SOC227H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Rationality, Deindustrialization, Work Ethic
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SOC 227 – WORK & OCCUPATIONS
Session #2: Theories, Post-Industrialization, the State, Current Issues
Readings:
Text: Ch. 1: 10-19; Ch. 2
• Why industrialization? (vs. bees or birds)
o Humans are different from other animals because our need to strive for
better
MEDIA ITEM
• Atlantic Magazine (most interesting)
o Globalization and technology teamed up to crush middle class workers
o Increased trade with China (natural gas, lumber for clothing "Made in
China")
o More consumers and workers (globalization)
o Serve consumers (technology)
o As result, businesses are bigger and worker shares smaller (doing more
with fewer employees)
o No monolithic effect
o 2 forces with implications for specific cities (different for which 1 you look
at and where you live)
o Globalization increases unemployment, technology increases inequality
(also increases unemployment)
o For example, Amazon warehouses will soon deliver using drones
o Used to have people working for them... robots now (don't need lights,
food, temperature changes, etc.)
WHERE WE ARE
Today’s Issue
Today’s Objectives: Know…
The three sets of explanations for industrialization
Five aspects of post-industrial society
The debate over the role of government
The relationship between technological development and social culture
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Terms to Know
technology
deterministic theory
relations of production
surplus value
alienation
managed capitalism
corporatism
power distance
uncertainty avoidance
individualism
national masculinity values
THEORIES & EXPLANATIONS
1. Classical Economic Explanations
• Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, John Stuart Mill
- ignored causation
- "it's just human nature" (inherent in being human)
• Two problems with this explanation:
1. Human nature doesn't explain when, where, why or form
2. Took on different forms, shapes and patterns in different country
- China first before Europe
- differences = human nature cannot explain because all would be the
same
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2. Marx
Mid 1800s - a lot of political turmoil (revolutions)
- ideas as analytical tool (how does he help us understand) vs. ideology
about overthrowing capitalist society
- ideology based on doubtful assumptions on psychological, etc.
His Three Objectives:
1. What caused industrial capitalism
2. Predict consequences
- demise of industrial capitalism and rise of shared ownership
3. Why did it spread across Europe (revolutions)
His premise:
• A "stages" theory of history
• A deterministic theory
- whatever happens is shaped by historical forces
- man's free will plays little or no part
- sociologists believe society shapes individual will...
Unit of analysis:
Entire society
Dep. variable:
Transformations
Major independent variable:
Technology
Intervening vars:
1. How work is organized
2. Workplace relationships (relations of productions)
- how bosses get along with workers
relations of production
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