SOCI 365 Lecture 1: Lecture Notes
5 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCI 386: CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
GREG BLUCHER
LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 1 – January 11th, 2018
• SM in response to an event to an event in the world that inspires action
• Group of persons mobilizing
• Based around a specific social issue
Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
• Birmingham Campaign: Challenged segregation laws
o Provoked a violent response
o Retrospect: Became part of history defining moment in US Civil Rights
movement
• Convince a skeptical audience about his motives
• Definitional Disputes re: Letter
o Unjust vs. Just Law: Justly able to disobey an unjust law
• “Moderate White”: More willing to tolerate injustice than spark change and upset
‘natural’ order
o Talk vs. Acting
Lecture 2 – January 12th, 2018
Recap: Social Movements
• What is a social movement?
o Essentially contested notion
▪ Where do you draw the line?
o Usually involves:
▪ Conflict/ confrontation
▪ Use of extra/ non-institutional means
▪ Mass mobilization (different forms)
o Definitional struggles are a key part of the theory and practice of SM
• Must understand social and historical landscape you are operating in
Recap: Letter from Birmingham Jail
• Engaging concretely with key questions social movement scholars and activists face
o Framing:
▪ “Outsider” charge
▪ “Extremist” charge
▪ Placing laws in context
o Strategic and Tactics:
▪ Direct Action vs. Negotiation
▪ Legal vs. Extra-Legal Strategies
▪ Timing
▪ Reformism vs. Radicalism
The Communist Manifesto
• Why bother with it?
o Early attempt to understand social change ‘sociologically’
▪ Not as a result of divine will, decisions by ruling elites, ideas or morals
▪ Instead, result of conflict between structurally opposed groups of social
actors
o Two aspects of social conflict:
▪ Structural conflict between classes (“Bourgeois and Proletarians”)
▪ Relation between classes and class representatives (“Proletarians and
Communists”)
History of Class Conflict
• “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”
• Always been dominator vs. dominated
Classes as Collective Actors
• Abstract concept with real world consequences what is class?
• Relational, not gradational approach
o Particular attribute that denotes their class is gradational
o Relational by virtue of their economic position = power relations
• Previous epochs:
o Classes = “a manifold gradation of social rank”
o Determined by custom, tradition, landed property
• Current epoch:
o Determined by economic relations
o Simplification of class structure into two main ones: Bourgeois and Proletarians
• Bourgeois:
o Control means of production
o Dominant class under capitalism
• Proletarians:
o Deprived of property thrown off land
▪ Must sell labor to survive
▪ Capitalist employs worker as means of production
o New revolutionary class: only with material interest and structural capacity
• Key Point: Classes form, dissolve, reform through struggle
Current Epoch: Bourgeois, Proletarians, and the Means of Production
• Bourgeois:
o Control means of production
o Dominant class under capitalism
o Previous revolutionary class
▪ Sweeping away feudal privilege and custom
▪ Enlisting lower classes to fight for it
• Proletarians:
o Deprived of property (thrown off land enclosures)
▪ Must sell labor power to capitalist to survive
▪ Capitalist employs worker to operate means of production
o New revolutionary class
▪ Only one with material interests and structural capacity to succeed the
bourgeois
Interests and Action
• Bourgeois interests lead to conflict, social development
o Erosion of tradition
o World exploration
o Technological advance
o Exploitation
• Structural organization that makes them act a certain way in line with their social position
not individual character
• Power rising:
o Structure: Population distribution
o Social: Relations
Forces and Relations of Production
• Conflict arises out of social and structural organization and it going against each other
• Mismatch when forces and relations of production
o Becomes ‘fedders’
o Results in new mode of production after burst
Modern Class Conflict
• Bourgeois economic development creating conditions for forces of production to outstrip
relations of production once again
The Proletarians
• Exploited class
• ‘Grave diggers’
o Capitalist centralization
o Union organization
o Political demands
o Technology eroding intra-class distinctions
Summing Up: Manifesto as a Theory of Social Change
• Social change comes from conflict between social classes
• Social classes are a product of the social organization of production, as well as of class
conflict itself
• Classes are made of individuals, but their actions are shaped by their structural position
and interests
Lecture 3 – January 16th, 2018
“Proletariat into a Class”: Class Formation Stages
• Attack individual bourgeois, instruments of production (Luddites)
• “Incoherent mass… broken up by competition”
Document Summary
Lecture 1 january 11th, 2018: sm in response to an event to an event in the world that inspires action, group of persons mobilizing, based around a specific social issue. Recap: letter from birmingham jail: engaging concretely with key questions social movement scholars and activists face, framing, outsider charge, extremist charge, placing laws in context, strategic and tactics, direct action vs. Negotiation: legal vs. extra-legal strategies, timing, reformism vs. radicalism. The communist manifesto: why bother with it, early attempt to understand social change sociologically", not as a result of divine will, decisions by ruling elites, ideas or morals. Instead, result of conflict between structurally opposed groups of social actors: two aspects of social conflict, structural conflict between classes ( bourgeois and proletarians , relation between classes and class representatives ( proletarians and. History of class conflict: the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles , always been dominator vs. dominated.
