Sociology - Appunti Lezioni

Lecture 7.01.2019: What is a society?

A society is a group of people which shares the same rules, values, and norms that have created social institutions (i.e., university, the state). Once in a society, you must accept the order; without it, chaos would reign, and human beings cannot exist. Sociology concerns the analysis of the social order and its changes, exploring how individual behavior is influenced by society. Sociology wants to analyze the different interests of a society that confront each other. It is a paradigmatic science: a science in which different points of view exist. Without it, society in itself, according to sociology, does not exist.

Functionalist paradigm: The social order

The main issue is the question of social order and consensus. A society in which the military keeps people in place gives them no chance of consensus. Even totalitarianism gives people the chance of expressing consensus; a manipulation of conscience can create consensus.

Socialization is fundamental to human structure. It makes us citizens of a particular society or land. Otherwise, we accept what already is. Socialization by one way of thinking makes us understand the epistemological categories of society, such as illustrating the Bible (an emblem of religion that dominates the way of thinking and the culture in which we are socialized).

Our personality is shaped by culture! The biological level is not the most important; we are shaped by society (according to sociology) in every aspect of life.

Sociology: Historical roots and contemporary phenomena

Sociology deals with contemporary phenomena but also has many longer-term interests because of its deep historical roots. It was born as a science of modernity. Before the French and the industrial revolution, the world was explained by religions (i.e., monarchies, oligarchies all must be accepted without doubt). Sociology is the product of social actions; we can reform society, no god is part of the world structure now. Society should not have poverty, the highest point of sociology.

Karl Marx was one of the founders of sociology, the one who imagined a new kind of society since the modern one was unfair. But he was really ideological; others after him will change their points of view. Sociology has invaded the interest in basic moral questions in eradicating poverty in the current time, not in the future. But to understand the present, sociology also had to understand the history of societies, classes, and social changes.

Historical transitions and societal changes

The transition from pre-modern society to modern society: What were the historical factors that allowed the transition? The industrial revolution in the 18^th and 19^th centuries and the French revolution. The moment a new class becomes dominant, it must bring or create new values. Historical taps in history brought the formation of new societies.

The French revolution was extremely important as it gave rise to individual rights. Before, in feudal societies, the individual was only inside the community. Now each individual has economic and political rights, leading to the overthrowing of earlier state formations.

The Industrial Revolution marked the formation of the industrial sector. This transition meant one important change: the labor force became a commodity. People could now sell the labor which was "forbidden" before. The formation of a liberal state led to the recognition of individual political rights.

In the post-industrial era, beginning in the mid-19^th century, there was a shift from a blue-collar (those who work in factories) to a white-collar (those who work in an office) workforce. A major shift.

Globalization and its impact

Now, globalization represents another social change after the post-industrial age, starting in the 21^st century. It meant a new idea of society, no more the idea of a society as a closed nation and closed society. It is a connection of different societies, a transnational and global communication network including the UE and the UN. Not just a change at a local level but also global. The crisis of the globalized economy includes migration. The free market and circulation were among the positive aspects during the creation of a global society.

Pros: access to goods, services, and information. Cons: spread of diseases, deviant globalization (terrorism, sex-trafficking, etc.). The increase in consumption. The production was the most crucial factor during the industrial era; now, consumption is. Marx already predicted it, saying that capitalism had major contradictions which will lead to its end. Capitalism will produce so many commodities that we will always need to find new markets to support itself. The bombardment of ads nowadays marks a shift from factories to offices and shopping. All of this has a profound impact on culture: the culture of consumption.

The micro-macro relationship

Micro-level analysis concerns individual actions and thoughts and how they are shaped by society. Macro analysis regards the formation of groups (i.e., political parties or families), authoritarian states, the formation of classes. The worldwide processes now belong to the macro aspect of the world. The relation between the individual and the structure is sociology in a nutshell.

Agency vs structure relationship

Agency: social actors have the power to influence social structure. Agency gives importance to the individual (the agent) as having power and capacity for creativity. The individual has the power to change society with action. Social actors are influenced by the superstructure, yet they believe that society cannot entirely shape the conscience of men and charismatic leaders, who bring new values that create a new social order: the theory of Weber.

Social structure: an assembly of relations, an order that stays for an extended period. Relationships hardly change, and nowadays we have the same structure as two centuries ago: capitalism and democracy. This leads to an important debate of confrontations of two points of view: one claiming that we are now in a different structure and those who claim that we are now in the same modern structure as after the industrial revolution. Society is made of various parts like a human body. Without one of the organs, the society/body collapses. The increased separation of labor ensures the survival of a prolonged period.

Functionalism means that we want to explain the formation of a given structure. Structuralists analyze the structures that are not so visible as others, yet they influence society. The relationship formed between the person who sells the labor force (workers/proletariat) and the one who will own it after all (capitalists): the exploitation structure according to Marx. The fair social exchanges that are visible are actually unfair; they must be changed, according to the philosopher.

Charles Wright Mills

Sociological imagination: Analysis of society through imagination. C. W. Mill was the founder of this movement; he was neither a structuralist nor a functionalist. A distinctive way of looking at data or reflecting on the world around. We have to explain the issue by the institutional, biographical, and historical point of view. The reflection on the linkage between private troubles and public issues is key. Private troubles are public issues with no exceptions. What seems a micro issue is actually related to the social process which is dominant at that moment. Analysis of the whole spectrum, nothing is personal, all is interrelated with the public sphere. Is globalization responsible for unemployment? A question to analyze.

Born in Texas, 1916. He frequented the Austin uni, a prolific author during the 50s. A cold war at the institutional level when everyone was a commie influenced the Texan environment during the 50s. A repressive and heavy situation. He wanted to denounce what was happening at the structural level as well as the political one in his book: The Power Elite. In this masterpiece, he denounced the power structure of the US and the expansion of the process of bureaucratization. Politicians, capitalists who produced weapons. He denounced the industries of war. The US had a military industry which Mills strongly criticized. It was opposed by the establishment then as well as now. He focused on military capitalists, industries, and their oil interests.

Lecture 08/01/2019: Power Elite

During the 50s, there were three important elites in the US: military, political, and economic. These three shared the same interests: to do more and favor war. He denounced the power structure. Ideology is a cover of reality, he tried to make an analysis of what was really going on, i.e., the exportation of democracy by the US throughout war. A military elite defined reality: military metaphysics. A military definition of reality: the leaders have the power of masses and will decide for them.

An elite is a group of people who think they can rule the masses because they are better than them. "Superiorism" is the elitist way of thinking which separates them from the mob. They have power, wealth, and therefore they believe it is their duty to take action and decisions for others. According to Mills, there’s an interchange among the elites which thereafter rule as one. The power structure is then a permanent war economy. The economy will be directed toward military goals. In the 60s, Eisenhower addressed the population quoting Mills, claiming that people need not to incentivize the military war economy.

Social structure of reality: objecting data and question of interpretation. Reality is actually an interpretation; it does not exist outside the human mindset. There is no such thing as an individual reality. In it, there’s the social agency who creates, via their actions, the kind of ideology dominant in a period of time, giving them values and morals. All of those are shared by the community. Our way of perceiving the world outside is defined by the structure which will then have a life of its own, merging and shaping the way we see. The social actors shape the reality that we see. Single actors cannot define the social reality. Main social actor shaping our way of thinking about politics, economy: the medias. There is a dialectic world between the structure and the people. People, nevertheless, can run to change the structure.

Positivism and Auguste Comte

Positivism: Main point of history for the creation of sociology. With modernity, people started to think that they could change society for it is the product of humankind. The first man who organized this way of thinking was Auguste Comte. Before sociology (coined in Comtian terms) there had been some philosophers who defined a utopic society. Sociology should be the study of society, on how we can reform society based on scientific knowledge. He defined the method used by positivist sociologist: Sociology should study the physiology of society (the forms and the functions of each part) and how society changes over time. Discours sur l’Esprit positif in 1844, the identification of laws that govern the history of society as well as the process of knowledge. He was the first to use the term sociology and he considered it as the queen of science. Based on all the results of other sciences and then synthesize them to create the parts of society: political and economic system, cultural system.

Is there a dominant part? Before it was culture, nowadays its economic and political ones. Static and dynamic sociology. How the various parts are related. Static: an analysis of a society and how it behaves in a given moment. Dynamic: an analysis in history of which were the social determinant factors that led to the modification of society. The archaic society; the feudal society; the modern one: the three societies considered by Comte.

The change in mentality. He defined the primitive society as theological societies, for in it people explained the social phenomena in types of religion; it was a polytheist society. The feudal society was defined with the metaphysical origin of the world: now a monotheist society, in it we have religious reality that was separate from the concrete reality. Social phenomena are explained in one single aspect/god/cause, not like before, there is a different metaphysical realm in which god lives. An important change with the positivist mentality: science became dominant. The scientific thinking is the beginning of modernity, started by the enlightenment. Scientific thinking does not exclude the presence of a god; this is analyzed in a more scientific way.

What’s a theory: a set of interlaced ideas that have stood the test of time. Without them, we would have knowledge of isolated bits of the social world. Theorizing about the social world is not restricted to sociologists (they use theories that have been tested, based on data). They are scientists; they relate their theories on accumulated knowledge (classical ground theories).

The grands of sociology

• Auguste Comte
• Karl Marx
• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Max Weber (1862-1920)
• Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962)
• Erving Goffman (1922-1982)
• Robert Merton
• Du Bois

Karl Marx

Jewish German, first a young Hegelian philosopher. For Hegel, the engine of history was the absolute spirit, which Marx denied. The latter, as well as the young Hegelians, criticized the idealistic approach of Prussian philosopher. For Marx, the fundamental aspect is the materialistic dialectic of history. History had been governed by the conflict between the dominant ruling class formed by those who had the means of production, the dominants, and the proletarians, the dominated.

He was the first to speak about class, based on the possession of the means of production (not the wealth). The historical transition from one society to another embodied the change in the mode of production. Structure is the mode of production. Various societies described by Marx:

• Primitive societies: classless, the communist one is based on it. Moral development led to people ruling together peacefully. There was state, religion (shaman), no property, or classes.
• Ancient society: based on private property, therefore there was a dominant cast: landowners, and the dominated one: slavery. The ruling one exploited the slaves. Christianity led to the "abolition" of slavery; all men are equals. Slavery is explicit. The Greek society was the first, not the Egyptian one. Land is not a collective property; it is just in the Greek one that the individual can buy land.
• Feudal society: feudal lords were dominant, and serfs were the dominated one. Still, the exploitation was no secret; the feudal lords still owned everything.
• Capitalist society: capitalists and proletarians. It’s the result of the French and industrial revolutions. The former brought the rights, bourgeoisie as new dominant class with a new agenda for everything: freedom (migration from the countryside to the urban centers finding a job), rights, against serfdom. Aristocracy was for the status quo. Result of political change.

For Marx, the social struggle brought social change. He utilized the Hegelian method: dialectic thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This for a historical change, nor an epochal one. History is a history of class struggle. Materialistic interests of the classes, different from Hegel. Hence, we could also consider Marx as a politician, no pure scientific system. He was the founder of the first international, as long as Bakunin: giving the proletariat the political representation to spark the social change which would lead to the communist society.

Marx’s historical evolutionary theory: Reach the top of the progress, an evolutionary view of history. Not a strict one (time rules all), to change you need to have a bloody revolution. He criticized the capitalist society for, contrary to the claim of the bourgeoisie of a free society, we are still living in an exploitation society, not as visible as before but still existing. Belief in gradual change toward the highest point: the communist society. Unite interest: human development, rather than a system where someone/thing exploits another.

Theory of exploitation: Das Kapital: Marx's major work, it had to show how the process of exploitation occurred in society. The exchange between labor and capital is unequal; the workers’ salary does not correspond to their hours of work. Based on historical criteria. Capitalists earn by exploitation; they use technology against the workers. It was a response request of more salary. Same amount, fewer hours, and same gain.

Lecture 09.01.2019: Moral issue

For Marx, the existence of men's exploitation was unbearable. The fault is in the structure, not in human nature. Therefore, he tried to explain the social mechanism which allows capitalism: the unequal reward of the labor force by the capitalists. Necessary work: the hours spent to give back the amount of money received as salary, then the rest is surplus that goes to the wallet of capitalists. Absolute surplus value (considering the total amount of hours fraction the hours needed by the workers to repay the salary received) and relative surplus value (with the introduction of technology and machinery into the working process). The worker does not know that he is working for free; he believes to be just repaying the capital. Thanks to the first international workers were made aware of what was happening leading to workers merging into trade unions, parties, struggle to obtain better salaries, and less work hours. To obstruct this movement, the capitalists replaced men with the machines. Early years of capitalism, machinery led to the surplus earned by the capitalists.

Aside from exploitation, Marx describes another con of the capitalist society: Alienation. Separated from work, they cannot be creative (imposed work), the separation from the means of production and the product of their work, and from the other workers for competition was the ruling feeling, no solidarity. Artisans were the only ones able to maintain some degree of creativity and connection with their work.