Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Identity Politics, Gemeinschaft And Gesellschaft, Structural Inequality

• School: Western University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: Political Science 1020E
• Professor: Nigmendra Narain

Document Summary

Society: a collectivity of people within a territory, featuring regular patterns of interaction. But does society exist: margaret thatcher: there are only individual men and women and families, karl marx: peasants no more integrated than potatoes in a sack; bourgeois society atomistic and cruelly competitive. Established and durable patterns of interaction that direct, motivate, and shape individuals: class, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation. Changes in economic and social structure: pre-industrial: tightly knit traditional communities; these confer meaning upon members. Individualization anomie: gradual dissolution of traditional communities, association (gasellshaft over gemeinschaft, class as new source of community and meaning. Changes in economic and social structure: post industrial, decline of class due to post-fordist decline in large-scale, standardized manufacturing, post-industrial growth in service sector, strengthening of individualism as a result of structural change. Knowledge economy knowledge as the key source of competitiveness and productivity.