early sociologists often assumed that society was progressing toward some common positive future. Many people supposed that, through modernization, nations would move from traditional forms of social organization toward forms characteristic of post–Industrial Revolution societies. Many contemporary sociologists point out that terms such as modernization and development contain an ethnocentric bias. Such modernization represents a form of cultural imperialism. Colonialism occurs when a foreign power maintains political, social, economic, and cultural dominance over a people for an extended period. It offers an alternative perspective to modernization. By the 1980s, colonialism had largely disappeared, but in many cases was replaced with neocolonialism, with former colonies continuing to be dependent on foreign countries. Immanuel Wallerstein views the global economic system as divided between nations that control wealth and nations from which resources are taken. Wallerstein advanced a world systems analysis to describe the unequal economic and political relationships in which core nations exploit periphery nations. Wallerstein’s world systems analysis is the most widely used version of dependency theory, which contends that industrialized nations continue to exploit developing nations. Globalization is closely related to these problems. Multinational corporations that are headquartered in one country but do business around the world have played a key role in globalization. Some believe that multinational corporations help developing nations, while critics of multinational expansion argue that they exploit local workers to maximize profits. The gap between rich and poor nations is widening. The top 10 percent of the world’s population owns over 85 percent of global household wealth, and the top 1 percent own over 45 percent. The United States possesses nearly 28 percent of the world's wealth with only 5 percent of its population. Women in developing countries face especially serious obstacles. Eighty percent of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day. The UN Millennium Project established 2015 as the target date for reaching specific, measurable goals to alleviate hunger and improve education, gender equality, and child mortality, and much progress toward these goals has been made. To accomplish the project’s goals, planners estimate that industrial nations must set aside 0.7 percent of their gross national income (GNI)—the total value of a nation’s goods and services—for aid to developing nations. Intergenerational mobility varies across countries. In developing nations, macrolevel social and economic changes often overshadow microlevel movement from one occupation to another. In large developing nations, the most socially significant mobility is the movement out of poverty, which is difficult to measure and confirm. Development may result in the modification of traditional cultural practices, but the effects on women’s social standing and mobility are not necessarily positive. Mexico is considered a semiperiphery nation. The gap between rich and poor there is one of the widest in the world. The country is divided along lines of class, race, religion, gender, and age. Mexico’s color hierarchy links social class status to the appearance of racial purity. Women comprise 45 percent of the labor force in Mexico, but are even more mired in the lowest-paying jobs than their counterparts in industrial nations. The term borderlands refers to the area of common culture along the border of Mexico and the United States. Maquiladoras (foreign factories near the border with the United States) are now experiencing the same challenges from global trade as U.S. manufacturing plants have. The social impact of immigration to the United States is felt throughout Mexico. The flow of remittances, monies that immigrants to the United States send back to family in Mexico, is second only to oil as a source of foreign revenue for Mexico. As the impacts of globalization have spread, a movement toward ensuring universal human rights has arisen. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN in 1948. At first it was opposed by the United States. Ongoing human rights concerns include ethnic cleansing and human trafficking. Disagreements over what constitutes a violation have occurred. Efforts to protect and ensure human rights usually arise from social movements, not governments. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources 1. What are the issues in global stratification? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: modernization, colonialism, neocolonialism, world systems analysis, dependency theory, multinational corporation 2. What does stratification around the world look like? IN THE TEXT Key Term: gross national income (GNI) 3. What does stratification in Mexico look like? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: borderlands, remittances 4. What are the issues involved in universal human rights? IN THE TEXT Key Term: human rights LECTURE OUTLINE I. The Global Divide • The global resource divide is immense. • A few centuries ago, most people were poor. The Industrial Revolution and rising agricultural productivity resulted in explosive economic growth, but the ensuing rise in living standards was not evenly distributed across the world. • The industrial nations, with a much smaller share of the total population, have much higher incomes and many more exports than the developing nations. • In 2010, per capita gross national income in industrialized countries was more than $40,000; at the same time it was less than $1,000 in more than 30 other countries. II. Perspectives on Global Stratification • Theorists examine global inequality from a macro perspective. A. The Rise of Modernization • Early sociologists often assumed that society was progressing toward some common positive future. • The notion that the present was superior to the past and that the future would unite us all shaped how people viewed the world throughout much of the 20th century. • It was thought this would occur through modernization—the far-reaching process by which nations move from traditional forms of social organization toward forms characteristic of post–Industrial Revolution societies. • From this perspective, just as many people in the U.S. and Europe experienced displacement and poverty in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, only later to lead more comfortable lives, the same future awaits those in developing nations. • Many contemporary sociologists are quick to note that terms such as modernization and development contain an ethnocentric bias. There is an implicit sense in this model that people in developing nations are more “primitive” and that modern Western culture is more advanced, more “civilized.” • Such modernization represents a form of cultural imperialism. B. The Legacy of Colonialism • Colonialism occurs when a foreign power maintains political, social, economic, and cultural domination over a people for an extended period. Example: The British Empire in North America and India. • By the 1980s, colonialism had largely disappeared. But colonial domination had established patterns of economic exploitation that continued even after nationhood was achieved. • The dependence of former colonies on more industrialized nations, including their former colonial masters, for managerial and technical expertise, investment capital, and manufactured goods kept them in a subservient position. Such continuing dependence and foreign domination is referred to as neocolonialism. • Immanuel Wallerstein views the global economic system as being divided between certain industrialized nations that control wealth, and developing nations from which resources are taken. He advanced a world systems analysis to describe the unequal economic and political relationships in which core nations exploit periphery nations. • Core nations and their corporations control and exploit noncore nations’ economies. • The division between core and periphery nations is both significant and remarkably stable. • However, the world is becomingly increasingly urbanized, a trend that is gradually eliminating the large pools of low-cost workers in rural areas. In the future, core nations will have to find other ways to reduce their labor costs. The exhaustion of land and water resources through clear-cutting and pollution is also driving up the costs of production. • Wallerstein’s world systems analysis is the most widely used version of dependency theory, which contends that industrialized nations continue to exploit developing countries for their own gain. • According to this theory, even as developing countries make economic advances, they remain weak and subservient to core nations and corporations in an increasingly intertwined global economy. • The global debt crisis has intensified Third World dependency rooted in colonialism, neocolonialism, and multinational investment. • Globalization—the worldwide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of ideas—is closely related to these problems. • The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have emerged as major players in the global economy, and are seen by many as promoting the interests of core nations. C. The Growth of Multinational Corporations • Multinational corporations are commercial organizations that are headquartered in one country but do business around the world. • They don’t just buy and sell overseas; they also produce goods all over the world. • The total revenues of some multinational corporations are on a par with the total value of goods and services exchanged in entire nations. 1. Modernization • Supporters of modernization believe that multinationals benefit developing countries by bringing jobs and industries and by promoting rapid development through diffusion of inventions and innovations from industrial nations. • The combination of skilled technology and management provided by multinationals and the relatively cheap labor available in developing nations benefits the corporation. • They facilitate the exchange of ideas and technology around the world, making the world more interdependent. 2. Dependency • Critics of multinationals argue that they exploit local workers to maximize profits. Example: Starbucks. • The pool of cheap labor in the developing world encourages multinationals to move factories out of core countries. • Workers in developing countries lack legal protections and lack unions to fight on their behalf. • Governments seeking to attract or keep multinationals may develop a “climate for investment,” including repressive antilabor laws. If labor demands become too threatening, multinationals just move elsewhere. • Multinational investment may initially contribute to a host nation’s wealth, but eventually it increases economic inequality within developing nations. • In the host nation, the upper and middle classes benefit the most from economic expansion in developing nations. • Only some economic sectors in the host nation tend to benefit, such as hotels and high-end restaurants, benefit. Growth is slowed in agricultural and other economic sectors. • Multinationals often buy out or force out local entrepreneurs, thereby increasing economic and cultural dependence. III. Stratification Around the World • The gap between rich and poor nations is widening, as is the gap between the rich and poor within nations. A. Income and Wealth • The top 10 percent of the world’s population own more than 85 percent of global household wealth, and the top 1 percent own over 45 percent. • On the other end of the spectrum, the bottom 50 percent of the world’s population combined own less than a percent of global wealth. • The bulk of the wealth is held by countries in North America, Europe, and the rich Asia-Pacific nations. • Women in developing countries face significant obstacles. B. Poverty • Eighty percent of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day. • Poverty is distributed unequally. • The UN’s Millennium Project has established 2015 as the target date for reaching specific, measurable goals to alleviate hunger and improve education, gender equality, and child mortality. • Significant progress has been made toward many of the goals. • To accomplish this, industrial nations must set aside 0.7 percent of their gross national income (GNI)—the total value of a nation’s goods and services—for aid to developing nations. • Although the U.S. delivers far more total aid dollars than any other nation, the rate of GNI it contributes places it 19th out of 23 industrialized nations. C. Social Mobility 1. Intergenerational Mobility Across Nations • Varies across countries. • In developing nations, macrolevel social and economic changes often overshadow microlevel movement from one occupation to another. • In large developing nations, the most socially significant mobility is the movement out of poverty, which is difficult to measure and confirm. • Dramatically influenced by catastrophes such as crop failure and warfare. 2. Gender Differences and Mobility • Effects of development on women’s social standing and mobility are not necessarily positive. • As a country modernizes, women’s vital role in food production deteriorates, jeopardizing women’s autonomy and material well-being. D. Social Stratification in Mexico • Colonialism, neocolonialism, and the domination and exploitation of a peripheral developing country can be seen in the history of Mexico, which is still considered a semiperiphery nation. 1. Mexico’s Economy • Comparing Mexico to the U.S.: In 2012, gross national income per person in the United States came to $48,620; in Mexico, it was $9,420. In Mexico, roughly 35 percent of adults aged 25–64 have completed high school compared to over 88 percent in the United States. And fewer than 6.4 of every 1,000 infants in the United States die in the first year of life, compared to about 13.4 per 1,000 in Mexico. • The gap between its richest and poorest citizens is substantial. • The country is divided along lines of class, race, religion, gender, and age. 2. Race Relations in Mexico: The Color Hierarchy • The subordinate status of Mexico’s Indians is just one reflection of the nation’s color hierarchy, which links social class to the appearance of racial purity. • At the top of the hierarchy are the 10 percent of the population who are criollos (White, well-educated members of the business and intellectual elites, with familial roots in Spain). • In the middle are the large impoverished mestizo majority, most of whom have brown skin and mixed racial lineage as a result of intermarriage. • At the bottom are the destitute, full-blooded Mexican Indian minority and a small number of Blacks. • There is widespread denial of prejudice and discrimination against people of color. Schoolchildren are taught that the election of Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian, as president of Mexico in the 19th century proves that all Mexicans are equal. 3. The Status of Women in Mexico • Women constitute 45 percent of Mexico’s labor force, but they are even more mired in the lowest-paying jobs than their counterparts in industrial nations. • Women find it hard to get credit and technical assistance, and to inherit land in rural areas. • Politically, Mexican women are rarely part of top decision-making processes, although they have increased their representation in the national legislature, to 28 percent. • In recent decades, Mexican women have organized to address an array of economic, political, and health issues. 4. The Borderlands • The area of common culture along the border between Mexico and the U.S. • Day laborers who cross the border daily to work in the U.S., legal and illegal immigration, NAFTA, and the exchange of media make the notion of separate cultures in the borderlands obsolete. • Maquiladoras—foreign-owned companies, often located just across the border in Mexico—are allowed to import parts and materials without tariffs. • Maquiladoras exporting to the U.S. are an important part of the Mexican economy, making it sensitive to fluctuations in U.S. demand. • Maquiladoras really took off after NAFTA was implemented. With China’s entry into the WTO, however, jobs that had moved from the U.S. to Mexico are now being transferred to China. 5. Emigration to the United States • Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans became U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents in 2011, but even more were apprehended by U.S. immigration officials. • Some suggest that immigration problems in the borderlands are more of a labor market issue than a law enforcement issue, with the U.S. exploiting cheap Mexican labor. • Many Mexicans who have come to the U.S. send part of their earnings to family members in Mexico. These remittances (or remesas) amounted to $21.3 billion in 2010, surpassed only by oil as a source of foreign revenue for Mexico. IV. Universal Human Rights • As the impacts of globalization have spread, a movement toward ensuring universal human rights has arisen. Activists in this movement fight to preserve and protect the interests of people who lack significant power or access to resources. A. Defining Human Rights • Human rights are universal moral rights possessed by all people because they are human. • The most important elaboration of human rights appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948. • At first, the U.S. opposed a binding obligation to the declaration, fearing loss of national sovereignty. • The 1990s brought the term ethnic cleansing into the world’s vocabulary as a euphemism for forcible expulsion and murder. Example: Serbian “cleansing” of Muslims. • An ongoing human rights concern is human trafficking. B. Principle and Practice • U.S. war on terrorism has raised additional concerns about human rights, both at home and abroad. • Cultural insiders and outsiders can disagree over what constitutes a violation. The movement for universal human rights can be seen as a form of cultural imperialism. Example: Western condemnation of female genital mutilation, a common practice in more than 30 countries. • In 1993 the U.S. opted for an absolute definition of human rights, insisting that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set a single standard for acceptable behavior around the world. In practice, interpretation still plays a role. • Some have argued that the U.S. practices selective enforcement of human rights. Example: U.S. more likely to become concerned about human rights abuses when oil is at stake. C. Human Rights Activism • Efforts to protect and ensure human rights usually arise from social movements, not governments. Examples: Human Rights Watch, Médecins sans Frontières. • In recent years, awareness has been growing of lesbian and gay rights as an aspect of universal human rights. KEY TERMS Borderlands The area of common culture along the border between Mexico and the United States. Colonialism The maintenance of political, social, economic, and cultural dominance over a people by a foreign power for an extended period. Dependency theory An approach contending that industrialized nations continue to exploit developing countries for their own gain. Gross national income (GNI) The total value of a nation’s goods and services. Human rights Universal moral rights possessed by all people because they are human. Modernization The far-reaching process by which nations pass from traditional forms of social organization toward those characteristic of post–Industrial Revolution societies. Multinational corporation A commercial organization that is headquartered in one country but does business throughout the world. Neocolonialism Continuing dependence of former colonies on foreign countries. Remittances The monies that immigrants return to their families of origin. Also called remesas. World systems analysis A view of the global economic system as one divided between certain industrialized nations that control wealth and developing countries that are controlled and exploited. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 11-1: Inequality in Reforming State Socialism Fueled by concerns about growing poverty and increasing concentration of wealth, one of the most central pursuits in contemporary sociology has been to understand the mechanisms shaping economic inequalities. Much of our understanding of stratification processes, however, is based on the experience of market economies, especially that of the United States. Comparative research on societies with non-market or transitional economic systems is essential for understanding the basic mechanisms that determine the winners and losers in a social system. The study of Maoist-era China (1949–76) allowed stratification researchers to understand how socialist economic policies influence both the overall distribution of income and wealth, and the significance of assets like education for getting ahead in a non-market economy. Research from this era pointed to two basic contrasts between socialist China and the United States. First, income and other scarce resources (housing, pension benefits, and medical care) in Chinese cities were about 25 percent more equally distributed than is typical in capitalist societies (Whyte and Parish 1984). Second, while educational credentials are key for maximizing one’s income and wealth in capitalist societies, in socialist China the biggest rewards accrued to those who had political capital (Walder 1986). The more recent, incremental dismantling of socialist institutions in China has opened up fresh opportunities for sociologists to study inequality from a comparative perspective. Beginning in the early 1980s, market reforms have led to heavy foreign investment and the emergence of a thriving private sector in urban areas. Within firms still controlled by the state, budget constraints are much stricter than before, and strong profit incentives are in place. How has such wide-scale institutional change altered opportunity structures for urban businesses and individuals, and how have organizations and social actors responded to these changes? What kinds of personal assets (education, political ties) are valued in new work environments? How, ultimately, does the dismantling of a socialist economy impact access to income, wealth, and other valued resources? Reflecting the importance of these questions to the discipline of sociology, in the past decade a number of studies addressing post-socialist stratification in China and/or other former socialist countries have been published in mainstream sociology journals. Some studies conclude that stratification processes in contemporary China are much the same as they were during the Maoist era, with political actors still able to use their political influence for economic gain in a more marketized environment (Bian and Logan 1996; Xie and Hannum 1996; Zhou, Tuma, and Moen 1996). Others conclude just as strongly that marketization has opened up new opportunities for those with educational capital—regardless of their political ties—thus resulting in a stratification system that is closer to those found in capitalist societies (Nee 1989, 1991, 1996). Other analyses emphasize that so many years of incremental market reforms have produced urban environments in which markets and socialism coexist. In areas of the economy still governed by redistributive principles, the determinants of access to valued resources remain much as they were before post-Mao reforms were implemented. In particular, urban residents with political capital are more frequently given the opportunity to earn higher incomes within publicly owned work organizations. In areas of the urban environment governed by market principles, however, we see a dramatic reversal in the value of personal assets for getting ahead. In privately owned and foreign-invested work organizations, having educational credentials rather than political capital is key for acquiring greater work rewards (Zang 2002). The fact that this shift was initiated by legal changes in property rights and organizational forms, points to the importance of legal institutions in shaping inequality processes. For the most part, all of these studies have explored post-socialist change in the determinants of income attainment or job mobility only, giving us just a partial understanding of inequality processes there. In addition to cash income, socialist and post-socialist work organizations typically control access to a number of scarce consumer goods and services as well (i.e., medical care, pension benefits, long-distance travel tickets, housing, transportation, discounted meals). Whether or not an employer provides such goods and services is as important to economic well being as one’s salary level. Sources used for this essay include: Yanjie Bian and John Logan, “Market Transition and the Persistence of Power,” American Sociological Review 61 (October 1996): 739–58; Victor Nee, “A Theory of Market Transition,” American Sociological Review 54 (October 1989): 663–81; Victor Nee, “Social Inequalities in Reforming State Socialism,” American Sociological Review 56 (June 1991): 267–82; Victor Nee, “The Emergence of a Market Society: Changing Mechanisms of Stratification in China,” American Journal of Sociology 101 (January 1996): 908–49; Andrew Walder, Communist Neo-Traditionalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986; Martin K. Whyte and William L. Parish. Urban Life in Contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984; Yu Xie and Emily Hannum, “Regional Variations in Earnings Inequality in Reform-Era Urban China,” American Journal of Sociology 101 (January 1996): 950–92; Xiaowei Zang, “Labor Market Segmentation and Income Inequality in Urban China,” The Sociological Quarterly 43 (Winter 2002): 27–44; Xueguang Zhou, Nancy Brandon Tuma, and Phyllis Moen, “Stratification Dynamics under State Socialism: The Case of Urban China, 1949–1993,” Social Forces 74 (March 1996): 759–796. 11-2: Political Coalitions and the Poor in Developing Countries Bringing about reforms that are intended to reduce poverty is not necessarily a matter of simply pitting the poor against the non-poor. Although many economic policies benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, certain approaches, according to the World Bank, can draw support from coalitions that cut across the poor/non-poor divide. An example of a poor/non-poor coalition can be found in food pricing policies. In many African and Latin American countries, the agricultural sector has long suffered from policies that favor industry and cities. For example, food prices are frequently kept low, which benefits the urban poor, industrial workers, and business owners; but this policy functions at the expense of the entire rural sector, including the poor. In Argentina, Chile, and Peru, the success of tax reforms and other reforms designed to benefit the poor has generally turned on the stance of white-collar workers, professionals, bureaucrats, and small- and medium-size business interests. Redistributive policies have been more likely to succeed when these sectors share in transfers directed primarily to the poor. The same is no doubt true in many other countries. The Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme in India transfers income from the urban non-poor to the rural poor, but it nevertheless enjoys wide political support because the urban non-poor see the reduction of migration to Bombay as a benefit, and landowners may look favorably on the scheme because it helps to stabilize the rural labor force and because it creates infrastructure in the countryside. See World Development Report 1990. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 52. 11-3: Gaijin We are familiar with the concepts of out-groups and ethnocentrism, but within the culture of Japan those ideas perhaps can be summed up in the concept of gaijin, or “foreigner.” It has long been observed that, in Japan, foreigners are treated as outsiders even after they have lived in the country for a long time. Donald Ritchie, a White American writer who has lived in Japan for more than 40 years, said that, outside of his neighborhood and circle of friends, he is still considered a gaijin. He notes that, “Giggly schoolgirls on the subway will sit and talk about me, thinking I don’t speak Japanese, about how pink I am, how hairy.” He captured the feeling of not being a part of Japan despite having spent a large part of his life there when he wrote “I live in this country as the water insect lives in the pond, skating across the surface, not so much mindful as incapable of seeing the depths” (De Witt 1995). Because of the feeling of “Gaijin wa dame,” or “No foreigners here,” it is difficult to sort out how much of the prejudice observed in Japan is nationalistic. For example, in 1995 three U.S. servicemen, all African American, were accused and convicted of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old Japanese girl in Okinawa. The huge negative response by the public in Japan was interpreted by some in the United States as racist in nature, whereas it probably was more that the Japanese saw it as bad enough that the offenders were gaijin. This is not to say the Japanese have not adopted some of the stereotypes found in imported U.S. television and motion pictures. Also, the Japanese seem to distinguish among Asian arrivals, showing typically the greatest respect for the Chinese and the least for the Koreans, a group described as particularly vulnerable historically to ill treatment in Japan. See Karen De Witt, “In Japan, Blacks as Outsiders,” New York Times (December 10, 1995): E4. Also see Hilary E. MacGregor, “Prejudice Prevalent in Japan, Asian Foreigners Say,” Los Angeles Times (November 19, 1995): A38. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to demonstrate various ways the Internet has increased globalization and reduced the size of the world. 2. Ask students to search for evidence that supports Wallerstein’s world systems theory in which the United States has acted as a “core” nation, and discuss ethnocentrism and its relationship to economic stratification. 3. Ask students to locate examples of modernization that support the positive view of modernization. 4. Ask students to search for any cultural examples in which women have experienced social mobility at a greater pace than men, and discuss the issue of gender and mobility. 5. Ask students to find advertising or periodical articles that illustrate the influence of the United States on Third World countries, and discuss the effects of globalization and multinational corporations on foreign cultures. REEL TALK Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight Pictures/Warner Bros., 2008, 121m). Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a young man from the slums of Mumbai, India, appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He does better than expected, and the game show host (Anil Kapoor) and law enforcement suspect that he is cheating. As detailed through flashbacks of his childhood, Jamal reveals that he knows most of the answers by chance. Director: Danny Boyle. Latika: Freida Pinto. Salim Malik: Madhur Mittal. Police Inspector: Irrfan Khan. Topic: Global inequality. Instructor Manual for SOC Sociology 2020 Jon Witt 9781260075311, 9781260726787, 9780077443191