SA 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Intersectionality, Conflict Theories, Proletariat
6 Jun 2018
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Week 4 – social class and inequality
Class
• Relational
• Defined in relation to each other and to the means of production
• The division of people into social groups based on the distribution of material
resources and power
• The means of production
o The resources needed to produce goods, hence wealth
• The mode of production
o The way a society organizes its productive relations, its economic system
• Ex: feudalism
o A mode of production based on the holding of land in exchange for service or
labor
• The means of production: land
o The main classes were: landowners(nobility) and serf/peasants
Capitalist mode of production
• Industrialization since the late 18th century
• The chief means of production: capital
• An economic system that is based on the private ownership of the means of
production and within which the exchange-value dominates the use value
• The capitalist labor process
o Producing exchange value
• Commodity production – Mar’s theor of value
o Use-value
▪ Ability to satisfy a human need or desire
▪ Not comparable
o Exchange-value
▪ Defined in relation to other commodities
▪ The value ascribed to commodity
▪ The amount for which a given commodity can be trade on the market
o Surplus value
▪ New value created by workers in excess of their own labor-cost, which
is appropriated by the capital
find more resources at oneclass.com
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