In other words, they appear to be qualitatively distinct from other kinds of jobs in the market.” (Pg. 258). I will touch more on the dual market theory and its importance to creating stratification later in the paper. I would also like to touch on how the filling of these jobs within these markets can be, and often times is achieved through social reproduction. Social reproduction theory which “examine how inequality is reproduced over and over again in our everyday behavior and situations…Social reproduction identifies the barriers to social mobility, barriers that constrain without completely blocking lower and working class individuals’ efforts to break into the upper reaches of the class structure”(Pg.
‘Focusing on capitalism and wage workers’ “estranged labour,” Marx broke with Hegels “ abstract” emphasis on consciousness and equation of objectification with alienation(Ritzer 2000:96) In the profound theory of alienation Marx continued to answer questions of the development of capitalism. He found that workers in a capitalist society do not possess the raw materials machines or factories in which they work with, but are owned by the capitalists in which the labours have to sell their ability to work in return of a wage. This arrangement of work shows four relations that lie at the centre of Marx 's theory of alienation 1, the worker is cut off or alienated from their productivity and not having any say in deciding what to do or actions to approach the productive activity that is given by the capitalist whom sets the conditions and speed that the labourer should be completing and having complete control the decision if the worker can work or not. Marx saw this as the ‘unequal relation between persons.’ (Ritzer 2000:101) 2, workers are alienated from the product meaning they have no control to how the product is being handled once it has left their station the labour is not free or enjoyable. ‘Marx saw all social life as bearing the imprints of material conditions’ (Ritzer 2002:107) 3, workers are alienated from others and their natural environment.
Likewise, consumers, seek their desired goods, though their preferences may vary. So what is the problem with such a market relationship? It is established from experiences that, capitalism contributes to stark socioeconomic inequalities in a society. Consider the United States as an example. Capitalism polarizes a society economically: the very rich and the very poor.
The labor of workers becomes a commodity that only profits the owner. Marx compares the worker to the owner using the terms proletariat and bourgeoisie. Because of the structure of capitalism, there is always an intrinsic conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Capitalism demystifies human relationships, “the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (Marx 161). Once the labor of a worker is no longer needed, they will be dismissed
Weber was worried that this would eventually eradicate the intrinsic element to human existence which is humanity. Marx, on the other hand, argued that modern societies are characterised by capitalism and people who owns the means of production. Marx identified four successive modes of production which are primitive communism, ancient society, feudalism and capitalism. All these production is profoundly influenced by class relations. For instance, people who own the means of production exploit the labour.
Social inequality is one of the main issues in social science. One of the main purposes of sociology is to criticise social issues. As Zygmunt Bauman is stating, “Sociology is a critical activity” (2014, 26), that aims to criticise economic and social improvement within the society. Society´s hunger of ceaseless improvement is often resulting in a paradox: the higher classes are taking advantage of capitalistic development, the more lower classes are suffering from this constant growth, due to an uneven distribution of power. This essay aims to analyse how capital and class division can affect education in our contemporary society, particularly focusing on non-traditional students and their experience at university, by presenting two approaches
Political economy is, “what we would call macroeconomics, that is the economics of large systems” (pg. 250). Marx argues that there is a connection between many aspects of economics. There is a connection between exchange and competition, value and the devaluation of property, monopoly and competition, and estrangement and the money system. He claims that the laborers get poorer the more wealth they produce.
The most well-known and important theories of class are those developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber. Marx and Weber contributed to sociology in many different ways. A significant element is their diverse approach to social class. Marx put great importance on class, which he observed as an impartially given trait of the economic structure of society. He sees the primary split between the owners of capital and the workers who did not own capital.
Present at least two different sociological approaches to social inequality and discuss these approaches with reference to a concrete problem area of contemporary relevance. Social inequality can be found in various aspects of society, the question is if inequality is only caused by the lack of economical estate or if other reasons are underlining it. This essay argues how Max Weber distinguishes between social class and strata and how one often leads to the other. Furthermore, it presents Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of habitus, capital and fields as an explanation of how people can achieve different social statuses within different fields because of their capitals. At last, the two different sociological approaches to social inequality is
In Marx’s writing in1844, he shows how alienation arises from private labour. Marx showed that the specific form of labour characteristics of bourgeois society, wage labour, corresponds to the most insightful form of alienation. Since wage workers sell their labour power to earn a living, and the capitalists own the labour process, the product of the worker labour is alien to the worker. It is not his/her product but rather the product of the