Outline
Modernity
Gemeinschaft (Traditional Community)
a. Ascribed Status
From Traditional Community to Market Society
I.
II.
III.
III.



Changing institutions and norms
Test feedback…Fair, unfair? Easy, hard? All tests suck?
Bonus points…
Notes today… lots and lots of words on my slides…definitions
have (D)…other stuff is mostly examples…key ideas are in the
readings…pick and choose wisely and you’re hand will not
hurt…
A word on the next exam…many think it is
harder…Data is mixed…One suggestion
Sociologist
Adam Smith
Charles
Derber
Emile
Durkheim
Etc.
Associated
Key
Reading Concepts/Definitions
(?)
Main Idea
Sociology grapples with understanding


MODERNITY (D)

Term describing particular attributes of modern society.

Assumption is that there is a sharp divide between pre-modern and
modern societies (D)

Observant students will now see this term over and over in newspapers, tv
coverage, etc…
Modernity distinguished by a number of things we’ll consider
over the rest of the semester…

We’ll consider work of Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber and
others…
Modernity

The world has changed less since Jesus Christ than it
has in the last 30 years.
 French
Poet, Charles Peguy, 1913
Putnam and Modernity……

“…nothing in the experience of the average
American at the end of the twentieth century matches
the wrenching transformation experienced at the
beginning of the century by an immigrant raised as a
peasant in a Polish village little changed from the
sixteenth century who within a few years was helping
to construct the avante-garde skyscrapers…in the city
of “big shoulders” besides Lake Michigan.

Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, p.373
Sociology…


Consider Mike or Mary…born into a family that for 10 generations
lived and worked the land in an agriculturally based Irish
village…They were the subjects of a Lord who had complete power
over them…were forced to give ½ of their crop to him…End up a
1st generation factory workers living in the downtown of capitalist
New York City…huge changes
Name some of the differences between these two social
worlds.
Modernity

Industrial capitalist economies…more on this later
 Commodification of lifeworld
 “Everything is for sale” (water, heat, ability to work, a women’s
eggs…)
 Extensive division of labor
 Individuals selling labor…a dizzying array of occupations
 Emergence of new social classes…when was the last time you met a
Lord or peasant?
 Emergence of new social problems (poverty, strikes, revolution,
homelessness, etc.)
Modernity…Rural to Urban

With move from rural
to urban, family &
social ties rooted in
place are eroded…

Individuals are
increasingly on their
own…
Rationalization…

Spread of scientific thought
 Demystication
of the world
 Bureaucratization of the world
Origins of Sociology: From Monarchy to
Democracy…

Change in governing
institutions
Extension of Citizenship
rights to individuals
 Radical redistribution of
power

Pre-modern society


For most of human history…people lived VERY, VERY
differently…in parts of world now, they still do
Gemeinschaft (Traditional Community)

term referring to a society which is homogenous, largely based on kinship
and possessing a moral cohesion based on religious sentiment. (D)

Think small Irish, Italian, Kenyan or Bolivian village




Amish communities
Native American village
“Fiddler on the Roof” (note video clip)
The village my grandfather was born in was not that different from a 2nd century
village
Tradition! The Glue that Holds
Gemeinschaft Society Together…

Social Norms are Paramount, Few Institutions

Custom & Tradition key to holding society together

Women keep house; Men get educated & work; Marriages arranged;


Norms stress feeling of obligation and reciprocity to the group.



Fiddler on the Roof is about the unraveling of this society
Reciprocity-a shared sense of mutual obligation (D)
“Because of our traditions, everyone of us knows who he is and
what God expects”…nobody experiences this
Ascribed status as key…Status?
Gemeinschaft and your social ranking

Status …two linked meanings
 1)
The position a person holds in the social structure
(peasant farmer, lawyer, priest or Senator) (D)
 2)
Relative position of person on a publicly recognized
scale or hierarchy of worth (peasant, teacher, Supreme
Court Jusice (D)

In the pre-modern world…status was ascribed???
Ascribed Status

Ascribed Status- refers to a social position that someone receives at
birth (D)

Social worth assigned at birth

Very fixed positions in the hierarchy of social life

Aristocrat-upper class made of hereditary nobility (D)


Peasants/Serfs-a member of a servile class bound to the land of a given aristocrat
(D)


Born the son of a Duke, you’ll be a Duke
Born a peasant on the Duke’s land, you’ll die a peasant on the Duke’s land
Born a women in a culture that deems women 2nd class…too bad for you…Born an
untouchable in India…tough
Gemeinschaft…

Modernity will destroy gemeinschaft societies…

EVERYTHING will change: “All that is solid melts into air…”


Karl Marx
Many different forces will combine to transform the
“pre-modern” world…

Europe and America will be transformed during the 19th and
20th century


Often very ugly…see next slide
Much of the world is now undergoing this transformation

Tensions in Afghanistan and China
Destroying the old…Sometimes
peacefully…sometimes not

“These people must die out- there is no help for them.
God has given this earth to those will subdue it, and
it is vain to struggle against righteous decree.

Journalist Horace Greeley, 1859
 For
most of history, provided legal basis for denial of
opportunity
Emergence of New Values and Ideas…

New values and ideas will develop



About science, community vs. individual, the economy, government
Societies change…An observer of the time (Putnam p.380)
Early sociologists will struggle to understand how new groups
emerge & challenge existing norms and social structure
Status Trumps Contracts

Example: France, 1666…true story

King’s authority designates people to certain a certain


Status (1) – position which a person occupies in the social structure (I.e. teacher,
farmer, button maker)
Tailors make clothes…Button makers make buttons
Emergence of New Ideas…

Tailors vs. Button Makers
 Tailors
Learn to make buttons
 Button makers complain to King
 Ascribed status

King tells tailors to stop
 Tailors
go berserk…what could be more insane?
Adam Smith, 1776


Smith writes the “Wealth of Nations”…(ideas we’ll review are
discussed clearly in the readings)

Get rid of Kings, crazy rules, ascribed status

Give business people/entrepreneurs the freedom to do what they want in a
free market environment and society will be better off…Screw the whining
Button makers
Create a social structure that lets individuals pursue their own self
interest, and all of society will benefit


Let people innovate, experiment, aspire
Let people look for opportunities and go for it
Adam Smith


“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or
the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard
to their own interest.”- Adam Smith
Elevating self-interest as a core value above community
interest was a big change…

A very RADICAL idea

Did not sit well with many, including the Catholic Church


What about obligation to the community? To the church?
Still a problematic idea in many societies…

Afghanistan, Japan and Germany
Lots of Questions Emerge


If everyone pursues their self interest, what will hold
society together?
Consider Eimer’s Blanket Factory
 Read
my Adam Smith
 Opportunity in New World
 Pursue my self interest
Lots of Questions Emerge


If everyone pursues their self interest, what will hold
society together?
With no King to set prices, what will keep me from
ripping people off? From price gouging?
Regulating Self Interest

With no King to set prices, what will keep me from
ripping people off?
 Competition
 Other
 Business
individuals will pursue their own self interest
against Business
Regulating Self Interest…

With no King to give orders, what will keep me
from making things nobody wants…like Fiberglass
blankets?
Regulating Self Interest…

With no King to give orders, what will keep me from
making things nobody wants…like Fiberglass
blankets?

Self Interest of Individual Consumers

Consumers choose not to by stupid products (exit)

No sales (no demand) No profit not it in my self interest to
produce a supply…

Competition between Businesses
The “Invisible Hand” of the Market…

Smith argued that as if by magic…the
Hand” would coordinate things
“Invisible

“…the market will arrange for production of the goods that
society wants, in the quantities that society wants- without
anyone ever issuing an order of any kind.”

“The pressures of the marketplace direct the selfish activities of
individuals as if by invisible hand into socially responsible
paths.”
Adam Smith…Free Markets


If the invisible hand can coordinate things, then you don’t need to
develop many other institutions…Laissez Faire?
Laissez Faire

doctrine that government should limit itself to the maintenance of law
and order, and remove all legal restraints on trade and prices. (D)

Government intervention and regulation should be kept to a minimum

Provide things like defense; criminal justice; contract enforcement…No need for
food safety, minimum wage, maximum hours, environmental rules

Let markets set standards…Individuals making choices (Exit)…
Market Society…


Markets become major institutions in Modern Societies
In some ways markets are an astounding new system of social
coordination
 Competition spurs new inventions & innovation
Markets as Key Institutions in
Modern Society

Markets coordinate complex relationships between
people without anyone ever issuing an order
 Buy
a chocolate bar instead of pretzel…and your
sending a message to a farmer in Brazil…pretty cool!
Market Society…


New social relations will also generate many questions for modern
society…

Is competition enough to hold society together?

Is it sometimes a problem for society if everyone does what is in their own
individual self interest?

Can markets alone insure “liberty and justice for all” members of a society

Are there certain things that should be removed from the market
(decommodified) …that should not be bought and sold?
Questions we’ll explore next…