...Sociological Review, 1996, Vol. 61 (August:656-673) personal summary Markets are social constructions that reflect the unique political-cultural construction of their firms and nations. The creation of markets implies societal solutions to the problems of property rights, governance structures, conceptions of control, and rules of exchange. These solutions are then linked to current perspectives in economic sociology: networks, population ecology, institutional theory, and the problem of constructing action. The term "markets as politics" is used in two dimensions: a) the formation of markets is a part of state-building and b) processes within a market which reflect two types of political projects: the internal firm power struggle (who will control the organisation and how it will be organised) and the power struggle across firms to control markets. Instability and Actors There are three phases in market formation: emergence, stability, and crisis. Differing conditions of market stability produce different kinds of politics. A stable market is defined as a market in which the identities and status hierarchy of firms (the incumbents and the challengers) are well known and a conception of control that guides actors who lead firms is shared. Markets in crisis are susceptible to transformation. There are two forms of potential sources of instability in markets: (1) the tendency of firms to undercut one another's prices, and (2) the problem of keeping the firm together as a political coalition...
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...The Control Paradox: Understanding and Working with Anorexia and Bulimia Catrina Brown, M.A., M.S.W. Anorexia and bulimia are metaphors of women’s psychological distress in the face of contradictory social expectations. Women now experience uncertainty in their social roles, with conflicting pressures to be successful in their careers and as wives and mothers. In order to feel good enough, women often feel they must be “superwoman.” In spite of changes in their social roles, women are still pressured to attain the social ideals of physical beauty. In an uncertain environment a woman with a shaky sense of self can at least hope to gain approval by being thin. Today, preoccupation with weight reflects a need to focus on the body for a tangible source of self-esteem and sense of control. Controlling the body has become a precarious substitute for real control in women’s lives. While giving voice to women’s protests, anorexia and bulimia fail to change the actual circumstances to deal with conflict. As such, anorexia and bulimia are veiled protests, ones that most often go unheard. Susie Orbach has said, “Women speak with their bodies”1. For many women the body is the arena to express dissatisfaction and unhappiness. It is the site of their struggles. Instead of transforming their real lives, their real problems, women attempt to transform their bodies. Women are promised success, happiness and control through attaining the ideal thin body. While many women feel more in control...
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...Revolution Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels introduced the idea that history is one of a struggle between classes. Marx and Engels were not talking about the economic lower, middle, and upper classes of today. Instead, what Marx and Engels meant was the struggle between the working and capitalist classes. Another way of looking at it is the ruling class versus the ruled class. Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, had similar ideas about stopping the exploitation of the working class. I believe that Marx and Engels would agree with Chavez’s policies, programs and ideas because of Chavez’s desire to get rid of capitalism, the social reforms Chavez did and because the problems arising in Venezuela opened the door for a revolution. Marx and Engels argued that the struggle between the ruling class and the ruled class is actually the struggle between the Bourgeois and the Proletarians (2003, 126). Marx and Engels say that the expansion of industry itself has advanced the development of the Bourgeoisie, which led to the development of the Proletariat or the ruled class (2003, 127). When Marx and Engels say, “It has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and concentrated property in the hands of a few (Marx and Engels 2003, 129).” What this means is that Bourgeois have taken control of everything and this is what Marx and Engels are trying to get rid of. The Bourgeois control all the means of production and property and therefore have power over the Proletariats...
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...WOMEN UNIVERSITY IN AFRICA FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND GENDER DEVELOPMENT STUDIES PROGRAMME : MSc DEVELOPMENT STUDIES COURSE : PERSPECTIVES IN DEVELOPMENT INTAKE : 5 NAME : NOBUKHOSI NCUBE STUDENT ID : W120979 LECTURER : DR E.S MAKURA ASSIGNMENT: Karl Marx theory shed light on the understanding of relations of people in the society. Discuss. DUE DATE : 06 APRIL 2013. Karl Max’s theory shed light on the understanding of relations of people in the society. Discuss The epistemology of the Karl Marx theory is of the premise that the history of all existing societies is the history of class struggles. Scholars have had a long standing debate on the significance of Karl Marx’s theory of class conflict. The other party argues that the theory of class conflict helps in the understanding of relations of people in society. In contradiction, there are scholars who believe the theory does not help much in understanding societal relations. This essay seeks to establish how the Karl Marx Theory shed light on the understanding of relations of people in the society. In this context society is defined as a group of people in general living together in organized communities with laws and traditions controlling the way that they behave towards one another. Society is divided into three classes namely aristocrats in the upper class, bourgeoisie in the middle and the down liners...
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...has been argued that most of the crucial political and ideological battles of the Cultural Revolution were fought over the issue of the nature of social class structure in post-revolutionary China. What does the Cultural Revolution teach us about class structure and struggle under socialism? The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution[1] was a political and ideological struggle spanning the decade from 1966-1976. More implicitly, it was a struggle spurned into motion by Mao Zedong to reinstitute his mass line and turn China back to the ‘Socialist Road.’ Mao urged the Chinese to undergo a ‘class struggle’ whereby those truly on the path to Communism would rise against the new bureaucracy who were implementing ideology inconsistent with the main tenets of Maoism. However, what ensued was catastrophic and referred to by Feng Jicai as “Ten Years of Madness.”[2] While the class structure of post-revolutionary Chinese society had effectively eradicated the feudal class structure, a new, elite bureaucratic class had emerged. Indeed, these new elite and the remnants of the old bourgeois class bore the brunt of the violent onslaught of Mao’s Red Guards during the CR. In this essay, I argue that class struggle, and struggle under socialism in the CR was paradoxical as “most radicals in the revolutionary campaign against revisionism were representatives not of the proletariat…but of the bourgeoisie itself.”[3] While many joined Mao in is his crusade for utilitarian reasons, many also joined...
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...Contemporary Issues in Western Religions Islam Struggles within Christianity and Judaism Islam’s nature of sacred reality is monotheistic just as Christianity and Judaism, and is very similar in their religious formation. The theoretical foundations of each belief are historically similar and all saying the same message, that there is only one true God. The Islamic religious structure believes in the same God as Judaism and Christianity, the God of Abraham, but Islam knows him as Allah. There are some differences in the way Islam refer to Allah as God and Christianity and Judaism prefer to say God but theoretically they are referring to the same one true God. The origin of Islamic way of living is to seek to serve Allah only, through the instructions given by Allah to the prophet and first Muslim Muhammad. The history of the Islamic religion is connected to Judaism and Christianity in the same way because they also believe the way of the righteous is to submit to God and instruction on God’s will has been given through prophecy. Only Christianity submission is through the redemption of Jesus Christ by the New Testament and Judaism submission to God is to follow the Laws of the Old Testament. They all began in the Middle East where Islam’s prophet Muhammad was the prophecy of Abraham’s first son Ishmael by Hagar his servant and Judaism and Christianity’s prophecy developed in the Middle East by Abraham’s youngest son Isaac from Sarah Abraham’s wife. Even though each prophecy...
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...To live in a civilized society, law, order, and authority must be present. In The Lord of the Flies, written but William Golding, a group of young boys are stranded on an island without older authority and are forced to survive with their own rule. Written in World War II, this novel is based on the battle for greater power and violence that occurred during the war, and is similar to the fight for power between the boys’. Without the authority of an adult, Ralph and Jack fight to win the position and leader. The struggle of power between Ralph and Jack resulted in civilization turning to primitivism on the island as Jack gains control. Jack gains control in the struggle of power with Ralph from the early stages of the novel, when the huts and...
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...Communist Movements and Women's Struggle for Rights DBQ Communist movements in the twentieth century allowed women to work alongside men and promoted women as being equal to men and deserving the same rights as men. These effects were facilitated by the communist governments promoting women as an important aspect of communist society. However, communist movements did not fully achieve equality for women and women's struggle for rights continued in many countries. The communist movement can best be understood in the context of the Soviet Union promoting and spreading communism. Communist leaders such as Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh were supported by the Soviet Union and came to power behind the military or financial support of the Soviet Union....
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...granting men control in which Jack struggles to conform and Wendy is successful in following. By using resentful language, King indicates that as Jack deals with control, he tries but fails to obtain control. While speaking to Al on the phone, Jack thinks, but does not voice, “First Ullman, then Wendy, now Al. What was this? National Let’s Pick Jack Torrance Apart Week?” (275). Feeling hostile, Jack bitterly thinks to himself that everyone around him is “picking him apart,” a resentful way to mean criticizing him. As a stereotypical male, Jack is supposed to be regarded with authority, not belittled like he currently is. His inner resentment...
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...In 2010, Davis Guggenheim released one of the years most talked about documentaries, Waiting for Superman. His film was an eye opening, to many, look at the failings of the U.S. school system. The film follows five students across the U.S., who range in grade level from kindergarten to eighth grade, as they try and escape the public school system through a lottery for a chance admission to a charter school. Guggenheim lays the blame for the failing public education system at the feet of the various teachers unions, and makes a plea for the public in general to get involved in reforming the system. By analyzing Waiting for Superman through a sociological perspective, issues of inequality will be explained using the theoretical approach of the conflict perspective. Waiting for Superman begins with the director, David Guggenheim driving past the Los Angeles public schools as he takes his own children to a private school. Guggenheim starts to explain the problems with public education, in regards to how it is failing our society in general, and that the only way for the average family to escape it, is luck. The documentary follows five children, four are minorities from lower income families and one is white from an affluent area of California. All five face the same problem, a public education system that views them as numbers that feed the system. They are not considered for their individual talents or shortcomings. They are all doomed to follow a predestined track, developed...
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...Marx’s theory of socialist revolution is grounded on the fundamental principle that “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”. Marx saw that the very social position of the working class within capitalist society as a non-owning, exploited, wealth-producing class forced it to struggle against its capitalist conditions of existence. This “movement” of the working class could be said to be implicitly socialist since the struggle was ultimately over who should control the means of production: the minority capitalist class or the working class (i.e. society as a whole). At first the movement of the working class would be, Marx believed, unconscious and unorganised but in time, as the workers gained more...
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...the life and struggles of a black woman named Janie Crawford. Hurston uses the literary technique of symbols to represent the plot and emotions of Janie throughout the work. The two prominent symbols pertaining to the growth of Janie is the symbolization of her hair and the hurricane, which act as a symbols for restraint and oppression. Although the hair symbolizes confinement, while the hurricane representing Janie’s continual struggle, they also reveal her strengths and advancement as a character when she breaks free of those bonds. Through the symbolization of Janie’s hair and the hurricane, two themes are highlighted: the struggle to discover the individual stems from language and power, and liberation comes from self discovery found in personal loss. Hurston utilizes the connection between themes and the symbolization of Janie’s hair and the hurricane to give meaning of Hurston’s interpretation of Janie. Their Eyes Were Watching God is unique as a novel because of Hurston choice of conversational dialect for the characters. Throughout the novel Hurston uses the Southern black dialect in order to bring a realistic feel to the setting and plot line for the reader. The irony in the novel’s unique choice of conversational dialect is that the protagonist, Janie, is often hidden behind the other characters in the novel. This brings about the first theme which is, the struggle to discover the individual stems from language and power. The reader can best see the struggle between language...
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...The Definition of Power Power is many things. It is the ability to control people in their sayings and/or actions. It is the ability to get whatever you want. Power is a necessary component in any society, otherwise all pandemonium would break loose; leaders must be established. But, when taken to an extreme, power is not good, and pandemonium will break loose. As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." A good example of this is Adolph Hitler in Nazi Germany. He believed he could not be stopped and that rules did not apply to him. By being given absolute power, he corrupted the government. No attempt was made to stop this by the Germans, because of the control he had. People were either scared to stop this, or were brainwashed into believing it. Finally the U.S. had to step in and try to stop Hitler, and World War II broke out. But power is not all bad though. As was stated earlier, it is necessary in any group of people, and there will be struggle to achieve it--be it a country, a business, or a sports team. Athletics is a good example of where there is a constant power struggle. In every league, every player wants control. They want what they think should happen (during games), to happen. Recently, in the NBA, Dennis Rodman took this struggle to an extreme. In disagreement with an official's call, Rodman head-butted the official, and through a temper- tantrum on his way off the court....
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...I will explain the historical developments that presented new opportunities for women in society. I will discuss the main individuals that were involved in these struggles. To conclude, I will analyze ways in which it contributed to an “ending of isolation” while assessing the challenges involved. Even today, women still face discrimination based on their gender. However, the role of women has changed significantly which has created a lasting and ongoing increase of women's rights. The woman’s role presents a historical significance from 1865 to today for many reasons. Prior to the Civil War, women were perceived as the weaker sex and were considered intellectually inferior to men. Their freedom was limited and they had fewer rights than men. Women were expected to marry, care for their home, cook, make clothing and raise their children. According to Manning, M. J. (2005), “Women were viewed as wives and mothers, whose economic rights were mainly to be supported by a male breadwinner and protected by the state from any harm to or interference in that role by employment”. They experienced a great deal of discrimination and were basically isolated from the public. They were not allowed to vote, speak publically, attend college, or own any type of property, and were denied any type of authority. It was a huge struggle for women to find their place in society. Eventually, women...
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...Capital Gains A majority of people in America can hardly imagine an existence without capitalism; individuals consume without a thought when we buy the latest cell phone or a new pair of hundred dollar designer jeans. It is clear that most of the world supports some form of capitalism and therefore, at least for now, capitalism has won the struggle between economic systems. Capitalism began in 1200 CE with rug merchants. Just like many traders, today, the rug merchants had to borrow money to buy their wares in order to then resell them for profit, but they had to pay back the money borrowed—usually with interest. This was called mercantile capitalism and it was a global phenomenon, from the Indian and Chinese Ocean trade to Muslim merchants who funded trade caravanserai across the Sahara. Later, merchants in Britain had expanded capitalism by developing stock companies which financed even bigger trade missions. Increased wealth of course resulted by the increased investment, but it only affected as small percentage of the population and did not create cultural influence from capitalism. Mercantile capitalism only affected a small percentage of the population, whereas industrial capitalism impacted majority of the population. Industrial capitalism was something altogether different, both in practice and scale. According to Joyce Appleby’s definition of industrial capitalism: “An economic system that relies on investment of capital in machines and technology that are used...
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