I) Classic Sociological Theory

Karl Marx

Classes

Classes are defined by their relationship to the means of productions:

Those who work versus those who own the means of productions (factory
owners)

History of Class Struggle

The development of history is depending on the economic/ material

developments of society, Different material conditions antagonize the
different groups of society. The ruling class is overturned when the
hierarchical structures do not reflect the material reality anymore. In other
words, revolutions take place if those who rule are not holding the economic/
material basis of society .

Class Struggle in Modernity

Society as a whole is splitting up in two great hostile camps, into two great
classes directly facing each other - Bourgeoisie and Proletariat

Private Property – Surplus Value

Wage labor does not generate property it generates capital for the capitalist.
The capitalist system relies on the competition among workers which
decreases the price of labor and allows the capitalist to extract more
“surplus value” aka more profit. As a result the less money the worker
makes the more “property” the capitalist is able to own.

Alienation

“The work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and,
consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the
machine”. P. 18 The worker is alienated from the work he is doing. He is not
part of a holistic production process but only for one miniscule and irrelevant
part of it. The workers are also alienated from each other because they are
not working together but they are soley focused on their individual aspect of
the production process.

Proletarian Revolution

Marx predicts a concentration of the means of production in the hands of

few. The difference between the few who own everything and the masses
who are impoverished becomes stark that the workers develop a class
consciousness and realize that they vastly outnumber the capitalists. As a
result the proletarian revolution becomes possible.

• The nature of the proletariat transcends national boundaries: The

workers movement is a global movement.

Max Weber – A Cultural Sociologist

What is Culture:

Guiding principles/ ideas of society or societal subgroups (spoken or

unspoken)

• Private utterances (letters, photos)

• Works of art

• Customs

• Fashion

Definition of culture: “Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal

suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be
those webs” (Clifford Geertz)

Culture is generated by society and defines what we believe is meaningful.

1) The Spirit of Capitalism:

The Spirit of Capitalism can be traced back to the religious orientation of the
Puritans. The Puritans believed in predestination. They believed that god has
chosen some people to enter heaven while others are not allowed to enter
heaven in the afterlife. There is nothing that we can do to change this
predetermined fate.

They further believed that being successful in business was one way that
god would let you know you are one of the chosen ones.

Finally, the Puritans believed in living an ascetic live. They did not waste any
money or time indulging themselves. As a result they had more money to
reinvest in their business.

The Spirit of Capitalism emerged and was eventually disconnected from its
religious origins.

One manifestation of the Spirit of Capitalism can be found in the utterances

of Benjamin Franklin
Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his
labour, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends
but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the
only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings
besides.

II) Inequality

Shamus Khan: Privilege

Paradox: How can a society be simultaneously more open and more unequal

Markers of Class

• Relationship to the means of production (Marx)

• Occupations

• Level of Education

• Tastes/Preferences

The new elite:

Heritage is not sufficient for success and entitlement is replaced by

privilege. Private education at schools like St. Paul’s s masks inherited
advantage as achievement. Education is the most important predictor for
wealth and the

2) Douglass Massey and Nancy Denton American Apartheid

Basic Assumption:
Black people are on average poorer than white people. The decline of inner
city black neighborhoods is not caused by the exit of the middle class but by
segregation

Index of dissimilarity

The dissimilarity index measures the relative separation or integration of

groups across all neighborhoods of a city or metropolitan area. If a city's
white-black dissimilarity index were 65, that would mean that 65% of white
people would need to move to another neighborhood to make whites and
blacks evenly distributed across all neighborhoods.

Proportionality:
The dissimilarity index measures whether one particular group is distributed
across census tracts in the metropolitan area in the same way as another
group.

Consequences of Segregation

• Economic downturn affects segregated minorities most

• Concentrate Poverty  Lower Tax base

• Lack of Infrastructure

• Substandard Schooling

• Lack of Political Influence

• Substandard Housing

• For Example: New York City

New York City is a segregated city. As a result, public school students have a
very different experience depending on their race and their location. White
students attend predominantly “white” schools full of students from middle-
and high-income families. These schools are better resourced and offer more
opportunities for academic and social development. The achievement gap
and the racial discrepancy visible in NYC’s selective high schools originates
in this unequal distribution of resources.

Pattillo The Black Middle Class

Pattillo-McCoy argues that the African American Middle class lives in close
proximity to the African American poor. As a result they share important
institutions such as schools with disadvantaged neighborhoods. The white
middle class lives in areas that are affluent and are separate from
disadvantaged neighborhoods. Consequently, African American families who
are middle class still struggle with some of the disadvantages that lower
class African Americans face. These observations explain why the position of
the African American middle class is more tenuous than the white middle
class. Segregation in this sense affects the African poor and the middle class
in the same way.

Consequences:

Children of African American middle-class parents have a higher probability

of downward mobility than children of white middle class parents.

3) Research Methods

– Qualitative Research

o Small N (number of respondents)

o Focus on Processes

o Theory building

 Ethnography: Participant observation

 In-depth Interviews: unstructured interview

 Archival Research: historical documents held often in

a library setting

– Quantitative Research

o Big N

o Generalizable

 Surveys that are collected specifically for a study

 Secondary Data collected by another organization

that we can download from the internet

 Archival Research

– Qualitative Data

o Not generalizable/Process

– Quantitative Data

o Generalizability/ Outcomes. With the correct sampling we

can make assumptions about preferences of the US
population based on a limited amount of respondents (~
1000).
The family
Waite: The case for marriage
The benefits of marriage:
• Married people are wealthier than unmarried people

– Pooling of resources

– Tax benefits

– Protection against sudden unexpected events (unemployment)

– Specialization: One partner is good at budgeting the other is

good at making money and spending it.

– Death benefits

– Savings: Married people spent less; institutionalization of

obligations

– In Laws

Married people are happier than unmarried people

Mental Health and Marriage:

• There is no selection effect. Marriage makes you happier
independently of how happy you were before.

• It is not the case that only happy and healthy people get married

• Cohabitation provides some but not all the benefits of marriage

• Level of commitment is lower and level of support is lower

However: Marriage as an institution only has these positive effects if both

partners take it seriously: We have to buy into marriage as a cultural
institution if we want to experience the benefits of marriage.

Marriage and Inequality

Marriage patterns in the US increase inequalities between rich and poor. Poor
people get married less than rich people. Which means in addition to being
poor they do not receive the financial and health benefits that marriage
generates. Assortative mating further increases the resources of the rich.
• Assortative mating: women in the top quartile are married to men in
the top quartile

• Welfare Policies

– Level of support: Support for single mothers increased

Income testing: when low income mothers work or get married they lose the
benefits and do not have a net gain in income

For Second Shift see powerpoint Session 7