Review Sheet Final 2012

This sheet does not include the texts on which you presented. Please make sure that your presentations are available to the rest of the class (either on moodle or by a group email). Thank you.

Karl Polanyi

Karl Polanyi disagreed with the idea that economics is the most efficient use of scarce resources to achieve a given end. He believed that the definition of economy is an institution process of interaction between man and his environment to meet material needs. Polanyi suggested that: Markets are a meeting place for the purpose of buying and selling. Modern market represents a new institutional arrangement, only created recently. He argued that in order to have the market, price-making is the first step.

Theoretical tradition: Polanyi uses a substantivist approach to suggest that the economy is embedded in social relations. Method: In his book, Polanyi traces back the origin of modern capital market. His book is historical; he looks at the origin of a market economy and its influence on society. He says that prior to the coming of industrialization, the market played no part in economic life. Even where market places could be seen to be operating, they were peripheral to the main economic organization and activity of society (Polanyi 1945 41- 50).

Argument: In modern market economies the needs of the market determine social behaviour, whereas in preindustrial and primitive economies the needs of society determine economic behavior. He gives his definition of a market economy for which there are four assumptions: 1/ selfregulating system where everyone is assumed to behave in a way that maximizes money gains. 2/ It assumes that in the market supply price will equal demand price. 3/ Money is assumed to exist, and the market sets prices. 4/There are markets for everything from goods and services to labor, land, and money. In this ideal system there is not external regulation of prices, demand, or supply.

Concepts: Embeddedness Polanyi used embeddedness as part of his attack on liberalism and market-oriented approaches more generally. The first half of his argument is well known: in precapitalist society the economy is integrated into (or embedded in) the rest of society, especially in its political and religious institutions; but with the advent of capitalism the economy was separated out and has come to dominate the rest of society. The second half of Polanyis argument is less known, but follows logically from its first half: for society to become healthy again, the economy has to be reembedded or integrated into societyPolitical and other collective institutions have to acquire precedence over the market.

Reciprocity implies that people produced such goods and services for which they were best suited, and shared them with those around them. This was reciprocated by the others. There was an unspoken agreement that all would produce that which they could do best and mutually share and share alike. The motivation to produce and share was not personal profit, but fear of social contempt, ostracism, and loss of social prestige and standing. Presumably examples of this kind of behaviour would be village communities where men made hunting parties, and women grew vegetables. A contemporary observer would comment that examples of this kind of behaviour still exist, as in the traditional home where mother makes the dinner, father mends the car, the children run errands, and the dog barks at strangers. No money changes hands but all contribute according to their abilities to the common welfare, and all share according to their needs. Another example is British pub behaviour, where each buys a round of drinks in turn for the peer group, and failure to buy leads to social contempt, ostracism, and loss of social prestige and standing. Redistribution is involved where a chief or leader gathers together a harvest or the kill of a hunting expedition into a safe storage place. Having made it safe he then redistributes it to members of his group by holding communal feasts and festivals. This serves both to share the communal wealth fairly, and also to reinforce the social structure, allocation (and indeed seating arrangements !) indicating status and importance. These festivals may also be used to reinforce relationships with neighbouring tribes, and the store may be used to supply the community's warriors if circumstances require (Polanyi 1945 50-56). A market economy "can exist only in a market society" (71) that is, a society in which social relations are embedded in the economy rather than the economy is embedded in social relations. Because "A market economy must comprise all elements of industry, including labour, land and money." However, "Labour and land are no other than human beings themselves of which every society consists and the natural surroundings in which it exists. To include them in the market mechanism means to subordinate the substance of society itself to the laws of the market." (71).

Norbert Elias On the Monopoly Mechanism (from The Civilizing Process) (For this lecture, I sent you a very good summary (pdf) of the Civilizing Process, by mail. Make sure you take a look at it.) Elias considers sociology in historical and processual terms. His method is historical and processual. In The Civilizing Process, Elias considers material from centuries-old books on manners and changes in the relationships between people and the state to build a sociogenetic and psychogenetic foundations for his argument. Humans, in Elias analytic, are both actors and agents in civilizing processes they, as reflexive members of civilization, have brought about a condition of self-inflicted constraint, eventually establishing a profound impact on mans interraction with, and obedience to, the state. Study and theorization pertaining to these longterm processes, which rely on a uniquely historical and multiciplinary approach are central to Eliass work and legacy. Furthermore, his handling and employment of material, as well as his pursuit of psychoanalytic motivations and underlying meaning have in many ways anticipated directions only later pursued in the fields of history and sociology. (from https://sites.google.com/site/lauracolaner/a-little-snippet-about-norbert-elias-and-the-civilizingprocess) A few words on the method:

Elias work is described as sociological history. long term analysis to understand current societies analysis of the global structure of societies, tries to understand complex mechanism but not interested in isolated facts.

On the Monopoly Mechanism (the text you read) According to him, the power of the State is based on 2 monopolies : monopoly of physical violence monopoly of taxation.

The operation of the monopoly mechanism can be summarized as follows: in a major social unit...a large number of the smaller social units which, through their interdependence, constitute the larger one, are of roughly equal social power and are thus able to compete freelyunhampered by pre-existing monopoliesfor the means to social power, i.e. primarily the means of subsistence and production, the probability is high that some will be victorious and others vanquished, and that gradually, as a result, fewer and fewer will control more and more opportunities, and more and more units will be eliminated from the competition, becoming directly or indirectly dependent on an ever-decreasing number.

 For Elias, competition would generally drive any human figuration towards a state in which all opportunities are controlled by a single authority: a system with open opportunities has become a system with closed opportunities. Elias suggests that the course of events in reality is usually far more complicated than this schematic pattern, and full of variation (p.107).

Interdependence and institutionalization This process should in no way be understood merely as one whereby fewer and fewer people become free and more and more unfree.

Elias emphasized that the more people are made dependent by the monopoly mechanism, the greater becomes the power of the dependent, not only individually but also collectively, in relation to the one or more monopolists.

The greater monopolization of power chances is thus accompanied by a greater interdependence and division of labor, at least, because a monopoly position is itself dependent on a larger and more complex network of social groups and units.

The more comprehensive a monopoly position becomes and the more highly developed its division of labour, the more clearly and certainly does it move towards a point at which its one or more monopoly rulers become the central functionaries of an apparatus composed of differentiated functions, more powerful than others, perhaps, but scarcely less dependent and fettered.

Two phases can be distinguished in the dynamics of a monopoly mechanism : 1) the phase of free competition or elimination contests, with a tendency for resources to be accumulated in fewer and fewer and finally one pair of hands = monopoly formation 2) the phase in which control over the centralized and monopolized resources tends to pass from the hands of an individual to those of ever greater numbers and finally to become a function of the interdependent human web as whole = a relatively private monopoly becomes a public one.

Attention: This is a really slow process. such changes in power and dependence relationships often take centuries to become perceptible

Social processes involving this monopoly mechanism are to be found in many societies.

Monopoly mechanism and the civilizing process

The monopoly mechanism lays at the heart of the state- formation process in Europe which is in turn necessarily accompanied by an increasing monopolization of the means of violence, and a pressure towards other means of exercising power in social relations.

In fact, the monopoly mechanism entails a shift in the struggle for power, which appears to be more and more civilized, that is less violent.

free competition has been replaced by one that is controlled from a central position by human agents. Rather than the use of violence, social success is more and more dependent on continuous reflection, foresight, and calculation, self-control, precise and articulate regulation of ones own affects, knowledge of the whole terrain, human and non-human, in which one acts.

Elias argued that this rationalization of human conduct, its placement at the service of long-term goals and the increasing internalization of social constraint was closely tied to the process of state formation and development of monopolies of physical forces.

Historical and Comparative Sociology Welfare States Lecture 8 March 16, 2012 ABRAM DE SWAAN The Beginnings of Social Security in Western Europe and the United States The emergence of social security 1) socio-political consequences of a growing working class, 2) the struggle between different social groups with different interests and 3) the political mobilization of certain actors De Swann identifies for each country: The historical context: economy, politics, international relations The actors: social position & interest (in particular workers, employers, state) The actions: laws & lobbying The normative universe: ideology & representations underpinning the actions for or against social legislation. Social Security and The German Case: Bismarcks beginning A model for all countries

Tripartite coalition Employers and workers contributions in a capitalization system + state allowances. = foundation for the subsequent tripartite coalition. German Case Context: To build a new German Nation State Normative universe: To have a class of state pensioners loyal to the government instead of the organization of a working class without a fatherland, inspired by Marxist ideology. German Case Actors Tripartite coalition between administrative and political elites (state bureaucracy) and largescale industrial employers. German Case Interests: Avoid growing workers movement and political parties. Sidetrack the Reichstag (install a corporatist system of workers instead of parliamentary representation). Overcome the petty bourgeoisie: needed support from industrial proletariat German Case Who did it excluded? The Workers German Case Actions 1884: The Employers Liability Act 1884: Accident Insurance Law 1883: The Sickness insurance Law 1889: Disability insurance 1927: Law on unemployment insurance Social Security and Great Britain: The British Breakthrough The next wave of social innovation A better organized working class The Great Britain Case The normative universe Persisting ideology = Idea of unemployment as self-caused and immoral New ideology = Belief that insurance would improve quality of the workforce

The Great Britain Case Actors Wave 1

Activist regime Social scientists Workers organization The Great Britain Case Who was opposed? Small property owners Who was excluded? Employers

The Great Britain Case Actors Wave 2 Activist regime & Commercial Insurance businesses Who were EXCLUDED: passive acceptance from workers & employers Who was OPPOSED: the medical profession

The Great Britain Case Actions Wave 1 workers organizations, regime & experts >1880s: reports on the conditions of the English working classes alerting the public and the political elites on the realities of industrial society: the involuntary nature of unemployment. The Great Britain Case Actions Wave 2 regime & insurance businesses 1908: The Pension Act 1911: Unemployment insurance. 1945: Centralized system. Social Security and France: The Motor and the Break Context The political strength of the small property owners (the petty bourgeoisie): main reason. A bourgeois 3rd Republic scared by the memory of the Paris commune.

The French Case Existence of numerous Socits mutuelles. In 1895: existence of a Movement mutualiste with government subsidies. Company schemes more important than elsewhere. The French Case Reasons for change:

The erosion of the political power base of the small property owners: main reason. Irresistible increase of wage-earners and the more privileged salaris The French Case Normative Context Persisting ideologies Idea of negative wage-dependency Patriarchal ideology of benevolence versus service The French Case Catholic teachings of voluntary solidarity. Catholic social activisme. Ex: allocations familiales. Anarcho-syndicalist idea of self-help. Marxist idea of Revolution and Proletarian government The French Case Actors Tripartite coalition: grand alliance between regime, moderate section of the workers movement (unions) and large-scale industrialists The French Case Who was OPPOSED?: Small property owners that functioned as a brake on social laws (seen in other countries as well). The French Case Actions 1930: Assurance sociale: national compulsory system for health, disability and pension insurance. 1945: Unitary system (Caisses dpartementales became Caisse gnrale de garantie). Social Security in the USA A coalition between reformist regime and organized workers pushed for reform. But this base was never completely superseded by the tripartite coalition Never a national health insurance The American case Context The severity of the Great Depression explains much of the explosive big bang pattern. Social laws: part of the New Deal policies of F.D. Roosevelt. Sudden change but not without precedent The American case Normative universe Persisting ideologies The Progressive Movement for "good government" against Veterans pension systems and for abolishing political favouritism. American dislike of public interference The American case Ideal of voluntarism : The Associative state, cf. Herbert Hoover Education system: central component of American notion of welfare The American dream: immigrants seeing their position as transitional (next generation will move up).

The American Case Actors Coalition between activist regime (Roosevelt) & workers movement (American Federation of Labor). Small bankrupted farmers rallied support.

The American Case Experts: American Association for Labor Legislation Local and state governments begging federal government to intervene. The American Case Experts: American Association for Labor Legislation Local and state governments begging federal government to intervene. OPPOSED: Strength of propertied classes: great obstacle. The American Case Actions 1911-1920: 45 states enacted workmens compensation laws (uneven and minimal benefits). Also numerous mass campaigns: experts and industrial unions began to campaign for social reform both on a national and state level.

The American Case 1935: Social security Act : federal compulsion for almost every wage earner. 1956: Medicare: health insurance for elderly 1965: Medicaid: for welfare clients. Social Security and Holland Context Why late: Late industrialization and low organization among workers and employers end 19th. Why change: Mass unemployment during First World War. Scare of Revolution. The Dutch case Normative universe Persisting ideologies Organization of society along denomination lines : pillarization Catholic subsidiary principle & Protestant principle of circles of sovereignty The Dutch Case New ideologies Social democracy and the Beverdige plan. Need for reconstruction. Christian social policy (Talma) The Dutch Case Actors First laws: an activist regime: bypassing both workers and employers. Anticipated workers

preferences and counted on employers support. The Dutch Case >50s: coalition between employers and workers organizations and expansionist regime. BRAKE: Confessional parties prevented articulation of class interests. The Dutch Case Actions 1901: Workmens Compensation Act 1919: Implementation of Invalidity and Pension Act 1930: sickness insurance law 1942: sick funds law The Dutch Case 1952: Compulsory state unemployment insurance 1956: General Old Age Law 1963: General Assistance Act 1967: Disability Act

Karl Marx (1818-1883) Approach: Conflict perspective - Approach tends to be prescriptive (i.e. how to achieve radical social change). - Emphasis is on conflict b/w classes rather than equilibrium. - Power and ideology are related concepts of great importance. - Assumes that conflicts are about power because of the rewards it can bring. Marx believed that real-life (material) conditions were more important than abstract ideas or spiritual values in determining human history. He viewed economic factors as basic and from which all else flows (including the distribution of resources). For Marx: - ideas are social constructions designed to serve the interests of the people who produce and impose them. - a vast gap emerged between the wealthy and the poor as a consequence of industrialization. Questions: - How are goods and services produced? - Who owns the tools, weapons, and knowledge needed for production? - How are the products distributed within the society?

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Marxs predictions - The entire economic and social system would collapse once workers could organize in their own interests. - The greater the inequality within a society, the more unstable its social order. - More resources given to the masses, the greater the public good.

Marxs insights to sociology - Economy, political systems, family patterns, educational programs, and religious beliefs mutually reinforce each other and together form the culture and social structure of society at a particular historical moment.

To summarize, the focus of the conflict perspective is (think of texts we read in class): - development is the expansion of capitalism. - Society is not cohesive but divided by class differences. - Study the divisions of society that are derived from economic inequalities.

Concepts: - dialectical materialism/historical materialism Engelss attempt at a summary from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific: I use the term . . . historical materialism, to designate that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all historical events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent div- ision of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another. - modes of production More precisely, Marx sees economic structures as being determined by a given mode of production. A mode of production capitalism, feudalism- is a combination of certain means of production (labor, instruments, and raw material) and relations of production (social relationship, such as relation between master and slaves etc.)

- social classes Unlike Durkheim, who rarely used the term, or Weber, who gave it specific and limited

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meaning, Marx saw class not only as a descriptive device but also as a way of understanding how society and history interact, the maintenance of social order and the dynamics of social change.

Pierre Bourdieu The social space and its transformation Lecture 9 March 22, 2012 Bourdieu and Marx on the Social What important difference do you see with Marx? Marx = Modes and relations of production Bourdieu = Cultural practices and tastes are central to his analysis Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) The Social Space and Its Transformation Key Concepts Habitus Field Symbolic Power What does Bourdieu question? The social conditions of the aesthetic disposition, ie the dispositions which govern choices between the goods of legitimate culture. Question: What does mean legitimate? Legitimate culture means: It is the culture considered as being more legitimate, shared by members of higher classes. Legitimate cultural goods (=highbrow culture)

Culture has two meanings: ordinary usage, eg. music, plastic arts, literature, theater etc. culture in the anthropological sense. Culture of a given society; what people eat, how they dress, which language they speak, etc. System cultural practices (which music you like, what you read, if you go to museum etc.) are linked to your everyday way of living (what you eat, what you wear etc. This forms a SYSTEM

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intelligible relationship between choices as seemingly incommensurable as preferences in music or cooking, sport or politics, literature of hairstyles. tastes have social and economic determinants HABITUS its a set of dispositions which generate practices and perceptions The habitus is formed and reformed through interaction with the social and material worlds.

Habitus: A set of dispositions, which generate practices and perceptions

[(habitus)(capital)]+field=practice What is Capital? Bourdieu distinguishes 3 different forms of capital. Economic Capital: the amount of wealth that an individual owns (money, realt estate, etc.)

Cultural Capital In a basic sense, cultural capital refers to your knowledge of culture in general (works of art, languages, etc.). But Bourdieu distinguishes 3 forms of cultural capital: 1- Embodied cultural capital: this form is linked to the body and presupposes embodiment unconsciously

Cultural Capital 2. Objectified cultural capital -- physical objects that are owned, such as works of art. Books, painting, monuments, instruments. 3. Institutionalized cultural capital -- institutional recognition, most often in the form of academic credentials or qualifications.

Field a social arena in which people maneuver and struggle in pursuit of desirable resources. Each field is organized around a specific social action : religious field, educational field, intellectual field, scientific field etc. SOCIAL CLASS Social class is not defined solely by a position in the relations of production, but by the class habitus which is normally (i.e., with a high statistical probability) associated with that position.

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Coulangeon Ph, The Social Stratification of Musical Taste: Questioning the Cultural Legitimacy Model, in Revue Franaise de Sociologie (Annual English Supplement), 2005, 46, pp. 123-154.

The omnivore/univore hypothesis: - the idea that the main criterion of social distinction is today rather a matter of cultural diversity than of access to highbrow culture.

Coulangeons article is structured in 4 parts.

1/ Introduction and theoretical review (pp. 123-27) The stated goal of this paper is to assess the relevance of the cultural legitimacy theory (Bourdieu, 1979) vs. the omnivore/univore hypothesis (Peterson, 1992), the opposition that has for all intents and purposes structured the research field of social stratification of tastes since the early 1990s (p. 124). 2/ Descriptive analysis of musical tastes (pp. 127-38) For the purpose of this analysis, the working sample was restricted to sample individuals over 15 years of age who had completed secondary education at the time of the survey: 4,074 of the 4,353 individuals sampled. (p. 127). Coulangeon chooses to analyze the genres of music most frequently listened to rather than preferred genres of music. Why? Because it has the advantage of allowing for multiple answers, thus being well adjusted to the test of the omnivore hypothesis. Coulangeon resorts to Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), a type of Geometric Data Analysis (GDA). Here is a description of its general principle (I will not go into the maths behind).

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Geometric Data Analysis: Basic principles What does a regression do? A regression assesses the effect of one or more independent variable on one dependent variable and whether the effect found in the sample holds for the population with the help of statistical tests, such as Chi square, T test, F test (inferential statistics). Put even more simply, regression is concerned with variables, effects and inference from the sample to the population. Geometric Data Analysis (GDA) does not focus on either variables, or effect, or inference. It focuses on structural oppositions and resemblances among individuals and among their responses to questionnaires. Put differently, it reveals patterning in complex data sets. It is distinctive in describing these patterns geometrically by locating each variable/unit of analysis as a point in a space.

Bourdieu, as well as Coulangeon in this text, use a specific kind of GDA, called Multiple Correspondance Analaysis. Excluding classification methods, GDA comprises Principal Component Analysis, Correspondence Analysis and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. One way of understanding the differences between the three variants is to look at the form of the table from which each of them is built: Principal Component Analysis is built from a table with individuals in row and quantitative variables in column; Correspondence Analysis is built from a cross-tab; Multiple Correspondence Analysis is built from a table with individuals in row and categorical variables in column.

Why use MCA? Because the raw information provided by all the questionnaires is much too rich and complex to be interpreted by just reading every respondents questionnaire. How does it basically work? First, you have to choose the relevant variables on which to perform the analysis. In Coulangeons case, the relevant variables are related to musical taste. These data can be transformed into a space with many dimensions (more than the usual 3D so it would be

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impossible to represent this space geometrically). The goal of MCA is to find the way to visualize this space in a lower number of dimensions with the best summary of initial information. Example of the conversion of a space into a space of lower dimensions without losing too much initial information: Example of the camel in class. This is what MCA does: visually representing the summary of complex information by highlighting structuring patterns of proximities and distances in the data. As this is done mathematically only, the researcher needs to interpret the resulting representation with his or her sociological knowledge and imagination. The interpretative task is heavier with GDA than with regression-type analyses (I think). Researchers usually choose to interpret the first 2 (first two axes or factors), 3 (3rd axis) or 4 (4th axis) dimensions of the simplified space.

In Coulangeons work (as in Bourdieu), active variables are related to cultural practices and tastes (here musical genres listened to). So the resulting space is one of lifestyles. On this space of lifestyle are projected supplementary variables that are socio-economic and demographic characteristics of respondents.

Urban Sociology Lecture 11 April 06, 2012 Burgess (1886 1966) Goal of the chapter: - to understand the expansion of the city - to understand the processes of urban metabolism and mobility which are closely related to urban expansion What are the main processes Burgess analyzes? Extension: the physical extension of the city Succession: each inner zone extends its area by the invasion of the next outer zone

Concentration: Natural tendency for local and outside transportation to converge in the central business district

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Decentralization: Therefore, inevitably, this process involves the commute of urbanites from the suburbs to the inner city The Burgess Land Use Model

Burgess presented a descriptive urban use model which divided cities in a set of concentric circles/zones.

1st zone: Tendencies of any town to expand radially from its central business district populated of hobos (hobohemia) -2nd zone: area in transition: invaded by business and light manufacture. -3rd zone: inhabited by the workers in industries who have escaped from the area of deterioration (2nd area). th -4 zone: residential area of high-class apartment buildings or exclusive restricted districts of single family dwellings

URBAN METABOLISM Urban Metabolismthe processes of organization and disorganization. Consequences of city growth?

The rise of new personality types Disorganization points to reorganization WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF URBAN EXTENSION? Mobility is the driving force of urban changes This is essential to growth and can indicate problems (moving away from something negative i.e. social disorganization). Mobility, therefore, tends to confuse and demoralize. Burgess suggests that mobility may, for these reasons, be the best indicator of the state of the metabolism of the city. Mobility can be measured by such indicators as (a) number of contacts and (b) land values. Conclusion In general outline, I have attempted to present the point of view and methods of investigation which the department of sociology is employing in its studies in the growth of the city, namely, to describe urban expansion in terms of extension, succession, and concentration; to determine how expansion disturbs metabolism when disorganization is in excess of organization; and, finally, to define mobility and to propose it as a measure both of expansion and metabolism, susceptible to precise quantitative formulation, so that it may be regarded almost literally as the pulse of the community (61).

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Question What are the limits to Burgess model?

Sociology of Education and Social Inequality Lecture 12 Friday, April 27, 2012 Les Hritiers 1964 by Pierre Bourdieu et Jean-Claude Passeron Social Hierarchies and Inequalities (4): Education Selecting the Elect

Main Goals: To uncover the social determinants of academic choice and success (Showing that formal equality leads to the persistence of actual inequality) To show that the criteria of evaluation tend to privilege children from the upper class. To analyze the consequences of the egalitarian ideology on the persistence of inequalities. The main question the authors ask is: how to explain academic inequalities? Social Origins Economic obstacles are not sufficient to explain how educational death rates can differ so widely between social class and another. It has to do with ones social origins.

What does educational achievement depend on? The most important obstacle is: culture educational achievement is strongly dependent on the ability to manipulate the abstract language. p. 21 All teaching implicitly presupposes a body of knowledge, skills, and above all mode of expressions which constitute the heritage of the cultivated classes. Who are the Inheritors? The inheritors are not those who inherits money, but cultural capital. Cultural capital: knowledge and skills that allow one to navigate the academic system and get as much as possible out of it. Takes different forms: embodied; objectified (paintaings, books, articles); institutionalized (schools, credentials, etc.) Who succeeds? extra curricular culture, which is the implicit condition for academic success in certain disciplines.

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People with extra curricular culture succeed more than those with scholastic culture Unequal knowledge of the school system Bourdieu and Passeron argue that what increases differences in the predisposition of succeeding in school is the unequal knowledge of the school system. Seriousness vs. dilettantism

Conclusion For Bourdieu and Passeron, the school system is not neutral, since it favors students from the higher social classes. The chances to succeed are not the same depending on your social background. The school system is an accomplice of the social reproduction since it selects students on abilities that are not equally distributed among the society.

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