Sociological Theory Glossary - 11/20/08

Adventurer's Capitalism  (Abenteuerkapitalismus) A commercial enterprise that seeks one-time windfall profit.  Success is a matter of winning one big prize, rather (as in rational capitalism) a continuous commitment to expanding profits indefinitely.  Charisma rather than calculation is the secret of success.  Privateers/pirates such as Sir Francis Drake are historical examples; Enron is a more recent case.

Alienated/Estranged Labor Labor is alienated when the worker is separated from meaningful involvement in the work.  This condition arises from  the social organizations of production that fragment work through division of labor and transfer ownership and control of production from the producer to an ownership class.  The defining characteristic of human nature is its creative capacity to give ideas a physical form.  When Michelangelo transforms a block of marble into a human figure the result is not only an object that realizes his ideas but also reflects in some measure his individual personality; his work is easily distinguished from other sculptors.  Alienation results when Michelangelo can no longer engage directly in the creation of the product but must instead (a) work on an assembly line where he carves noses on blocks of marble and hands them to the next detail worker (b) turn over control and ownership of the products of his labor to a capitalist in exchange for a wage (c) lose any meaningful relationship to other creative workers. 

 

Asceticism A systematic form of self-denial.  Asceticism means just-say-no to all worldly delights.  Weber distinguishes two forms that appear in the world religions.  Inner-worldly asceticism involves active participation in the world while avoiding self-indulgence in the fruits of that participation.  This form of asceticism is key to the accumulation of wealth.  Other-worldly asceticism involves a rejection of participation in the world beyond what is necessary for minimal physical survival.

 

Babeuf, Francois Noel (1760-1797): French revolutionary political agitator, plotted to replace the Directory with a communistic system.

 

Base-Superstructure Model  Marx presents this model in his Preface to a Critique of Political Economy (1859) as "the general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies."  The base-superstructure model is essentially an architectural metaphor:    the foundations limits to the size and shape  of the structure that can be built.  If the foundation of your house, for example, is a rectangular concrete slab you will not be able to build a three story Victorian mansion.  Societies are similar.  Political and legal institutions are built upon an economic foundation.  The first task, then, is to characterize the economic base  "mode of production," the way in which people produce and exchange goods. 

 

The mode of production consists of two components, the forces and relations of production.  Forces of production are the material aspects of economic activity, including the nature of the task, division of labor, the levels of machine technology and labor skill. The forces of production are "the material basis of all social organization" (Marx, 1967:372n).  Thus, the forces of production determine the social relations of production, the patterns of ownership and control of the productive forces -- in other words, the class structure.   The class structure resolves these central questions:  who decides when to start and stop work?  Who owns the tools, machines, and resources?  Who decides when and how to modify the task of production?  Who determines the distribution of the economic rewards of the enterprise?  The resolutions of those issues produce characteristic class structures: slave, feudal, capitalist.

 Relations of production (class structure), in turn , give rise in turn to "non-economic" superstructures of society: politics, religion, and law.  For example, to understand why wage workers can serve on juries and slaves cannot one needs to study the impact of jury service on the class relationships in the two modes of production
To understand  to understand   changes in superstructure (for example, why women can served on juries in 2007 but not in 1907) the place to begin is a an examination    changes in the economic base of society.

 

Bauer, Bruno (1809-1882)  One of Marx's philosophy professors; wrote a critical analysis of Biblical history

BENTHAM, JEREMY (1748-1832) English moral philosopher who rejected the natural law principle that morality is a reveled truth (e.g., through sacred texts or charismatic individuals) or,  as Thomas Jefferson argued,  “self-evident truths”  revealed through rational analysis  Such natural law notions  Bentham delicately characterized as “nonsense upon stilts”.   Beginning with assumptions about human beings as creatures set apart from other members of the animal kingdom by virtue of their ability to reason, Bentham derived a theory of human decision making which views normal people as being rational actors who make informed choices based upon informed cost/benefit calculations.  This model of decision making is central to classical economic theory and behavioral psychology.  Its  assumptions are also central to "classical theory" in criminology,

which seeks to explain crime as an informed choice between competing alternatives made through calculation.  Most recently this theory has been repackaged as "rational choice theory."  The crime control policy that follows most directly  from this explanation of  crime is deterrence:  to reduce crime, you have to raise the costs by making

punishment more certain, swift or severe.

Bonapartism.    Marx's term for the form of capitalist state in which the political

leader becomes independent of his economic base. Marx's essay on Napoleon

III is a case study of this type, which appears again in Bismarck in

Germany and in the twentieth century there is a long list.  Such rulers

emerge when neither the capitalists nor the industrial working classes are

able to secure dominant political power. Like Michel's iron law of

oligarchy, leaders like Bonaparte are able to use their positions to

advance their own agendas at the expense of the society they represent.

This may lead - as in the case of Napoleon III and Hitler - to

catastrophic military adventures.  For such states to live long they must

operate to encourage economic development.

 

 

Boulanger, Geroges Ernest (1837-1891).  A prototype of the "man-on-horseback" politician.  A French general who fought in the Franco Prussian War and served in Indo China, he entered French politics as a reactionary militarist and  nationalist promising to avenge the humiliation of France's defeat by the Germans.  He failed to take advantage of his opportunity for a coup.  Having been charged with treason he went into exile where he committed suicide. 

 

BOURGEOISIE  Originally referred to city dwellers.  For Marx the term denotes capitalists, owners and controllers of the means of production who generate economic surplus by employing labor power of the proletariat.

Buddhism A salvation religion that began in India around 500 B.C. and spread throughout Asia.  Buddhism emphasized a withdrawal from worldly preoccupations to prepare the soul to enter the ultimate tranquil state of "Nirvana."

 

CAPITAL  In common language capital is any asset that adds to a person's wealth: for example the money you put into your 401-K investment plan or the Enron stock that you purchased, the house you own, etc.  Marx uses the concept of capital more narrowly to denote the relationship between capitalist and wage worker.  The capitalist buys labor power in the same way that a consumer rents a car.  Capital is the process of (1) purchasing labor power (2) using that labor power in a way that will produce (3) value greater than the cost of buying the labor power.   In other words,  by consuming this particular type of commodity  (labor power/vehicle power) the consumer  (capitalist/renter) is able to make a profit.  If the buyer of labor power uses the worker for amusement no value is created at the end of the day.  If the rented car is the worker is employed on an efficient assembly line, a loaves-and-fishes miracle occurs in which the consumer ends up at the end of the day with more wealth.

 
 

CAPITALISM   For Marx, a stage of economic development in which economic production is carried out through exchanges in a free market unregulated by government and unencumbered by religious and other cultural restrictions on enterprise.  Of central importance is the free market in the buying and selling of labor power.  The capitalist buys (or rents) labor power at its market value and in the course of employing the workers' labor power is able to generate additional value.  The capitalist does not dictate the price of the labor power but once purchased owns the fruits of the workers labor.  The capitalist has ultimate authority in the workplace and to survive must exercise that authority to ensure the value produced by the worker exceeds the wage payment. 

 

caste - a hierarchy of social groups in which membership is hereditary and which place limitations on occupation, marriage and social contact.  The most complex system (and the one some scholars argue is the one properly designated a caste system) is India.  Several thousand castes are distinguished by customs, dress, diet, worship.  The lowest castes are "untouchables" who engage in menial labor and are ritually impure.  Untouchability in India was made illegal in 1949 but social  distinctions persist.

Charisma  An person's characteristic that evokes a sense in others that the person has extraordinary powers.  Such gifted individuals appear in all realms of endeavor.  In politics they exercise charismatic leadership, a form of authority whose legitimacy rests upon the followers' faith in the wisdom or talent of the gifted individual.    Such leaders are frequent instruments of revolutionary change; their personal authority overrides tradition and the rule of law.  Weber's example: Jesus says to his disciples "It is written by I say unto you…."  The same form of authority is exemplified by Napoleon, Ghandi, Hitler, Jim Jones.  Charisma can also be attached to an office.  In China, for example,  the books and writing tools of the Confucian scholar were regarded as having an intrinsic sacred power.

CIVIL SOCIETY A term introduced by Hegel to refer to interaction outside the family that did not involve the state.  Civil society is dominated by self-interest and factions.  Marx uses the term in his early work, particularly to refer to post-feudal society in which individuals emerge as the principal actors.

CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS  While Marx rejected Hegel's claim that changes in ideas are responsible for basic changes in society, Marx held that ideas are important vehicles of revolutionary change.  The objective class situation a person is in does not automatically translate into an accurate awareness of that position. Just as you can have cancer without being aware of it, you can be in the class position of a wage worker and think of yourself as "middle class," as able to be a millionaire if you really want it bad enough, etc.  Marx contends that the class position can be determined through analysis and that how the actor thinks about that position is irrelevant in defining the position.  How the actor thinks, however, is critical in determining if change will take place.  Revolutions occur when actors develop an awareness and understanding of the class positions they occupy and the consequences for their realistic life chances of occupying their present class position.   Class consciousness is most likely to emerge when workers are brought together physically and when they experience a series of confrontations with the class that owns and controls the means of production.

Communism vs. socialism - The two terms are often used to refer to the same revolutionary working class movement.  Communism is often associated with the brand of Marxism that was the official state ideology of the Soviet Union, China and their satellites, where as socialism is often used to designate Marxist movements outside that block of nations.  Not all socialists are Marxists; indeed,   French socialist writers like Henri St. Simon were important in Marx's development.  In later work Marx made a distinction between the first stage of the new society in which division of labor, commodities and a centralized state would persist and the final stage in which division of labor would disappear and the state would wither away.  Lenin later used socialism and communism to designate these two stages of future development.

 

Confucianism Chinese religion which began about 500 B.C.  rejected superstition, mysticism and salvation after death.  It emphasized the ethic of living a well-ordered, harmonious, and virtuous life in this world.  Disorder in nature and human relationships can be overcome through discipline.  To be human is to be well-rounded.  Thus, Confucianism discourage economic specialization and acquisitive motivations necessary for the emergence of capitalism.

 

Deism = belief in a God based on reason rather than revelation, a God who like a clock-maker created the world but then left it run on its own.  This was the religion of Franklin, Jefferson and most of the other Founding Fathers and popular among the elites generally  during  the Age of Reason

 

DIALECTIC  The initial condition, a "thesis" is countered by a

contradictory condition or "antithesis" (B).  This conflict produces a

"synthesis" (C), which then  becomes the thesis (A') and the process resumes.
The synthesis is not a simple combination of A+B but an interaction of the two to produce a distinct condition unlike either A or B.  A chemical analogy is the distinction between mixtures and compounds.  For example salt (NaCl) is produced by combining two poisons, sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl). The implication of this concept is that reality is best understood in terms of inherent contradictions that give rise to change.  Hegel uses this concept to interpret human history as an evolution of the Absolute Spirit.  Marx adopts the approach, but looks for contradictions in observable human social organizations.   The emphasis on contradiction as a property of nature is central to eastern philosophies that view the world as unity of opposites: ying/yang,  black/white, male/female, creation/destruction

 

DIVISION OF LABOR  Also called "specialization" or "differentiation" in the social sciences.  It can take several forms.  For example, a division between one geographical region producing milk and another region producing honey.  Division of labor may occur between occupations (butcher-baker-candlestick maker).  One consequence of such specialization typically is an increase in efficiency.  Adam Smith argued that growth in the modern economy (1776) was propelled by a division of labor within a particular enterprise.  By having ten workers perform a single operation in the production of pins instead of having each worker craft the finished product we could in a working day go from 200 pins to 48,000.  While efficiency increases, the division of labor has other, less positive consequences, which then became the subject of Karl Marxs' analysis.

double consciousness (DuBois)  “[The] sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of other, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, --- and American, a Negro; two worlds, two thoughts, two un-reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

 

economic ethic    Values and norms about work, wealth, commerce, finance, economic change, technological innovation, attitudes toward the poor."  (Swedberg 1998, p. 136)

EMANCIPATION   Removal of obstacles to freedom through collective action (e.g., by spread of literacy, expansion of forces of production).  POLITICAL EMANCIPATION State guarantee of individual rights of expression, worship, ownership, etc.  HUMAN EMANCIPATION  Control by humanity over its environments - physical, social, psychological

 

EMPLOYMENT AT WILL The common law doctrine that allows employers to fire workers at any time without explanation.  It is a logical extension of treating labor power as a commodity; consumer's are not required to give reason for their loss of appetite.  The consequence of this doctrine is ensure flexibility in the labor market (and disciplinary power for the employer).

EMPIRICISM The doctrine that the source and methods of acquiring true knowledge rely fundamentally  on observation, rather than correct deduction from a set of basic assumptions.

 

The Enlightenment (Age of Reason) A movement in Western philosophy and popular culture in the 1700s that demanded that  all traditional ideas and institutions withstand the application of critical analysis based upon  logic and observation.  This movement was inspired by the successes of astronomy and physics that had over the previous hundred years revolutionized our understanding of the physical universe.  The major institutions of human society - law, politics, religion, economics – were now to be questioned and when found wanting, replaced.  A basic tenant of the new outlook was that it was possible to eliminate the causes of human misery through reforms based on rational analysis.  The authors of the American Constitution were acting out Enlightenment values; the later French Revolution was a far more radical effort to create an entirely new society based upon reason.

ENTZAUBERUNG DER WELT   ="end-of-magic in the world" (Weber "Protestant Ethic, p. 60) often poorly translated as "disenchantment," which is confusing because it makes entzauberung sound like "alienation" or "dissatisfaction". 

The end of magic and the substitution of calculation as a dominant cultural value is a central tendency in Western culture.   Calvin's doctrine of "predestination" is the end product of a sequence beginning with Israel, where the typical peasant culture based on magic gives way to a religion based on the idea of the rule of law and on contractual relationships between God and his Chosen People.   Hebrew religion, Greek logic, Arabic mathematical notation are all elements that in Western Europe combined into a culture that increasingly turns all aspects of life into a questions of calculation and eliminates magical manipulation.   

EXPOLITATION  In common language any use of a resource for profit (e.g., "exploitation of the forest by Georgia Pacific").  Often the term has moralistic connotations of unjust use of one person by another (e.g., "slum landlord's exploitation of tenants" or "manufacturer's exploitation of illegal  immigrant labor").  Marx uses the term more precisely to refer to the transfer of wealth from a producing class to an accumulating class.  Such exploitation is the basis of all class societies.  In capitalism exploitation is produced by the gap between the value of commodities the worker produces in the working day minus the cost of the wage (v).  This gap is "surplus value" (s) and the ratio of surplus value to the wage, s/v is "an exact expression of the degree of exploitation of labor power by capital, or of the laborer by the capitalist (Marx 1967, p. 241).  Exploitation in capitalism has two distinct features:  (1) it does not involve direct, physical coercion like slavery and feudalism  (2) exploitation is hidden.  The worker is only aware of the paycheck, not the value produced at work.

FACTION Madison defines factions as conflicting groups pursuing distinct values or

vested.  Factions arise from human nature; they are impossible to eliminate or control.  They have a variety of sources (often economic, but sometimes cultural or religious).  The primary problem for Madison's analysis is to find ways to make factions less destructive than they have proven to be in the past.  The proposed constitution does that, he argues,  in several ways - e.g., dividing powers of government into separate the branches that provide checks and balances that ensure a powerful faction encounters speed bumps in its efforts to eliminate its opponents.  (Compare Marx and Engels on class, e.g.,  "The history of society ...is the history of class struggles.")

FACTORY ACTS   Labor laws passed by the British Parliament.
1802 – Child labor law limited work to 12 hours a day, required four years of basic education, sex-segregated housing with no more than two per bed, and basic health protection in the workplace.  The law was generally ignored.

1833 – Repeated 1802 law. Banned employment under the age of nine in textile mills.
Required government insepection of factory conditions.

 

1844 – Reduced hours to six a day for children under age 14. Women limited to 12 hour days, 9 hours on Sundays.  Basic safety measures were required.

 

1847 Ten Hour Act for women and children under 19 years of age.

 

 1850 Ended practice of two ten hour shifts.  Workday limited to 6AM to 6PM

1874 Reduce work day in textile mills to 9 ½ hours

 

FETISHISM OF COMMODITIES - The tendency of human-made commodities to become objects invested with intrinsic powers and to lose any connection in the minds of their users to the social activity that produced them.  Commodities exchange according to abstract laws of the market; this appearance masks the fact (cf. Labor Theory of Value) that the basis of their value in exchange is the amount of human labor invested in their production.  Variations in prices and unemployment are experienced as objective and as independent of human activity as the weather.   This concept points to the general human propensity to treat society, which is a human product, as an entity that is external, natural and inevitable.
 

Fetters on forces of production In Preface to a Critique of Political Economy Marx notes that relations of production and elements of the superstructure may work to impede the growth of forces of production.  For example, legislatures in the American South after the Civil War passed "anti-labor enticement laws" that made it a crime for a recruiter to encourage tenant farmers to leave their present employer and work go to work for another enterprise at higher wages.  This law made it difficult for a capitalist factory owner to recruit new workers.  Thus the law was a fetter (or barrier) to the development of capitalism.

 

Feudalism -  The dominant  European mode of production that precedes capitalism.  As with all class systems a class of owners (lords) accumulate economic surplus from a class of producers (serfs).  Labor power is not a commodity.  Serfs are tenant farmers who inherit small plots of land by virtue of personal loyalty to the lord.  The amount of surplus extracted depended upon the coercive power of the landowner.  Lords gained power over the land originally through military conquest and maintained power by retaining a local monopoly over military power.   As nation states developed their legal systems supported this domination by making serfs legally obligated to pay their rents in the form of a high percentage of their produce, uncompensated labor for certain days of the year, military service in time of war, etc.  The Manifesto outlines the transition from feudalism to capitalism.  

 

 

Feuerbach, Ludwig (1804-1872) German professor of theology, whose Essence of Christianity argued that God was made by humans in their image rather than the reverse.  He argued that liberation could be won by abandoning religious illusions.  He also developed a materialist philosophy in opposition to Hegel's idealism.

FIXED IDEA (IDÉE FIXE) Obsession.  For example, in the 1800s the glorification of Napoleon, Idée Napoleonienne, celebrated his achievements and the position he gave to France as leading power in Europe

Forces of production  The material aspects of economic activity, including the raw materials, machinery,  human skills ("human capital") all of which have the potential of creating value when properly employed.  In Adam Smith's pin factory we see the expansion of the forces production produced by division of labor.  Before the labor was divided into specialized tasks ten workers produced 200 pins in a working day.  With the division of labor the same workers produced 48,000.  Later refinements in machinery made it possible for the same workers to produce even more. 

 

Hegemony The ordinary meaning of this term is "domination," as in "after the 2003 Iraq war the U. S. was able to exercise hegemony throughout the Middle East."  Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) introduced a different meaning, to refer to subordination of a population through consensus generated by the system of production.

Hegemony is "an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant, in which one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in all its institutional and private manifestations, informing with its spirit all taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles, and all social relations" Williams 1960, p.587).

 While  most earlier forms of class society make exploitation transparent and develop ideas that justify the status quo, in capitalism exploitation is disguised in various ways.  The W-2 form is a good example.  It serves to redefine worker's compensation in such a way as to eliminate the class divisions between workers and employers and unite them against a common enemy (government tax-and-spend parasites).  Hegemony incorporates and co-opts, allows for flexibility.

 

 

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM The theory of history that looks to economic development as the prime mover.  The theory is an empirical generalization based upon evidence.  It is also an orientation to analysis that directs us to examine structural changes.  In seeking to "lay bare the laws of motion of society" Marx turns away from Newton's model of the solar system as a theory to emulate.  Newton's theory deals with a closed system in equilibrium.  This is the kind of theory developed by Adam Smith and the economists who study the behavior of free markets.  In looking at the solar system Marx is more interested in its origins.  He is less interested in how the sun's gravitational forces maintain the planets in alignment that he is in the fact that the sun is dying and at some point will explode and reduced us all to burned out cinder.

Ideal Type  This term does NOT mean "ideal" in an evaluative sense.  It is, in fact, just the opposite, a value-neutral tool for analysis.  An ideal type is a  general concept that captures the key characteristics of a category of phenomena.  Ideal types are not hypotheses, but they are essential ingredients of hypotheses.  "An ideal type is formed by the on-sided accentuation . . . and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged ….into a unified analytical construct.  In its mental purity, this construct cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality…research faces the task of determining in each individual case, the extent to which this ideal construct approximates to or diverse from reality"  (Weber 1949, p. 90).  A good example of an ideal type is charismatic leadership. Jesus, Gandhi, Hitler and Jim Jones are unique individuals, in many ways incomparable.  Jesus = Hitler makes no sense, but the social relationships between leader and follower do display general properties worth identifying.  Once those characteristics have been spelled out in the ideal type of charismatic leadership, is becomes possible to develop general hypotheses about such movements and use the facts to test and refine the hypotheses.   Compare Marx (Tucker p. 295):  In the study of society, "neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use.  The force of abstraction must replace both…."


IDEALISM  A philosophy that view reality as made up ultimately of ideas or minds.  Plato taught that reality consists of eternal ideas; experience is merely a shadow of this reality.  For Hegel reality reflects the evolutionary development of mental capacity.  Historical events such as the French Revolution are to be explained in terms of the development of ideas of liberty and equality.

IDEOLOGY  For Marx, distorted thought that obscures social reality by its preoccupation with correcting mistaken ideas.  Ideology promises to make significant changes by changing the way people think about their condition.  Utopian socialism is a good example; the utopians see creation of a new society as a problem of attitude change or consciousness-raising.  Marx argues that without corresponding change in the economic base the ideas will remain  limited to a handful of intellectuals.  Dominant ideologies are rooted in particular modes of production and reflect the orientation of the dominant class.  Ideologies obscure contradictions.  For example, equality and freedom are values based in the free market in labor power;  once the worker goes to work, the position of equality ends.  The legal ideology of freedom and equality thus obscures the true position of the wage worker. (Tucker p. 343)

Iron Cage Weber concludes his Protestant Ethic essay with this famous metaphor.  "The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we re forced to do so.  For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life . . .[it built] the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order [which now] determine[s] the lives of all individuals born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force.  Perhaps it will so determine then until the last on of fossilized coal is burnt.  In Baxter's view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.' But fate decreed that the cloak should be an iron cage. . . No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise. . .

Jewish Question  (1) Historically the phrase refers to the position of the Jewish community in Christian Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  The Roman Empire tolerated religious diversity among its loyal citizens.  Christian Europe, like most traditional agricultural societies did not.  Jews occupied the same position ethnic/religious groups typically have in such societies (another example is Chinese in Southeast Asia):  they do the jobs good Christians will not take, they provide critical commercial and banking resources to the elites, and they are subject to periodic mass murder.  Jews were second class members of Christian society: they could enter the professions, hold public office or own land.  At various times they were forced to live in particular neighborhoods, the observe curfews, wear identification badges in public, and attend Christian religious services.  (2)  Marx’s essay on the “Jewish Question” begins with what in the 1840s was the current situation:  the 1789 French Revolution gave full civil rights to Jews.  Napoleon invaded Germany and imposed the new law.  With Napoleon gone the Germans fell into a debate.  Marx is writing in response to arguments that Jews cannot be German citizens unless they give up their religion.  This argument, Marx contends, manifests a total misunderstanding about civil rights.  Legal and political equality do not alter divisions in society:  religious, class, gender.  The simple way to grasp this argument is to recall the words of a later write:  The magnificent equality of the French law requires that both the rich and the poor will be arrested if they sleep under the bridges.  Another major implication for Marx’s theory is that the equality of citizens is an essential ingredient of a free market in labor power.  Freedom on contract guarantees that workers will gravitate to those enterprises that can make the best use of their capacity to generate surplus value.  The logic of the free market works against discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender, national origin and other characteristics of workers that has no relationship to their productivity.

 

 

Jones, Jim [James W.] (1931- 1978)  White fundamentalist preacher and civil rights activist.  Began ministry in Indiana.  Founded People's Temple Full Gospel Church, affiliated with Disciples of Christ.  Faith healing claimed cures for cancel and revival of the dead.  Prophesized immanent end of the world in nuclear war.  To survive the holocaust, moved to northern California in 1972, developed branch churches in San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Became important figure in California politics and civil rights movements.  In 1973 purchased tract of land in Guyana, South America.  In the meantime investigative journalists began uncovering stories of corruption and violence within the organization, including Jones' sexual exploitation of female followers.  These accusations led Jones to take 900 followers to Guyana and to establish a utopian community, Jonesville.  Lawsuits, journalistic and governmental investigations pursued Jones, culminating in a fact-finding visit by California Congressman Leo Ryan.  While awaiting their return flight, the Congressman's party was killed by some of Jones' followers.  Recognizing that they could not resist militarily or find another foreign sanctuary, Jones ordered the entire community to commit suicide by consuming a cyanide-laced fruit drink.  In all 914 perished on the evening of November 18, 1978.  

Labor  Productive activity, that is human effort that increases the value a commodity will bring in a market exchange.  Labor does not include activity that adds to use values that are not exchanged, e.g., housework. 

LABOR POWER A form of potential energy that allows humans to add value to commodities.  In capitalism labor power becomes a commodity that capitalists purchase from wage workers.  In exchange for the wage, the capitalists consume the labor power and are entitled to whatever value is generated in the course of its consumption.  This is the source of surplus value (profit).

labor theory of value  The basis of exchanging one commodity for another (their "exchange value") is not equal to any physical property they have (like weight) nor

to their use values.  A ton of diamonds does not exchange for a ton of coal; coal and diamonds satisfy entirely different needs.  The labor theory of value solves this problem by assuming that commodities exchange according to the amount of human value invested in their production. If a one ounce diamond sells for a ton of coal, the labor

theory of value claims that an equivalent amount of human labor had

to go into producing the diamond and the coal. Marx adopts the labor theory of value because it connects commodities to their human producers.  An economics that studies the prices of commodities solely in dollars and cents eliminates this connection from

the analysis.

 

 

LUMPEN PROLETARIAT Literally the "lumps," consisting of the chronically unemployed ("homeless" or "underclass" in today's terminology).  This group represents for Marx a segment of the working class that is counter-revolutionary.  See his description of this "dangerous class" in Tucker p. 482.  At p. 603 in "Brumaire" Marx describes  how Louis Bonaparte used this group by arming them, getting them drunk and having them shoot down his opponents.  A contemporary parallel to Bonaparte's lumpenproletariat would be Neo-Nazi skinheads.  Such groups become politically consequential when the economy enters deep depression, as in the 1930s.

 

Malthus theory of population

Marx's theory attempts to explain the causes of human misery:  war,

famine, class conflict, economic depressions. One popular explanation at the time was offered by Thomas Malthus. In "An Essay on the Principle of Population" Malthus (1798) argues that biological population grows exponentially, but resources can only expand arithmetically (see graph in lecture notes). The gap between population

growth and natural resources, therefore, creates recurrent crises of famine, disease and war.  No amount of social reorganization, revolution, or reform  can solve this problem of scarcity. Malthus, thus, rejects the faith of the Age of Reason philosophers in the possibility of human perfectibility and is clearly a response to the French Revolution (1789) as well. Marx rejected Malthus' theory, at least its application to the present (1850) because the crises of capitalism is not scarcity but surplus.  People are starving when the warehouses are full of food because the economic system has produced so much that the capitalists cannot make a profit.  The economy shuts down until the surplus is consumed.  This situation is entirely different from earlier periods of human history which were marked, as Malthus accurately described, by too many mouths to feed with to few resources to distribute.

 

Mechanical versus organic solidarity.  Durkheim spelled out the implications of two types of social integration or solidarity.  The first, mechanical solidarity, is based on the characteristics, beliefs, values, identities that members of a community feel that they share.   This idea is expressed in the cliché, “birds of a feather flock together”  and in St. Paul’s “Letter to the Galatians”:  For many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (3: 26-28).  Members may be bound into a community, alternatively, on the basis of differences between members or subgroups.  “Opposites attract,” Durkheim argues, because of interdependence between the different parts.  This relationship, he suggests is analogous to complex organisms, in which the specialized body parts like hearts and lungs perform entirely different functions but cannot exist without being linked to other, dissimilar parts.  This he calls “organic solidarity.”  To extend the biological analogy further, he suggests that as societies become more complex they tend to rely increasingly on organic solidarity.

 

Middle class.  In Weber's analysis capitalism was advanced by a middle class consisting of both workers and employers who shared the spirit of capitalism that sets them apart from both the poor underclass and the aristocratic rich.

 

Mode of Production  The combination of the forces of production and the relations of production.  The economic base of society.  Marx classifies economies in terms of the mode of production (slavery, feudalism, capitalism), in contrast to conventional classifications such as industrial vs. agricultural or (hunting vs. herding vs. horticultural vs. agricultural vs. manufacturing vs. service).

 

 

                                       A Typology of Modes of Production
                                                                                                                         Controls Labor
Mode of Production           Actors                   Owns labor power       Owns Property    Power of Others                                                                                                                            

Primitive	independent producer	yes	yes	no
Slavery	owner slave	yes no	yes no	yes no
Feudalism	lord serf	yes limited	yes limited	yes no
Capitalism	capitalist wage worker	yes yes	yes no	yes no

Sources:  Adapted from Wright (1979, p. 40; Cohen, G. 1978, p. 65)

 

 

Petty bourgeoisie For Marx, the middle class between the bourgeoisie and proletariat.  This is a class segment that includes professionals and small business owners who tend to be politically conservative

 

 

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY  The discipline of economics.

PROLETARIAT The class in capitalism whose ownership of the forces of production is limited to their labor power (capacity to work) which they exchange in a market for a wage that enables their economic survival. 

Proudhon, Pierre. (1809-1865). French anarchist.  In What Is Property (1840) he reached his most famous conclusion, "Property is theft."

 

Puritanism Followers of John Calvin, principally in England and New England, who combined an emphasis on work and a denial or worldly goods as central to their religious quest for salvation.

 

Rational Capitalism  For Weber this form of capitalism (see “Adventurer’s Capitalism” above) appears for the first time in the 17^th century in Western Europe.  Unlike earlier, unsystematic profit-making enterprise, rational capitalism is driven by a quest to reduce economic activity to systematic calculation.  Calculation is enhanced by technological innovations such as double entry bookkeeping, division of labor in production, free markets in labor and other commodities.  A mentality of calculation is also needed on the part of both entrepreneurs  and the people they employ, who make choices on the basis of maximizing returns on investment. 

 

 

Rational Choice Theory  The sociological theories that are encompassed by this label all draw upon the utilitarian tradition articulated originally by Jeremy Bentham around 1800 (see above).  Rational choice theories seek to explain the behavior of social organizations (from dyads to international relations) by focusing on properties of the actors engaged in efforts to achieve self-interested goals.  Rational choice theory basically takes Adam Smith’s theory of free market exchange and extends it to forms of social interaction that do not involve monetary transactions in designated market settings.  One example of transposing economic to non-economic interaction is the concept of “social capital.”  Economists focus on how productivity is enhanced by physical capital (e.g., computers), and human capital (e.g., B.A. degree in computer science).  Sociologists have explored the way in which interpersonal relationships (e.g., trust) have the same consequences as physical and human capital.

 

RATIONALISM The principle that the source and methods of true knowledge come from reason, without reliance upon observation or experience.  Knowledge accumulates by drawing rational conclusions from "self-evident" truths.
EMPIRICISM The doctrine that the source and methods of acquiring true knowledge rely fundamentally  on observation, rather than correct deduction from a set of basic assumptions

Rationalization  A process of transforming human institutions (religion, law, art, architecture, music, natural science) so that activity is conducted in  based upon rule-governed calculation.  This does not necessarily mean "rational" in a positive evaluative sense  "reasonable," "optimal," or "providing the greatest good for the greatest number."  In 1942 the leadership of Nazi Germany decided at the Wannsee Conference to send Jews to be gassed at concentration camps rather than continue to have them shot individually by police officers.  This shift represented a rationalization of the process of genocide.  The rationality of genocide as a goal is an entirely different issue, so that when Weber talks about the growth of rationalization he is not talking about the growth of "progress"  - his remarks on the iron cage suggest just the opposite. 

Rational action in Weber's sense, then,  uses "explicit, abstract, intellectually calculable rules and procedures [instead of] . . . sentiment, tradition, and rule of thumb” (Wrong 1970, p. 26). 

Rationality is a matter of degree.  For example, Arabic numerals are more rational than Roman numerals because they facilitate calculation:  compare the tasks of multiplying "21 x 7" with multiplying "XXI x VII." 

Examples of increasing rationalization include shifting from oral traditions to written documents, standardizing  weights, measures, currency across regions, a  metric system of measures that has a common base for calculations, standardization of railroad gauges, the use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing, quantification of astronomical observations, observations about human social organization, etc.

relations of production   the patterns of ownership and control of the productive forces -- in other words, the class structure.  At the immediate site of production -- the assembly line, the machine shop, the laboratory, the construction site -- a characteristic pattern of social relations develops around such questions as:  who decides when to start and stop work?  Who owns the tools, machines, and resources?  Who decides when and how to modify the task of production?  Who determines the distribution of the economic rewards of the enterprise?  The forces of production create issues of ownership and control and the resolutions of those issues produce characteristic class structures: slave, feudal, capitalist.  For example, certain crops like cotton require large investments of unskilled labor with (until the 20^th century) little substitution with machine technology.  This fact led successful cotton economies to have similar, rigid class structures in which a lower class was kept illiterate and denied access to legal and political rights exercised by owners of the means of production.

Saint-Simon,  Claude Henri  (1760-1825): French social philosopher, an early advocate of  socialism which he envisioned would be a new industrial society led by scientists.  .

 

 Savigny, Friedrich von (1779-1861) German law professor.  Established the "Historical School" of legal studies, which viewed law as the embodiment of indigenous cultural values (Volkgeist)

Smith, Adam (1723-1790) Scottish Professor of Moral Philosophy.  His Wealth of Nations jump starts the modern discipline of economics.  Smith showed how the explosion of wealth in his lifetime was due, in part, to major social innovations:  division of labor and free market exchange.

 

Social Act (Mead) mutually negotiated actions between individuals based on shared understandings.  Each participant must be able to anticipate the potential reactions of the other and adjust their choices accordingly.

 

Social capital  'the ability of actors to secure benefits by virtue of membership in social networks or other social structures' (Portes 1998, p. 6).  "features of social organization ...that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit." (Putnam).  Social capital is the central concept rational choice theorists use to examine social integration.  They draw on previous analyses in economics of physical capital (tools, resources that can be used to generate wealth) and human capital (skills, knowledge and abilities of individuals that can be used to generate wealth).  Social capital includes trust, obligations, and expectations that enhance an actor’s ability to achieve goals. 


social fact, (Durkheim) properties of social organization that the actors experience as external to them and constraining their actions ("The system of signs I use to express my thoughts, the system of currency I employ to pay my debts…the practices followed in my profession function independently of my use of them" (1895 p. 2). 

SPECIES BEING The characteristics that separate human beings from other animals, centering around their capacity for creative work

 

Traditional Work Ethic  For Weber, the orientation that work is a burden to be avoided if at all possible.  (Compare the phrase “women in labor.”)  If unavoidable, involvement in work is limited to gain the financial resources necessary to engage in leisure activities (“conspicuous consumption” in Veblen’s terms).  Marx characterized the traditional work ethic as “estranged labor,” an unnatural consequence of the division of labor.



Usury Illegitimate gain from charging interests on loans.  Mutual assistance is central to communities in traditional societies.    At the same time the restriction does not apply to outsiders who can be charged any amount of interests and can be defrauded without violating moral scruples.  Commercial activity in such societies critically depends upon ethnic minority groups (pariah entrepreneurs) who engage in the fluid transfer of wealth in ways forbidden to members of the community.

Verstehen  German for "understanding."  As a principle of research methods, Weber argued, the sociologist must study the actor's understanding of the action.  One must, for example, know what wealth means to the members of a particular society and not assume that the researcher's understanding is shared by the people being studied.  This does not mean that the actors' accounts of what they are doing are to be taken as face value, but an understanding of those accounts is crucial to developing a valid explanation.  Verstehen also does not imply that social phenomena are to be explained in terms of psychological factors; in fact, it is often the reverse - the psychological characteristics of the individual (e.g., acquisitiveness) are products of the social structures they inhabit.

Value – Use Value vs. Exchange Value  Use values are the qualities of goods or services that satisfy some human need.  Air, water, clothing, textbooks, music videos all satisfy human desires, some universal others exotic.  In a system of exchange use values tell us very little.  Air is essential but has no market value because it is a free resource.  Exchange value represents the relationship among the values of commodities that are exchanged, like deer and beaver (to use Adam Smith's example).  The exchange value of a beaver is two deer.   The labor theory of value  assumes that this of two to one is ultimately determined by the fact that it takes twice as long to hunt down a beaver as it does to hunt down a deer (in 1776).  Note that the "value" in the labor theory of value refers to exchange value, not use value.     

 

Weak ties (Granovetter)  Acquaintanceships that involve relatively infrequent and limited contact between persons.  While most sociological theories of social integration focus on strong ties, characterized by long duration, multiple shared activities, emotional attachment, reciprocal exchanges  (e.g., Durkheim’s examination of the strength of social integration and risk of suicide) Granovetter demonstrates that weak ties provide communication works necessary of social integration in large, complex social organizations.