1: Introductions & Fundamentals

Hello students! Welcome to SocBlog, the class weblog for Introduction to Sociology.

Here's the agenda for our first day together...

00 - take attendance, pass out name cards

05 - introductions (instructor bio, go around and say name and program - if undecided, just say that)

20 - syllabus, collect Course Contracts
 
1:00 - Blackboard demo

What this blog IS:
A tool for the instructor to organize topics for in-class discussion, and post links to relevant websites and other content.

What this blog IS NOT:
A replacement for reading the textbook.  What I post here is what I plan to discuss in class, because I have found in the past that students have a little more difficulty understanding these topics.  I will not have time to discuss EVERYTHING in a chapter that could be on a test.  ANYTHING within the pages listed in the reading assignments in the syllabus schedule is potential test material... you may feel free to print out the blog entries and add them to your notes, but do not assume that printing out this blog is all the note-taking you need to do to be successful on the tests...

FOR NEXT TIME:

• Read pp. 2-11 in Macionis
• Complete the Technological Competency assignment (see assignment details by clicking the "Assignments" button in the menu bar to the left)

NEXT CLASS STARTS HERE

 3:00 - Attendance

3:05 - Go over Technological Competency assignment results

3:10 - So what's the big idea of sociology?  Let's delve into our textbook and find out.


Chapter 1

• p. 8-9, 200+ years ago, industrialization + urbanization + political revolution ("enlightenment" ideals and scientific development from people like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton) led Comte to coin the term sociology, as a method to describe society as it actually was rather than with abstract utopian theorizing. "Positivism" refers to positive, empirical facts as opposed to speculation.
• People have always wondered and theorized about society (Plato, Confucius, Aristotle, the Romans, St. Thomas Aquinas, Shakespeare, etc..)
  • Comte saw early social thinkers as being in the THEOLOGICAL stage, viewing society as an expression of God's (or the gods') will.
  • The Renaissance period saw the change into a METAPHYSICAL stage of social thought, where society is seen as a natural phenomena that could be apprehended through reason alone, like Thomas Hobbes who saw it as the natural playing out of an original State of Nature of "all against all."
  • The SCIENTIFIC stage began with the work of famous scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, who tried to understand the fundamental forces at work (theorizing) by looking at empirical evidence, and from these folks Comte applied this positivist method to society.

OK, so how exactly is sociology scientific?

(Powerpoint)

Another way to put it...

Science is a way of knowing, and a body of knowledge.

Sociology is related to anthropology, economics, political science, and history.

THEORY

What is a law?

A description of the relationship between facts. 
(Ex. gravity)

 
What is a theory?



An explanation of the relationship between facts.

What is a hypothesis?



A specific prediction, derived from a theory and designed to be tested.  The word comes from the Latin for "to suppose," so think of it like a way to test a theory: "Let's suppose your theory (i.e. explanation) is correct.  If we are held down to the surface of the Earth by an invisible noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then..."  What would that imply?  Could you test it?





What is a "theoretical perspective"?
A way to orient yourself to what you see, like a lens that focuses on certain aspects of reality, while obscuring others.

METHODS

How can we know how people behave?

Surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, ethnography, history, content analysis

STATISTICAL INFERENCE

populations = Census (expensive, hard to do)

samples and generalizability

random, stratified, convenience, snowball

THINKING SOCIOLOGICALLY

Look at the Chapter overview story on p. 2 – society influences a seemingly individual decision: who to love.

Arranged marriage? Gay marriage? Monogamy vs. polygamy/gyny/amory?

What about the decision to have children? see map on p. 4

Why do averages differ so? Macionis explains there are socio-economic factors like education, jobs, contraceptive technology, and cultural ideas about women's roles.

In 2012, the U.S. birth rate dropped to the lowest on record...

Another, even more individual decision: suicide – see chart on p. 5.

Emile Durkheim wrote one of the first true sociological studies on this topic.

What about the feeling of personal responsibility for our lives? What about agency?

Certainly, what we do affects our lives, but so do social forces – see story on p. 6 of changes in the economy, laws, and culture, creating conditions where lots of folks lose their jobs to outsourcing.

DISCUSS "WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

One of the things we do in sociology is inform laws: see p. 7 Sociology and Public Policy

What else is sociology good for? From a personal perspective:

• Allows us to assess the truth of "common sense"
  • conventional wisdom can be false, contradictory, or overly simplified
• Makes opportunities and constraints visible that many people do not see.
• • The sociological perspective allows us to peek behind the curtains of society, like in the Wizard of Oz
  • Shakespeare once wrote that "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely platers; they have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts," like in a theater (dramaturgy)
• Empowers us to be active participants in society.
• • regarding "social justice": knowing social forces exist does not deny our agency, but on the contrary it empowers us to interact with social forces to change the world
    • C Wright Mills – sociological imagination – seeing that our personal problems are public issues... Durkheim would say that these social forces, difficult to understand previously, were seen as mysterious and supernatural.
• Helps us live in a diverse world – the farther you travel, the less you know
• • Helps us think critically about the relative strengths and weaknesses of our way of life.

FOR NEXT TIME:

• Read pp. 10-13 in the textbook

• POSSIBLY?????? Read "We Are Fractal Sheep"

2: Structural-Functionalism

7:30 - Attendance

7:35 - Theoretical Perspectives (orientations to the social world that focus our attention on certain aspects of society)

Structural-Functionalism

Starts with the question: WHY should society exist at all?
Instead of dissolving into atomized individuals pursuing our own narrow interests?

What explains societal stability, solidarity, and survival over time?

Views society as a complex system of parts that work together in order to create solidarity and stability. 

When we talk about "parts" we mean stable social patterns (known as "structures"), not isolated or unique events or social forms.  So "structures" are things like norms, customs, traditions, organizations, and institutions.

What these "structures" actually DO is known as their "function," and generally the function of social structures has to do with creating solidarity, or stability, or survival over time in the most efficient way possible.

So in the name "structural functionalism," structural means this “lens” focuses our attention on structures (stable social patterns) and, therefore, it does NOT focus our attention on things like conflicts and social change.  Functionalism means we also focus on explaining WHY certain structures exist in terms of WHAT THEY DO FOR SOCIETY.  

So the standard process that a structural functionalist follows looks like this:

1. first you look around for stable patterns in the area you are interested in
2. then, when a stable pattern is observed, you look for a function

Analogy: society is like an organism. Economy is like circulatory system, government is like brain, people are like cells, medical institutions are like immune system, etc...
  

Here are a few common social structures.  What functions might they serve?



people often shake hands when meeting for the first time





in a Catholic religious ceremony, everyone lines up and receives a communion wafer and a sip of wine





it has become more common to pay for goods and services with a credit card





every 4 years, Americans vote to elect a president

You can think of social groups and institutions in a kind of evolutionary way... if a new kind of structure randomly comes about, then it will be more likely to survive if it serves a useful function for the wider society around it. 

If it does do something useful, society will be more likely to "feed" it with the things it needs (members, resources, legal rights, etc...) and it will persist over time.  Social groups that don't stay unified usually die off, or split into more manageable groups.

So what is it that creates solidarity? Shared values? Common symbols? Systems of exchange?  Durkheim posited two ways this can happen:

• Mechanical solidarity, cohesion and integration comes from the homogeneity (being of the same type) of individuals—people feel connected through similar work, educational and religious training, and lifestyle.  Society normally operates in a "traditional" way in small scale societies based around ties of familial networks.  "Mechanical" here is referring to people being somewhat interchangeable between different roles (since they are all of the same type) much like parts in a machine.
• Organic solidarity comes from the interdependence that arises from specialization of work and the complementarities between people which occurs in modern, and industrialized societies. Although individuals perform different tasks and often have different values and interests, the order and solidarity of society depends on their reliance on each other to perform their specified tasks. "Organic" here is referring to the interdependence of the component parts, like in an organism (e.g., farmers produce the food to feed the factory workers who produce the tractors that allow the farmer to produce the food).

Societies that don't stay unified pretty much die, or split.

Most structures not only have manifest or intended functions, but also latent functions or unintended side-effects. For example, college as a marriage-broker, or sports as a way to keep kids out of trouble.

Sometimes there can also be social dysfunctions (negative effects) that can disrupt the order of society, or harm solidarity or survival.  What is functional for one category may be dysfunctional for another... people disagree.

For Next Time:

• Read pp. 14-27
• Come prepared to make a decision for your final project.
• • if it's a research paper, what will your topic be?
  • if it's a volunteer service project, what organization will you volunteer with?
  • if it's a Student Learning Showcase exhibit, what will your topic be?

have read "We Are Fractal Sheep"???

4: Symbolic Interactionism, reseach methods

Symbolic Interactionism 
 (Max Weber)
  This approach differs from the other two in that it kind of "zooms in" on society with a microscope, rather than zooming out and looking at the big picture.  This micro level approach focuses our attention on individual interactions, and leads us to view society as by-product.

The question we start with here is:  How does this abstract thing we call "society" result from the ongoing interactive experiences of millions or billions of people?

• Institutions, organizations, and social structures are simply abstractions in our minds, combined with network patterns of interaction; all that is real are our individual interactions.

• So the mind, and the concept of group belongingness, are crucial to being human as we know it. This is where Max Weber brings in his philosophy of ideal determinism - unlike Karl Marx who believed our material circumstances determine everything about our lives and how we think about ourselves, Weber believed that our ideas have "primacy" and they actually determine our material circumstances, rather than the other way around.
• For example, in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber argues that a new idea about religion and the meaning of life in this world caused a radical change in our physical and socio-economic environments.  OUR IDEAS CAN CHANGE OUR BEHAVIORS, WHICH CHANGE OUR WORLD.

A key observation that symbolic interactionists make is simply that people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them, and these meanings come from the individual's interpretation of social interactions (always in a cultural context) involving language.

• Discuss Britney Spears' shaved head or more recently in Japan, another pop icon...

from Reddit - "My name is Claire. I am 18 years old. And I decided to shave my head."

I had a number of reasons for doing so, the main three being: Long, dark hair is just too hot for Arizona summers, I have better things to do than tame my thick, frizzy hair every morning, and I was just plain curious. Considering this was a personal decision, I was surprised at just how much everyone, mainly completely strangers, had suddenly taken an intense interest in this choice. It’s been about a month since the initial shaving, and I’d like to share some of the most frequent comments, questions and situations I’ve encountered:

*“What happened?!” 

*“Why would you shave off your beautiful hair?” 

*“Don’t worry; it’ll grow back in no time.” 

*“Can I touch it?” (This from people I have never met.) • 

* <Middle school girls pointing> *“Oh but you were so pretty!” 

*“Oh my god. What does your boyfriend/mom/dad/family think?" 

*“Wow you’re so brave.” 

*“Is this some form of rebellion?”

I’ve also encountered the situation where people think I’m very sick. I made a Target run one day; I had a very bad cold, I wasn’t wearing any makeup and the sweats I was wearing were filthy. I was asked multiple times if I needed help carrying things, three people let me go ahead in line, and I heard a woman tell her children, “Don’t stare at the poor girl.” These people were all incredibly empathetic and good people for trying to help… but I don’t have cancer.

Most of the comments regarding my head were not meant to be malicious. But I think it’s pretty easy to see the problem with them. Most people cannot fathom why a teenage girl would willingly go bald. Heterosexual girls are expected to make personal decisions based on the preferences of heterosexual boys. I didn’t lose my hair from a disease, I didn’t shave it for a part in a play or movie, I didn’t shave it because my mother has a disease and I’m supporting her and I didn’t shave it to make a point. I shaved my head because my hair is hot and cumbersome. That’s it.

Now, I was semi-prepared for society to view me differently, but I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. I consider myself a strong, independent person who doesn’t let the opinions of others affect how I dress or perceive myself… but I have noticed a shift in my self-perception. I’ve always been a feminine person. I love dresses and bows, but since I’ve shaved my head I’ve been wearing dresses and skirts almost exclusively and I’ve been wearing more makeup than I ever have. About two weeks in I realized it was taking more time for me to get ready now than when I had hair. I started paying attention to my internal dialogue during my morning routine. I realized I had become self-conscious about my femininity and was using skirts and makeup to “prove” to the world that yes, I was still a girl. And all this had happened without my noticing.

I had bought into the idea that hair somehow defines a girl… and a girl without hair must be a ‘butch lesbian’. Which just isn’t me. I don’t regret shaving my head, I thought it was a liberating experience and it truly forced me to confront some preconceived notions about my actions, decisions, and societal expectations. Despite all of the above, my bald head has given me confidence and security in who I am. NoRegrets right?

• Brainstorm the "meaning" of sexual intercourse?

• THAT we are sexual is is determined by a biological imperative toward reproduction. But HOW we are sexual (where, when, how often, with whom, and why) depends on what we have learned from our culture, with meanings transmitted to us by others in our networks... 

• How can gun violence be a Rorschach test? (link1) (and see recent December, 2012 shooting)

All this stuff means that all of our social structures (including norms, beliefs, and values, as well as organizations/institutions) are "socially constructed" on this scaffold of culture, that we learn through an interactive process with specific other individuals.

CAVEAT: saying that things are "socially constructed" often provokes a response that, therefore, the things in question are not really "real."  This reaction somewhat misses the point.  Think about the example of a house.  Is a house really "real"?  After all, a "house" is physically constructed by a social group... does that mean it's not really a house because, in actual physical reality, it is literally just a bunch of rocks, boards, glass, and steel?  No, of course it IS a house because we get to assign that meaning to that particular collection of materials in that particular configuration.  Culture and language give us this ability.  

The interesting part of all this for a symbolic interactionist is that we have influence over culture and language precisely because they are generated in these micro-interactions in which we have agency. 

Discuss dramaturgy
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
-Shakespeare

Discuss social exchange, economic rationality, and game theory.

• The Prisoner's Dilemma – two suspects are arrested by the cops but there is not enough evidence to convict. The cops separate them and offer each the same deal: confess and testify against your partner, and we'll cut you a break.  
• If your partner stonewalls us, but you testify against him, we'll let you go free and convict him on a serious charge, and he'll get a major sentence (20 years hard time).
• If neither of you one testifies against the other, we'll be able to convict both of you on a lesser charge and you'll each get a minor sentence (1 year hard time). 
• If you both testify against each other, we'll get you both convicted of the serious offence, but in light if your cooperation you will each receive a reduced sentence (5 years hard time).

Each prisoner is assured that the other will not know about his decision before the end of the investigation.  Keep in mind that they do not know each others' personalities well enough to predict what the other will choose to do.

How should the prisoners act?  How would you act?

Even though this is a hypothetical situation designed as a thought experiment, the logic can be applied to more practical situations in society.  For example, here is conversation I heard on the radio recently about the recession we've gone through: 

One guy said, "No matter how bad things get, I will keep spending on my hobby of classic car reconstruction, because when you tighten your purse strings, you choke the economy." 

Then another guy called in to say, "Well, I'm not going to spend-spend-spend just because the economy needs me to, because that leaves me penniless with no savings for emergencies or for retirement... and what if the economy continues to get worse? Then those who've spent spent spent are REALLY hurting!"

So sure, if everyone were to spend everything they have, that would definitely get the economy juiced up and lots of new jobs would get created.  But it is rational for an individual to save for emergencies, in a sense betraying the collective out of personal self-interest.  If everyone acts only out of self-interest, we all suffer from a bad economy!

The problem is that what is "rational" varies, depending on what level of analysis you are thinking on: that of the individual, or that of the collective.

Recapping theoretical approaches: 

Structural-functionalism

• Emile Durkheim
• Macro scale
• Positivist methods
• likes quantitative, empirical data
• strives for scientific objectivity (unbiased)
• 2-step process
• 1. look for social structures (patterns of interaction, such as norms, traditions, organizations, etc...)
• 2. identify functions of those structures (usually stability, solidarity, or survival)

The Social Conflict Approach

• Karl Marx
• Macro scale
• Critical methods
• explicitly political, no bones about it
• focuses on need for change – should society exist as it does?  how can it be improved?
• rejects the ideal of scientific neutrality as implicitly conservative (supports the status quo)
• Realize that even our moral preferences are shaped by culture
• 2-step process
• 1. look for moving targets (any social change: wars, revolutions, protests, conflicts, etc...)
• 2. identify a disparity or inequality that may explain why pressure built up to cause change (usually money/wealth, political power, or social prestige)

Symbolic Interactionism

• Max Weber
• Micro scale (zooms in on small-scale interactions)
• Interpretive methods
• likes qualitative data, such as from ethnography (participant observation)
• focuses on how individuals learn and create subjective meaning, and how and why they act on that meaning in the context of their lives "Verstehen"

6: Socialization

Socialization: From Childhood to Adulthood

7:30 - Attendance

...

Continue discussion of Chapter 2: Culture
Norms: laws, mores, folkways

 example in football.

How does culture change over time?

• invention
• discovery
• diffusion

Theoretical approaches...


Structural Functionalism - Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs.  What does this mean?

Look for patterns and universals.

Stability of society rests on core values shared by all.


Social Conflict Approach – if there is inequality, assume that culture benefits the powerful by teaching us to accept the system.

Accepting "material determinism" means that we view external culture as something that shapes our patterns of thought and behavior.





8:00 - Chapter 3: Socialization



The importance of social experience

Nature vs. Nurture debate
(instincts vs. learned behavior)
(walking vs. Talking, as I said last time)
(or, perhaps they're both affected by one another?)



Nurture IS our nature, just as culture is our nature.

We have evolved so that we have instincts to teach extra-genetic information (traditions, ways of life, beliefs and values) to our kids using memes.


Isolation


-opening story of girl in closet, Anna... thoughts?



-Rhesus monkeys (Harlow)

  -how much isolation could they recover from, and eventually act like normal monkeys?

  -how much isolation did it take to substantially and IRREVERSIBLY disrupt their development?



Important socialization research

Freud: tripartite model of the mind: Id, Ego, Superego

Piaget: cognitive development: Sensorimotor -> Preoperational -> Concrete Operational -> Formal operational

Kohlberg: moral reasoning development: Preconventional -> conventional -> post-conventional (Kant)
(this kid is pre-conventional... when mommy takes the butcher knife away...)


Gilligan: extended Kohlberg's work by applying gender
Boys: Justice, fairness, rational rules
Girls: care/responsibility, emotional bonds

Horton-Cooley: the "Looking-Glass Self"


8:35 - Split into small groups, plan for Commercial Critique assignment

Group 1: Marisol, Brittany, Scott, Ally
Group 2: Adrienne, Steve, Joe, Carly
Group 3: Nick, Michelle, Arianna, Hailey
Group 4: Sarah, Lindsay, Hunter, Becky


GOOD example:

Nestle's Bottled Water commercial appeared to have a socialization effect, communicating cultural beliefs and norms.  It's not the focus of the ad, but a side-effect is a reinforcement that it is a normal behavior for men to be sitting on the couch watching TV while the women's role is to be taking care of them.  There is also a belief of nature vs nurture.  As we have learned, humans are not born with instincts for their cultural behavior - they must learn to develop these traits.  As the young mother watches, she notices her son imitating each move that his father makes, including drinking a sugary soft drink.  It occurs to her that a better habit for her son to develop would be imitating his dad drinking a bottle of water.  By implying that she can change his learned behavior, she has established that nurture is more powerful than nature.    

Nestle Bottled Water Commercial

BAD example:

go to youtube type in (best ad ever - winner of 2010 best tv advertisement award hd )

its the mouse commercial

This ad is implying by eating the cheese you will have supper human strength

more examples... beef jerky campaign... this as supplementary watching...

... Virgin Air commercial implying white men are born to be pilots and engineers, while blacks and women are born to servile roles...


FOR NEXT TIME:

Read pp. 71-81
Be prepared with your group to show a commercial advertisement, present your analysis of a belief, norm, or value, and facilitate a brief class discussion.  Use the new forum I created just for this assignment in the Discussion Board.

-------------------

Agents of Socialization:

1. Family. Early childhood socialization from before we are born (pink or blue wallpaper, followed by gendered toys).

Values - Parents act in ways that encourage their children to follow in their footsteps.
Wealthy encourage creativity/independence, poor tend to encourage conformity/discipline.
( a new study uncovers a similar phenomenon - self-advocacy and questioning vs. avoidance and deference ) 

Identity – race, class, religion. Religion is the odd one – what is a little Jewish boy, or a little Catholic girl? They don't know what that means, yet we call them that because we presume kids share their parents' religion.

Capital – economic capital (money), social capital (networks), cultural capital (knowledge).

"Capital" is just a resource – something you use to do something else.
Family and class also determine when you become an "adult," as do cultural factors. What does a year off after school mean if you are poor vs. rich?

Is adulthood when you can drink? When you can go off to war? When you can vote? When you become a parent? When you get a full time job and your own place?

2. School.
   People with different backgrounds.
   More structured, bureaucratic authority.
   Gender socialization continues, boys aggressive, girls passive.
   Money can determine the value of education, as can cycles of poverty and Blocked Opportunity Structures.
   Schools have a "hidden curriculum" of values in addition to the regular, planned lessons and classes. Sports, spelling bees, grading curves, etc... teach competition as a value. Team projects can teach cooperation. Even here at WCTC, we're supposed to teach implicit lessons like getting yourself up on someone else's schedule, being responsible, meeting deadlines, interacting with people from different backgrounds, etc...

3. Peer groups. Democratic/anarchic authority.
   Children learn autonomy, can discuss taboo topics.
   Homophily.
   Anticipatory socialization – the influence of groups you would like to join.

4. Mass media. Impersonal, one-way transmission of memes.
   vast audience, cultural homogenizer. Lowest common denominator.  Can introduce new and different ideas, can educate.  But can also be sculpted into propaganda (spin) and reinforce prejudice and fear.
   Can promote stereotypes – twice as many blonde women as there are in real life. Everybody's attractive on T.V. unless the point of the character is to be unattractive, therefore if you feel you are not attractive you may feel something is wrong with you.
   Can desensitize us to violence.

5. Others. Religion. Workplaces. Social clubs. Total institutions like prisons, psych wards, certain aspects of the military (boot camp).

Total institutions (p.80) explicitly re-socialize people.  It is their manifest function - not a latent function like with many of the above agents.
See Zimbardo on page 22. 

Cut off from outside, constant surveillance, professional authorities, minimization of self (standardization of hair, clothes, etc.)

4:00 - Life course stages.

Childhood – culturally defined, sometimes regardless of biological maturity.

Kids work in other countries. Middle ages depict kids as small adults. We are in a rich country so kids don't HAVE to work so our culture has shifted to define childhood as carefree and playful, and formal education has become important with industrialization.  But it wasn't always this way.

Are Piaget's stages (last time) moving up earlier and earlier?  When are kids "adults?"  In America we are rich and so have an extended childhood relative to the rest of the world, so we are concerned when kids grow up faster, or when there is pressure to grow up faster.

What about imposing adulthood and sexuality on children (Toddlers & Tiaras, etc...)?

DISCUSS: Where does this pressure come from?

kids' natural emulation of adults + cultural impetus from media + increasingly indulgent parents (perhaps trying to live vicariously through their children, like in Toddlers & Tiaras - but in doing so are imposing an adult frame of understanding childhood on their kids)

Adolescence – confusion and emotion come not just from biological puberty, but from social confusion over norms and status (anomia). Contradictions of being no longer children but not yet adults: can go to war but not drink, be sexy but don't have sex, be your own person but obey your parents...
Socially constructed since 1800's...

Working class = adults shortly after high school, start work and parenting.

Wealthy = adults around 30, after college, maybe grad school or traveling

Adulthood – support yourself, career goals, parenting, different for men and women, have to face aging which our culture doesn't like. (youth-worship, Ageism)

Old Age – retirement, growing elderly population (p.79 chart), health problems, social security?
Culture shapes our understanding of Age.  How do other cultures deal with age?  Respect for elders, power (gerontocracy), families take care of elders... 

Poverty, especially for elderly widows now who didn't work but were supported by husbands.
Although now we're seeing that more older women have worked and so have social security and/or pensions... also people are healthier now, less smokers, better medicine & nutrition, so can stay working longer.

Last article at the end (p.81): are we puppets responding to offstage direction?

Politics

anthropology article on magical thinking + punditry around Obama


debates
abortion
pot
immigration (sym.int. article on AP using term "illegals")
http://www.latinorebels.com/2013/04/02/associated-press-drops-use-of-illegal-immigrants-or-illegals-when-describing-people/
gun control

Politics – history

(for possible debate fodder  - article about sociological brief obliterating the idea that same-sex parents are bad for kids)

institution that distributes power, sets society's agenda, makes decisions.

Power is the ability to achieve ends despite resistance. Governments are a major excerciser of power, and they are formal organizations that direct the political life of a society.

Society's organization depends on agreeing on ends and means.

Authority is power that people perceive as legit rather than coercive.

Traiditional authority is from respect of cultural heritage and history. It declines with industrialization.

Rational-legal authority is legitimized by legal rules and regulations, that are supposed to make sense.

Charismatic authority is legitimized by awesomeness, but it is unstable, so to continue on it must be routinized, or transformed into a more stable form.

There are many political systems, but 4 of the most common are:

monarchy (family, traditional authority)

democracy (usually democratic republics)

we are not TRULY democratic because of unelected bureaucrats & the power of $$$

authoritarianism (no popular participation)

totalitarianism (extensive regulation – total institution?)

is there a global political system emerging? Multinational corporations have power and authority too. Information technology connects people like never before.

USA politics

cultural emphasis on individualism, capitalism, emphasized small, non-intrusive govt. But in the past 50-60 years, expanded into Welfare State with social programs to benefit the population.

Political spectrum(s) – economic and social issues (p.357)

left----socialists---progressives----democrats---moderates---repubs----reactionaries----libertarians----right

past 100 years? check out this animated map.

special interest groups are loose networks that use lobbyists to influence politicians' decisions

PACs are organizations formed by special interest groups to pursue a specific goal by raising and spending money

HOW DO POLITICS AND ECONOMICS INTERTWINE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA?
There is growing polarizaiton (cite?)
which leads to increasingly competitive races...
combined with Citizens United and the recent legal changes to PACs and SuperPACs allowing unlimited donations (cite)...
and combined with the increased inequality triggered by the recent Recession...
leads to what this article explains... the growing need for campaign cash combined with growing inequality that has concentrated more wealth in the hands of fewer citizens.  
"Electoral campaigns are extraordinarily expensive, and they have become considerably more so over time. The “professionalization” of political campaigns, with their increased focus on paid advertising and sophisticated targeting operations, has increased the value of money relative to other resources (like the ability to mobilize large numbers of volunteers). The growing need for campaign cash has combined with a growing economic inequality that has concentrated more of the country’s wealth in the hands of fewer of its citizens. Together these developments threaten to produce a vicious cycle in which affluent Americans shape policy in ways that enhance their existing advantages and further their ability to determine the course of government policymaking."
This threatens to create a vicious cycle in which affluent Americans shape policy in ways that entrench their status and enhance their existing advantages and further their ability to determine the course of legislation and policy-making (in ways that further their own interests).  As less wealthy Americans struggle to get by on less and less, they no longer have disposable income to donate to political campaigns that reflect THEIR intersts...

another way they intertwine: budgets bring fiscal and social issues together (video on the debt ceiling).

political apathy – conservatives call it indifference, liberals call it alienation

but US has lowest voter turnout among rich countries.

Who votes? Women, elderly, wealthy, non-hispanic whites

What about the VOTER ID bill being discussed right now? (April, 2011)

You have to get a special ID card, to prevent fraud?   How much fraud is there?

Who will this disenfranchise?

Apartment movers / college kids, elderly/disabled, poor, rural (far away)

Are you disenfranchised if fraudulent votes are cast? How much makes it worthwhile?

THEORY

pluralism – power is dispersed through many competing groups. Decisions are negotiated.

Power-elite – social conflict views only the rich as having much power.

Marxist political economy – money is power.

Revolution!

Sometimes there is a radical break with normalcy, and a system is overthrown.

1. rising expectations, 2. unresponsive govt., 3. radical intellectual leadership, 4. establishing a new legitimacy. (see the movie about Cuba)(look at Arab Spring 2011?)

terrorism – violence or threats used as a political strategy. A matter of definition.

WAR is organized, armed conflict among two or more nations/governments.

Factors

1. perceived threats
2. social problems
3. political objectives
4. moral spin
5. absence of alternatives

class and military – no draft any more, we have a volunteer military. But not all kinds of people are equally likely to volunteer – few rich and few poor, mostly working class.

Most people are happy there's no draft.  What if there was one?  Would we be as likely to go to war?

Costs and causes –
list of causes
putting yourself into the Middle East's shoes...?

costs: how many countries spend at least as much as the US?
how many half as much?
a quarter as much?
in fact our next closest competitor, China, spends less than a quarter.
We spend nearly as much as the rest of the world, combined.

Military Industrial Complex

close association between govt, military, and defense contractors.
from MercenaryZoop in reddit

For context: generally the international community was okay with the US going into Afghanistan. It was and still is a troubled poor region with a weak government. We also had fairly solid evidence of threats living in the region. Hard to say no to anyone wanting to help that situation... (albeit the US tends to like to help via bombs and drones... sigh)

Iraq was a very different situation. While Saddam was mighty horrible, without a doubt (look up his sons, and the death squads), Iraq was also relatively stable all things considering. The various factions were not outwardly fighting, the economy was stable, etc. It was a delicate balance. Although most countries agreed that the Saddam regime was mighty bad, many were not willing to stir up the bees nest to get rid of the regime.

Then we know the rest: America being America, brought the elephant to the China shop. We cared less about the advice the international community had. America had an agenda to accomplish. To this day, we aren't entirely sure what it really was. Money? Power? Greed of individual politicians?

I would bet the latter. As most of us know, our politics are hugely impacted by money. Plenty of our politicians have connections to the infamous "military industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned the world about in his exit speech as president. It's pretty straight forward: the military industrial complex isn't going to make nearly as much money if we're not at war. With 9/11, we had the perfect excuse to go rampaging around.

Since I have gone this far, I'd like to comment on how I think we got here. In World War II, the US contracted out car factories and the like to start building war materials, because we needed to "catch up" in war production since we joined late and were not eager to join at all. Nothing "evil" there.

After World War II finished, several of those contracted companies lost their contracts. There was no longer a huge need for tanks and other materials. Of course, the companies didn't want to go back to building cars or whatever they were building before... it's tougher. They need to build better consumer products, compete with others, etc. It's a whole lot "easier" to just have a guaranteed government contract.

Then Korea happened. "Great," those military producers thought. The good ol' days were back.

Then Vietnam happened. Yet again, yay for easy government money. It can be debated whether or not we went to war for additional factors beyond what we were taught in school: fear of Communism.

The Cold War satisfied many who relied on government military contracts. We were producing a huge amount of equipment, even without an official war. In fact, the Cold War is the best of both worlds: there is no need for a real war, but you still develop as if you are at war.

Then Saddam was stupid enough to invade Kuwait. As much as we tend to hate upon the Bushes around here, the first Bush did not seem eager to have a "real war" meaning prolonged. He worked with the UN, and the UN agreed gasp!. An international force went in, kicked Saddam's forces out (granted most of them ran for the hills once they knew we were coming), and then we went home too. Exactly what "police action" should be: get in, save the innocent, get out. Our goal wasn't regime change, or anything grand and huge. Like all plans, precise goals are important. They're easier to accomplish and are less likely to blow up in your face.

Then we get to 9/11. The US had been half-way peaceful (at least not officially at war anyway) for about a decade. There was no huge need for military equipment, and those who relied on military contracts were getting itchy. Their goal is profit, like every company, and war nearly guaranteed large profit margins. Thus... guess what they pushed for when given the opportunity... a nice long war.

In fact, let's compare the Cold War to our current war on terror.

• Enemy we cannot beat. Check. (Since we weren't actively at war with the Soviets, it was hard to imagine "winning" that. Terrorists, well, anyone can be a terrorist. In fact, I have probably been declared a terrorist because of this comment. Hi NSA!)
• Excuse to build military equipment. Check.
• A cause the civilians can get behind. Check. (Red scare versus fear of terrorism.)

From someone profiting from war, it's perfection. The US can be at war nearly indefinitely, thus securing those much beloved military contracts. Even better yet, since terror can happen anywhere, we can also arm police with military equipment, thus needing even MORE military contracts!

And there you have it. It's not that "America is evil," or that there is some kind of huge group of "bad guys" doing these horrible acts. In fact, I bet most of the people in charge of this mess have families and nice children. This whole situation evolved slowly, naturally. That's why so few people see it. It's not any one person's fault, or any one particular organization's fault, it's our inability to see the problem and willingness to solve it.

Here's something I learned the other day, and it's terribly true from what I can see: given any society, and a strong belief in one particular measure of success, they will eventually become ruthlessly efficient at achieving that measure of success. In terms of human psychology: we desire what gives us the most positive reinforcement, and we're willing to work hard to achieve it, oftentimes with disregard to anything else (whole another debate about human psychology causing problems).

For the United States, and less broadly the world: it's money. Money drives everything we do. Money is how we gauge success, from a societal level to an individual level.

Media – has power to spin wars, propaganda

Economics

(article on 2013 bull market for stocks, bear market for workers)

What is the economy? What is "politics"?

Both "Institutions" – that is, organized spheres of social life designed to meet peoples' needs.

One has to do with the distribution of resources, the other with power / decision making

Markets? Supply and demand? Production and consumption? Specialization

Agricultural revolution – using animal power

calorie ratios, 1:50 is better than 1:3 (hunt/gather) or 1:5 (horticulture/pastoralism)

Industrial – using machine power (1:5,000)

5 changes on p. 337

expanding market – reigned in by unions and child labor laws

WHAT DID IT MEAN TO OUR GUYS?

Durkheim – increased specialisation, organic solidarity

Weber – triumph of rationalism

Marx – capitalist revolution (over fuedalism)

Information – knowledge is power!

3 changes, see also 5 changes on page 348.

(will robots take over the service sector?)

Globalization

world market, jobs outsourcing

takes economic activity out of control of local governments

raises concerns about rights of workers
other concerns?

Economic systems and justice: interrogating inequality

• capitalism & Adam Smith, invisible hand of market forces (compatible with classical liberal position that government exists for the sake of the individual)
  • freedom TO

• socialism & intentional, centralized planning (position is that government exists for the sake of the society as a whole)
  • freedom FROM

Person 1:  No, justice is no boxes for anyone but what they bring themselves. Penalising the strong to support the weak is socialism.  Justice is being held to account for ones actions, for the decisions one has the authority and power to make. It has nothing to do with redistribution of resources, and trying to conflate the two is dishonest and manipulative. 

Person 2: It's interesting that we see this picture completely differently. Notice that it's about making sure everyone can see the game, not about anything someone did or didn't do. Is it just to let someone in a wheelchair not access something because everyone else is too tall or can climb stairs?

Person 1: Of course, because you see it as the responsibility of the collective to make sure everyone can see the game, and I see it as the responsibility of the individual that (s)he can see the game.

Person 2: It's both, I think. One can take responsibility for one's own actions *by* asking for help from the collective.

Person 1: "Asking" is the pertinent part. Asking for is different than entitled to. The difference between charity and socialism is the freedom to say no, and the obligation of those asking to respect that no.

 Person 2: The difference between our positions is that collectives can ask, and have their ask permanently respected. How do you know the folks in this picture didn't ask? People also need to be taught (by the collective) that they are allowed to ask. In other words, parents, teachers, and so on are responsible for making tools available for exercising agency.

Person 1:If the collective's "ask" is permanently respected, it's not a request, it's a decree, and therein lies injustice.

Person 3: This argument seems contingent on a particular view of what is voluntary vs not. For example, if one views wage labor and particularly the distribution of wages to not be totally voluntary, we are already in a situation of injustice. So, at the very least, to assume that injustice starts at REdistribution is false.  Similarly, this argument seems contingent on the view that those who can see the game have done so through their individual effort, but of course in the analogy the tallest person has likely exerted no extra effort which causes them to become taller. Therefore, only the shorter persons actually bear any "responsibility" for seeing the game. The tallest person's "responsibility" is an illusion. Therefore, making individual responsibility the standard for who is able to see the game vs not seems likely to be an argument the tallest person has come up with for their own benefit, rather than a universally obvious truth.

from reddit ELI5

Communism is a form of socialism. Pure Communism doesn't exist. Neither does pure socialism. Both words are used in so many different ways (especially socialism these days) that there is no clear distinction to be drawn, until you focus on a particular ideology (Marxist Communism vs. Anarchist socialism, Maoism vs. Social Democracy, etc.).

Socialism is a broad term used to mean a lot of different things. For some people it's just the idea of everyone helping everyone else out to make sure no one dies from a lack of basic needs (food, water, shelter, etc.). For others it means an economic system, usually the opposite of Capitalism, where things are in place to stop how much capital (stuff that makes money) gathers up in any one person's hands. At it's core though, socialism is always concerned with the idea of the good of the larger number, rather than the pursuit of individual gain. Some people who believe in Capitalism think that pursuing individual gain helps everyone in the end anyway, but Socialists would disagree with that.

Socialism is also used negatively to describe things people see as getting in the way of successful Capitalism. All governments place limits on the free market ideal of Capitalism to some extent, but when people strongly disagree with how far those limits go, they'll often label them socialism to let people know they think they're bad. In the United States, for example, someone earning $500,000 a year will pay more in taxes than someone earning $50,000 a year. But (in theory) their children will have access to the same public education system – the person earning $50,000 will be getting a greater return, thanks to government redistribution. While this occasionally comes under attack, however, it is generally considered a good use of the government, so no one labels it Socialism. In many developed countries a similar system exists for health care, and it's often not labeled as Socialism. In the United States, though, a similar system for healthcare is usually called socialism – even if it isn't nearly extreme enough for a real Socialist to think it is.

There are a lot of different types of socialism, ranging from some schools of Anarchism (like Social Libertarianism) to Communism to Democratic Socialism (like, sort of, in Venezuela) to Social Democracies (Sweden).

Communism is just a special type of socialism. There are actually many different theories of Communism, and they are pretty different. But they all grow out of the teachings of Karl Marx. Marx believed (to simplify) that one of the really important parts of achieving a socialist state was that the people had to own all of the things that made things (capital) collectively, rather than letting individuals own factories, farms, and things like that, which would allow them to become richer and buy more factories and farms. Marx's vision of pure Communism actually required massive technological advances so that we were living in a world of extreme abundance, so that everyone could have anything they needed without anyone else not having it. What most people think of as a 'Communist State' would be seen by a pure Marxist as an intermediary step on the way to real Communism – where the very ideas of capital, class, economies, etc. all disappear, because we don't need them anymore.

Like I say, the words are misused so much that it's hard to really come up with a clear difference. Some people would say the difference is that Communists believe the state has to have a fundamental change of character for a collectivist world to exist, while socialists believe it can be done within the existing state. But socialist Anarchists believe very strongly in the abolition of the state first.

In fact, the great schism between the Anarchists and the Communists in Marx's time came from the opposite disagreement – Communists believed the fastest way to achieve equality was to have the state seize all property and forcibly redistribute it. Anarchists believed (unfortunately, mostly rightly) that once the state seized all of the property, those in power wouldn't want to then redistribute it.

EDIT: To really drive this home, because reading through all of the comments I think it's the most important point: while people are trying to answer your question, they're doing it based on the definitions of "Communism" and "Socialism" that they choose to use. As a result, some of the (relatively good) answers are contradicting one another, and most of them are hugely problematic. It's not your fault, because the words are used in public discourse as though they have very clear single definitions, but ultimately the question is like asking: What's the difference between a beetle and an insect?The problem is that not only is a beetle a type of insect, but it matters a lot what kind of beetle you're talking about, and what kinds of other insects you're comparing them to.

• welfare capitalism (a.k.a. democratic socialism)
• -harness the free market to generate resources to pay for social programs

• state capitalism (a.k.a. market socialism)
  
  

  govt. helps companies prosper (japan)

What is the role of charity?
Bill Gates
Slavoj Zizek
implications of the findings that how much rich people give seems to be a function of their neighborhood?

changes

many formerly socialist Asian and Eastern-European countries have gone capitalist in the last few decades – higher productivity and average standards of living, but also more poverty. (Berlin Wall 1989)

Soviet Union collapsed because it replaced economic elites (Czars) with political elites (under Stalin) (stratification)

Many formerly capitalist South American and Western-European countries are going socialist.

USA is changing – 40% farmers a century ago, now <1%. industrialization in the early 1900s brought blue-collar jobs. IT brought white collar jobs, which usually pay less than older factory jobs, so our generation tends to have a lower standard of living. Also unions have declined from 33% after the great depression to 12% now.

"Professionalization" as symbolic interactionism (p. 339)

Unemployment – not just an individual problem – caused by economic factors

underemployment – less than full time

but what about overemployment – working 2 or 3 jobs each and then relying on services, house cleaners, restaurants, nannies, etc... is this the result of the rise of the "service economy?"

corporations/conglomerates

Incorporating creates a legal entity that shields owners' private wealth, and can lower taxes.

are they competetive?

Regulation, monopoly, corporate welfare, tax dodging (Google, GE) etc.

GE made $5 billion in PROFITS in the US in 2010, paid NO taxes, and got back a tax benefit of $3 billion. Combination of tax lobbying, overseas shelters, and credits and subsidies

Globalization

Enron paid no taxes due to Cayman Islands

Google is doing something similar now for international profits in Bermuda