Sociology in the 21st century

Modernization and Stratification theory 50 years later

Dates to remember 4/4 Discussion #6 4/16 Draft #3; Discussion #7 4/18 No class 4/23 Final Draft (30% of final grade) 5/8 (8:00 Aagh) Final exam (10% of final

grade) Thus, there are only 4 lectures after today.

Be aware of the material in the last chapters relevant to your paper.

Parsons and his critics (review)

Parsonian functionalism dominated sociology in the 3rd quarter of the 20th c. Modernization theory and the functional model

of stratification both appeared in the early ’50s They were two of the main bodies of theory

leading to the dominance of structural-functionalism 1950-1975

But also to its collapse in the ’80’s and ’90’s Both are somewhat resurgent today.

Systems and Sociological Theory Many research models have no feedbacks,

but most theoretical models are systemic. Functional theory stresses norms and values

which function as negative feedback thermostats.

Conflict theory stresses vicious cycles of power and privilege, which operate as positive feedbacks.

Organization, theory, symbolic interaction, and other theoretical approaches can also be most simply represented as feedback models.

Functions and Thermostats:Negative Feedbacks

A function is something that is needed e.g. social order, socialization into family,

economic production, health, Such that a failure to have that need met

will generate changes to restore it. This self-maintaining structure can be

represented as a kind of thermostat:

Failure to meet need

Anomie; search

reforms to try to meet functional needs

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Conflict theory and Vicious Cycles: Positive Feedbacks Conflict theory treats society as a kind of

game of monopoly characterized by vicious cycles of advantage/disadvantage.

Money, power and prestige leads to access to further money, power and prestige

More generally

ResourcesAccess to further resources

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Feedbacks are inconvenient but dynamically important Feedbacks enormously complicate empirical

estimation of causal relations. Therefore 20th c. sociology has tended to

ignore them But they are dynamically important. Positive and negative feedbacks are

explanatory primitives. Mid-20th c. systems theory tended to privilege

the analysis of negative feedback systems, and Parsons did even more so.

Contemporary chaotic and complex systems dynamics tends to look at positive feedbacks.

Theory and “model specification”Whenever one looks at any causal

relation empirically, there are always an indefinitely large number of ‘other forces’ going on.

The overall assumptions about the forces that are operating are established and justified by theory.

The Functional model of stratification and its critics Structures of inequality are centrally

connected to almost every process of interest to sociologists

E.g. sociology of education and race are often direct application of stratification processes

And central justifications and criticisms of the social structure hinge on inequality.

Thus views that inequality is a just reward for talent and sacrifice continue to generate important political positions about issues such as race, gender or education.

Parsonian theory (review)

Parsons argued that stratification is a central aspect of evaluation and differentiation

Necessary and functional in all societies. We have seen that his students, Davis & Moore

formulated the dominant model 1950-1970: Not all jobs are equally important; people are

unequally talented; training takes sacrifice Therefore stratification is a reward for talent and

training Its reduction would lower efficiency and productivity,

setting in motion forces to restore it.

Problems of Functional theory The Davis/Moore model is largely rejected

today because: Property income and inheritance cannot

motivate effort. Rewards (pay scales) are not proportional to

functional importance. Large inequalities produce privilege and

forced division of labor. Inequality has many dysfunctions. The size of inequalities in the U.S (I.e.

1:10,000 for income) is hard to justify functionally.

e.g. Feagin’s ASA Address 2000

Give task of designing a closed, sustainable social system to operate for several generations (“spaceship earth”).

To have the top 1% have more resources than the bottom 90% combined (as is the wealth distribution in the US today) would be inefficient, divisive, and a source of many further functional problems.

Functional theory merely legitimates structures that are unfair and dysfunctional

Modernity and Modern Values Another main appeal of Parsonian

functionalism was an account of US development and modernization elsewhere.

Achievement/universalism promotes social, political and economic development.

Myrdal’s conception of the role of the American Creed in the US,

And of development in the Third World.

Problems and Criticisms of the modernization model Many Third World countries do not seem to

be modernizing; indeed on many criteria (including protein consumption per cap) they seem to be losing ground.

This led models of how and why the rich societies were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer.

Dependency theory and World-systems theory were two of the most important.

Dependency Theories Often the rich countries make the rules, using

gun-boats when it suits them. Dependency theories argue that those rules

advantage the developed countries and distort the economies of third world countries.

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the direct policies of dominant powers (especially the U.S.) often do not permit balanced development,

But rather raw materials extraction and cheap labor production that makes the Third World country an unequal, coercive wasteland.

World systems Theories radicalized the dependency perspective, arguing that when the core societies (Holland,

France, England, Spain) first came in contact with the peripheral societies (Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia) their standard of living and level of development was roughly equal to those they conquered.

A single exploitative process produced development of the core and underdevelopment of the periphery.

Domination and exploitation

Movement within the world system

World systems theorists note that some societies (US, Japan ) have moved up into the core. They suggest that the societies were those that could

prevent domination by core powers and that could exert domination over peripheral ones.

And other societies (e.g. Spain ) have slipped down into the semiperiphery or periphery Specifically societies that could not hold onto their

colonies and booty militarily were de-developed. It is an exploitative system Every society can’t develop any more than everyone can

go to medical school and become a doctor

The World-systems Critique Wallerstein says that to understand change in

the world today you have to see that the main process is not modernization,

but a capitalist core exploiting a periphery, That this process is one of struggle, inequality

and domination between core and periphery, which, periodically, bursts into world wars

between the core powers.

4 War peaks every 100 yrs.1610-40; 1705-09; 1800-15; 1914-45Were mostly driven by power vacuums.