Social Institutions
A combination of positions, norms, roles, and values rooted in particular types of social structures that are organized into relatively stable patterns of human activity
What is the goal of social institutions?
To address matters related to the reproduction of society, including culture, social structure, and the physical environment
How are corporations social institutions?
Help unify people by introducing a common consumer culture; create role models through celebrity endorsements; define group membership; control deviance
Economy
An organized system of production, circulation, and consumption of goods in a society
3 dilemmas of an economic system
1. What to produce 2. How to use resources efficiently towards production 3. For whom are the goods produced
Market Economy
Where decisions on production, supply, and prices are set by producers and consumers in the process of exchange
Some argue that capitalist economies lead to
1. Lower quality products 2. Tendencies towards monopolies 3. Exploitation and decline in effective demand as wages are held down to increase profit
Command Economy
Decisions on production, supply, and prices are determined by a central planning authority (generally the state) (rational economic decision making)
2 problems that command economies face
Innovation, Bureaucratization
Welfare State
the state provides citizens the resources to be economically self-sufficient (universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, etc)
Taylorism
Production by breaking down work into basis tasks
Fordism
Mass production and the creation of mass markets by assembly line, basic wages, and collective beginnings
Informal Economy
Refers to the transactions outside the sphere of regular employment ie. exchange of cash for services provided
Division of Labor
Work has become divided into an enormous number of different occupations in which people specialize
Economic Interdependence
The fact that in division of labor, individuals depend on others to produce many or most of the goods that sustain their lives
Alienation
For Marx, alienation refers to the sense that our own abilities as human beings are being taken over by other entities
Low-trust system
Work setting in which people are allowed little responsibility over work task (Fordism and Taylorism)
High-trust system
Work setting in which individuals are permitted a great deal of autonomy and control over the work task
Strike
Temporary stoppage of work by group of employees in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand
Labor Union
Unions designed to legally recognize workers rights
Union Density
# of union members as a percentage of the number of people who could potentially be in unions
Capitalism
Economic system based on private ownership of wealth, which is invested and reinvested in order to produce profit
Corporations
Business firms and companies (modern capitalism is more and more influenced by corporations as opposed to smaller firms)
Entrepreneur
Small business owner
Monopoly
Situation in which a single firm dominates in a given industry
Oligopoly
The domination of a small number of firms in a given industry
Family Capitalism
Capitalism enterprise owned and administered by entrepreneurial families (large firms run either by individual entrepreneurs or by members of the same family, and then passed down to their descendants)
Managerial Capitalism
Capitalistic enterprises administered by managerial executives rather than by owners; in the large corporate sector, family capitalism was increasingly succeeded by managerial capitalism
Welfare Capitalism
Refers to practice that sought to make corporations-- rather than the state or trade unions-- the primary shelter from the uncertainties of the market in modern industrial life (large firms provide certain services to their employees, including child care, recreational facilities, paid vacations, insurance, etc)
Institutional Capitalism
Arguably taking over today; capitalistic enterprise organized on the basis of institutional shareholding; based on practice of corporations holding shares in other firms
Transnational/multinational corporations
Holding branches in two or more countries
International division of labor
The specialization in producing goods for the world market that divides regions into zones of industrial or agricultural production of high or low skilled labor
Automation
Programmable machinery
Global Outsourcing
business practice that sends production materials to factories around the world; components of one final product often originate from many different countries; factories from different countries must compete with each other to obtain business
Flexible Production
Global assembly lines for the production of products; companies that design and sell products seldom make their own products in their own factories
Portfolio Workers
More and more people in the future will be this; have a number of different jobs and credentials