SOC208H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Thai Cultural Mandates, Predatory Pricing, Profit Maximization
Document Summary
Behaviours result from institutionalized values and beliefs. Situated character of behaviour: position in a structure affects understandings, choices, actions, outcomes. Casual effect of institutional environments and organizational forms on behaviour. Emphasis on cultural goals but lack of available institutional means to achieve goals. Anomie develops as a result between the disjuncture between valued cultural goals and the legitimate institutionalized means by which a society allows one to achieve those goals. Structural and cultural contradictions in capitalism promote crime. Merton (1968) proposed five ways of contending with strain in an anomic society: conformity, ritualism, rebellion, innovation, retreatism. Conformists accept both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means by which to attain them. Individuals who conform to society"s norms with no expectation of achieving its goals. Attaining goals of success through illegitimate means. Individuals who, after internalizing cultural goods, find them unobtainable. Go against conventional cultural goals that they feel unable to achieve. Profit maximization and drive for success at any cost.
