CSP250/Beauty Within the Beast:
CLASS, GENDER AND RACE IN THE CULTURE OF
CAPITALISM
FALL 2009
The Sociocultural System
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1) SuperStrucrure: The mental life of the system (Ideas,
believes, values, norm
2) Structure: The Organization of the system
A) The Political Economy:
a1) The Economic Organization
a2) The Political Organization
B) The Domestic Economy: Kinship (Family, Marriage
& Descent Rules)
3) Infrastructure: Technological/Environmental Base of
the System
A) The Mode of Production
B) The Mode of Reproduction
Structure: A) The Economic Organization
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Economy: The institutionalized (patterned) mechanisms of
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Reciprocity: An organizational economic principle of exchanging
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Redistribution: An organizational economic principle of
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acquiring, producing, and distributing goods and services in a
particular sociocultural system.
goods and services without overt acknowledgement of economic
worth or a balance need to be achieved in order to maintain
relationships between members of a sociocultural system.
exchanging goods and services in which surplus is brought to a
central place where it will be redistributed to producers and nonproduces (Egalitarian/Stratified) at specific times and events.
Market:: An organizational economic principle of exchanging goods
and services based on buying and selling at a price measured in
money.
Structure: A) Economic Organization

Capitalism: An econo-political system where societal critical
resources are privately owned and/or controlled. Maximizing profit
is the sole objective of Capitalism.
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The Circuit of Capitalism
Capital (Investment)
More Capital (Consumption)
Production
Structure: The Political Economy
The Principles of Capitalism
The necessity of Perpetual growth (Economic Growth)
The creation of need
The creation of dissatisfaction
The necessity of unemployment (The creation of a reserve labor
source)
The necessity of externalizing cost (socializing risk and privatizing
profit)
The quantification of human and natural resources into
measurable economic units
The necessity of aggression, competition, and the survival of the
mightiest
Amorality
The necessity of Standardization (harmonization)
The valuing of scarcity
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1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
World
Systems
The Culture
of Capitalism
Representational
Realm
World
Systems
Social Structural
Realm
Class &
Caste
Appearance
Realm of Social
Interaction
Gender
Race
Whiteness
&
White
Privilege
Worldview
Sexuality