SOC 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Video Lottery Terminal, Progressive Tax, Corporate Welfare

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

Document Summary

The state is a complex, organized political structure that carries out tasks required by more complex societies as social inequalities become more extreme. The state is also a means of social control. It has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. State is often used interchangeable with government, but state is more than that. For most of society the means of maintaining social control or of handling relations with external groups, for most of human history this was done informally. In foraging societies, political power tended to be loosely organized, with a pattern of shifting leadership. With an increase in surplus and the subsequent unequal allocation of resources, increasingly formalized leadership developed. As agrarian societies with large surpluses and social class developed, more formalized state structures arose. Along with the growth of the state apparatus, an ideology developed that supported and legitimized such a structure. Goal is economic stability and to maintain capitalist system.