SOCIOLOGY CHAPTER 14 Capitalism and Economy – Flashcards

The CREATIVE CLASS is a category of workers in multiple occupations and industries united by the fact that creativity is central to their productive work. It is in high demand by companies and, as an extension, by cities and towns, which go to great efforts to attract them.

American workers are more productive than ever, yet job insecurity is high. As a result, many people are working longer hours, especially people at higher income levels, in order to prove loyalty or achieve marginal benefits.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM, which preceded capitalism in Europe, began to change as early as the fifteenth century with the ENCLOSURE MOVEMENT, which forced people off what had been public land and sent them looking for work in cities.

Beginning in the eighteenth century, NEW FARMING TECHNOLOGIES led to an agricultural revolution that helped increase the population and the value of land, and INNOVATIONS IN MANUFACTURING AND TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY CREATED a demand for this larger labor pool to fill new jobs. Also connected to industrialization was the transition from barter to the use of a legal currency to buy and sell goods and from agreements between individuals to contracts between corporations. ***New farming technologies during the agricultural revolution lowered the amount of labor needed per acre, which resulted in a surplus of peasant labor. This was one of several factors that led to the development of capitalism (p. 540).

ADAM SMITH argued that: -Competition, helps maintain a cohesive society. ***The idea that competition, not conflict, helps maintain social cohesion was put forward by Adam Smith. -Specialization increases productivity and innovation. _ The use of money, as opposed to barter, makes trading more efficient. ***Adam Smith proposed that specialization, as well as the use of money instead of barter, led to greater efficiency, which produces greater wealth. In this case, you should strive for more efficient exchanges (p. 542).***The idea that competition, not conflict, helps maintain social cohesion was put forward by Adam Smith.

GEORG SIMMEL -Saw the evolution of monetary payment systems—from piecework payment to wage labor to salaried work—as a force to depersonalize exchange. -Moreover, he felt this was a positive change that helped create separate public and private spheres and gave workers more freedom to enjoy the private, or leisure, sphere. **Under a salary system, workers are paid for the sum total of their services rather than for direct service. As Georg Simmel noted, it differs from a civil service salary, in which payment is not tied to the productive value of the worker but rather to the appropriate standard of living based on experience and credentials (p. 544).

KARL MARX argued that capitalism created alienation in workers— -Alienation from the products they produced. -Alienation from the production process. -Alienation from one another. -Alienation from themselves and their creative tendencies. ***Marx predicted both that capitalism would ultimately destroy itself and that the working class would rise against the capitalist class, leading to a period first of socialism and then communism. ***As you will learn, alienation is a condition in which people are dominated by forces of their own creation that then confront them as alien powers. Karl Marx argued that workers in a capitalist economy are alienated from the product they produce because the production process is apportioned among several people.

MAX WEBER -linked the rise of capitalism to technology and ideas, specifically ideas and beliefs connected to the Protestant Reformation. -Weber ultimately saw capitalism in a negative light, not because he thought it caused alienation as Marx did, but because he thought people became obsessed with working and making money that they could never enjoy. ***Max Weber believed that IDEAS generate social change. For example, he theorized that the Protestant Reformation created the necessary social conditions for capitalism by instilling a doctrine of predestination (p. 548).

The FORD MOTOR COMPANY'S idea of the family wage was based on a very limited definition of family. ***It favored married men with children over single men or married men without children, and it reinforced the notion that women should not work. ***The family wage impelled women to stay married, even if their marriages were unhappy or oppressive. Today, the gender bias built into the family wage persists (p. 551).

-The fact that women have often been paid less than men has served to deter them from seeing work as a lifelong choice. -The wage structure was one factor that made women see marriage as the only way to have -financial security -Studies show that working mothers are less depressed and have higher self-esteem than mothers who do not work, yet they are also more likely to feel tired and anxious and to have higher divorce rates.

Compared to people in many other industrialized countries and some developing countries, Americans work longer hours and have fewer vacation benefits and less generous family-leave policies. Which suggests that work is central in the lives of Americans.

While more American companies are offering family-friendly policies such as flextime and "flexspace," employees are not necessarily taking advantage of them in great numbers.

While GLOBALIZATION is not a new phenomenon, the current period of globalization has a number of new elements, and it has clearly demarcated the division between the world's rich and poor. The question is whether globalization can truly be a force to close that gap or if it serves only to widen it. *** In this era of globalization, trade agreements are multilateral. This means that they are the result of negotiations among multiple players and that they enforce rights, impose sanctions, or encourage business at a regional or worldwide level. You will learn more about globalization in the chapter.

A CORPORATION is a juristic person—an entity that has all the legal rights, duties, and responsibilities of a person—although their primary goal is the pursuit of profit.

The overriding objective of corporations is to make profits for their shareholders, and in order to do this they must find ways to beat the competition. Sometimes these efforts lead corporations to cross the line of legality or at least to come close to crossing it.

There is constant tension for corporations in terms of pressures to be profitable and pressures to be environmentally responsible, which can add to overall costs..

Employees also exert pressure on corporations, in the form of asking for better wages, benefits, and working conditions, all of which add to a corporation's costs and make it less profitable. But not providing these things may also have a negative cost in terms of loss of workers, strikes, or lower productivity.

***Unionization rates have declined in the United States since the 1950s. But, according to several studies, workers today want to be part of a union more than ever (p. 565). ***One key concern about unionization is MANAGEMENT HOSTILITY TOWARD COLLECTIVE ACTION, which could result in tense working conditions. Another concern involves job loss, especially with the increasing ability for companies to move over seas (p. 567).

There has been a lot of concern in the United States about job loss due to offshoring (when a company moves operations overseas to cut costs) and due to the presence of illegal immigrants, who are often paid less than a U.S. citizen would be. Some people argue that illegal immigrants have an important role in the economy, not taking jobs from Americans but rather doing jobs that Americans won't do. Others argue that illegal immigrants are ultimately a drain on social services and should be deported with no option for getting legal working papers or citizenship.

***CAPITALISM

***FEUDALISM

AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

CORPORATION

ALIENATION

***SOCIALISM

COMMUNISM

FAMILY WAGE

SERVICE SECTOR

***CHAMPAGNE- GLASS DISTRIBUTION

MONOPOLY

OLIGOPOLY

OFFSHORING

UNION

UNION BUSTING

***LIMITED LIABILITY

***NITSAN CHOREV

***POLITICAL ARBITRAGE

MILTON FRIEDMAN

DECLINED, MORE