SOC 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Economic Inequality, Meritocracy, Social Inequality

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 104
• Professor: Zabedia Nazim

Document Summary

A variety of health and social problems-including mental illness, life expectancy and infant mortality, obesity, children"s educational performance, homicides, and levels of trust-can all be linked to the degrees of inequality. Change theories link inequalities of wealth and income to the economic structure and class relationships. They accept that there will always be differences of ability among people. The most important issue is how inequalities become structured in particular ways at certain times in history. Tend to emphasize the linkage of various forms of modern social inequality to the capitalist economic system, as well as to the structures and beliefs that arise within that system. Throughout the feudal era, social inequalities were generally seen as inevitable working out of god"s plan; they required no explanation and certainly were not open to change. The growth of markets and of capitalist productive relations gave rise to a new way of thinking about social inequality.