SOCI 2070 6.0 Power as Authority and Domination

Today’s Class Review of Course Objectives Capitalism, Class and Power Marx’s Manifesto Today

Today’s Readings Karl Marx The Communist Manifesto [1848] Halifax: Fernwood, 1998, 1-12. Wayne Ellwood “Globalization Then and Now” The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization Toronto: Between the Lines, 2006, 12-25. Chris Brazier ‘The Power and the Folly’ New Internationalist, March 2004, 1-5. Deborah Brock Selections from the Introduction to Making Normal: Social Regulation in Canada Toronto: Nelson, 2004, xiv-xx. You should re-read these pages, as they were originally assigned in September.

Thinking Sociologically “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families” Margaret Thatcher

Thinking Sociologically “The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society.” C.W. Mills, The Sociological Imagination American sociologist (1916 – 1962) Locate individuals in a social and historical context Recognize the impact of society on the individual Recognize the impact of the individual on society

Thinking Sociologically “The aim is not to explain people’s behaviour but to be able to be able to explain to them/ourselves the socially organized powers in which their/our lives are embedded and to which their/our activities contribute.” Dorothy E. Smith, Writing the Social

Review: Foucault and Power Knowledge/Power Normalization: The process by which particular values and behaviours are considered acceptable, right, and good Governing: We govern ourselves by making “responsible” (“good, normal, moral”) choices

Karl Marx (1818-1883) Analyzed the social organization of capitalism A system of social and economic organization (a mode of production) where production is subordinated to the imperatives of the market. “The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of old ones.”

Primitive Accumulation “the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production” The transition from feudalism to capitalism Development of system of wage labour Emergence of capitalist class and working class Colonialism (“old globalization”)

The Class System Ownership of MOP creates power imbalance “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle” 2 Fundamental Classes in Capitalism Capitalist Class: own and control all the productive assets within capitalist society (the means of production) Working class: must sell their labour power in order to earn wages to provide subsistence Ownership of MOP creates power imbalance Contradictory interests between classes generates conflict

‘Free’ Wage Labour Two forms of ‘freedom’ Workers are ‘freed’ from the means of production They are ‘freed’ from constraints that would prevent them from selling their labour power “the complete separation of the labourers from all property in the means by which they can realize their labour”

Employment or Exploitation? Wage labourers seek employment for subsistence Capitalists employ wage labourers for the purpose of expanding capital Wages are less than value of labour (goods/services produced) Surplus Value = the difference between the proceeds from production and the costs of labour Unemployment allows CC to drive down wages, increasing exploitation

What about Well Paid Scientists? Status is: Level of difference or stratification Present within classes Occupation Education Income Classes are: Relational Exist in relation to one another In conflict Have fundamentally opposing interests Not homogenous Segmented Dynamic Change over time

“…all these sink gradually into the proletariat” Since 2001, 15 of the Toronto’s middle-income neighbourhoods have vanished The majority became low-income areas, where individual earnings are 20 to 40 per cent below the city average. 1970, 86% of 905 neighbourhoods were middle class. In 2005, 61% From 2000 to 2005, the number of city neighbourhoods with very low earnings – more than 40 per cent below the Toronto-area average – grew by almost 50 per cent. Toronto Star, 8 Feb 2009

Summary Power Inequality Class Conflict Social Change Through control over economic and political resources and institutions (includes coercion and consent) Inequality Due to exploitation through the system of wage labour Class Conflict Due to the social relations of the class system Social Change Through the emergence of working class movements (trade unions and political parties)