Introduction to Sociological Theory
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"Crafting a sociological theory text that addresses complex andcontested ideas in a sophisticated, yet genuinely engaging andaccessible way is a tall order. As this new edition of MicheleDillon's book reveals, she has a remarkable gift for doing justthat. Students will be well served by professors who adoptIntroduction to Sociological Theory for their theorycourses." --Peter Kivisto, Augustana College and University ofTurkuMore details
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List of Figures
Acknowledgments xiii
How to Use This Book xvi
Introduction: Welcome to Sociological Theory 1
Analyzing Social Life 4
Societal Transformation and the Origins of Sociology 12
The Establishment of Sociology 17
The Sociological Craft in the Nineteenth Century 23
Summary 27
Glossary 28
1 Karl Marx 31
Expansion of Capitalism 33
Marx's Theory of History 35
Human Nature 40
Capitalism as a Distinctive Social Form 42
Wage-Labor 48
The Division of Labor and Alienation 52
Economic Inequality 59
Ideology and Power 62
Summary 71
Glossary 72
2 Emile Durkheim 77
Durkheim's Methodological Rules 80
The Nature of Society 84
Societal Transformation and Social Cohesion 89
Traditional Society 89
Modern Society 92
Social Conditions of Suicide 98
Religion and the Sacred 106
Summary 111
Glossary 112
3 Max Weber 115
Sociology: Understanding Social Action 118
Culture and Economic Activity 119
Ideal Types 126
Social Action 127
Power, Authority, and Domination 133
Social Stratification 142
Modernity and Competing Values 145
Summary 148
Glossary 149
4 Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton: Functionalism and Modernization 153
Talcott Parsons 154
The Social System 156
Socialization and Societal Integration 158
Social Differentiation, Culture, and the Secularization of Protestantism 160
Pattern Variables 163
Modernization Theory 167
Stratification and Inequality 169
Robert Merton's Middle-Range Theory 172
Parsons's Legacy: Varied Directions
Summary 176
Glossary 178
5 Critical Theory: Technology, Culture, and Politics 181
Dialectic of Enlightenment 187
Mass Culture and Consumption 192
Politics: Uniformity and Control199
Jurgen Habermas: The State and Society 201
Summary 208
Glossary 210
6 Conflict, Power, and Dependency in Macro-Societal Processes 215
Ralf Dahrendorf's Theory of Group Conflict 216
C. Wright Mills 220
Dependency Theory: Neo-Marxist Critiques of Economic Development 225
Summary 231
Glossary 233
7 Exchange, Exchange Network, and Rational Choice Theories 235
Exchange Theory 236
Exchange Network Theory
Actor Network Theory 242
Rational Choice Theory 246
Analytical Marxism 251
Summary 253
Glossary 254
8 Symbolic Interactionism 257
Development of the Self through Social Interaction 258
The Premises of Symbolic Interactionism 263
Erving Goffman: Society as Ritualized Social Interaction 265
Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnographic Research 279
Summary 280
Glossary 281
9 Phenomenology and Ethnomethodology 285
Phenomenology 286
Ethnomethodology 298
Summary 307
Glossary 308
10 Feminist Theories 311
Consciousness of Women's Inequality 313
Standpoint Theory: Dorothy Smith and the Relations of Ruling 316
Masculinity
Patricia Hill Collins:Black Women's Standpoint 327
Sociology of Emotion 335
Arlie Hochschild: Emotional Labor 336
Summary 344
Glossary 345
11 Michel Foucault:Sexuality, the Body, and Power 349
Michel Foucault 350
Sexuality and Queer Theory 360
Summary 367
Glossary 368
12 Race, Racism, and the Construction of Racial Otherness 371
Racial Otherness 373
Social Change, Race, and Racism 377
Slavery, Colonialism, and Racial Formation 381
William Du Bois: Slavery and Racial Inequality 384
Race and Class 388
Race, Community, and Democracy 390
Culture and the New Racism 396
Summary 400
Glossary 401
13 The Social Reproduction of Inequality 405
Pierre Bourdieu's Theory of Class and Culture Social Stratification 406
Family and School in the Production of Cultural Capital 410
Taste and Everyday Practices 414
Summary 424
Glossary 425
14 Economic and Political Globalization What is Globalization? 454
Economic Globalization 456
Immanuel Wallerstein: The Modern World-System 457
Contemporary Economic Globalizing Processes 463
Globalizing Political Processes: The Changing Authority of the Nation-State Migration and Political Mobilization in a Transnational World 483
Summary 447
Glossary 448
15 Modernities, Cosmopolitanism, and Global Consumer Culture
Contrite Modernity
Multiple Modernities
Global Risk Society
Cosmopolitan Modernity
The Global Expansion of Human Rights
Global Consumer Culture
Summary Glossary
Glossary
Sociological Theorists and their Key Writings
References
Index
CHAPTER ONE
KARL MARX (1818–1883)
KEY CONCEPTS capitalism bourgeoisie inequality mode of production means of production proletariat private property historical materialism class relations class consciousness exploitation dialectical materialism communism subsistence species being capital profit use-value commodification of labor power false consciousness surplus value exchange-value division of labor alienated labor alienation from products objectification alienation in the production process alienation from our species being alienation of individuals from one another standpoint of the proletariat ideology fetishism of commodities superstructure economic base ruling class ruling ideas
CHAPTER MENU
Capitalism as Structured Inequality
The Millennium’s Greatest Thinker
Material and Social Existence Intertwined
Capitalism as a Distinctive Social Form
The Commodification of Labor Power
Professional Sports: The Commodification of Labor Power in Action
The Gap Between Exchange-Value and Use-Value
The Division of Labor and Alienation
Everyday Existence and the Normality of Ideas
The Mystical Value of Commodities
The Ruling Power of Money in Politics
Timeline 1.1 Major events in Marx’s lifetime (1818–1883)
1818 First steamship (the Savannah) to cross the Atlantic Ocean, taking 26 days 1819 British Factory Act prohibiting employment of children under 9 in the cotton industry; and 12-hour days for those ages 10–16. 1821 US population: 9.6 million 1830 Revolution in France, fall of Charles X and Bourbons 1833 Britain abolishes slavery in its empire 1837 US Congress passes a “gag” law to suppress debate on slavery 1840 Railway-building boom in Europe 1841 First university degrees granted to women in America 1842 Depression and poverty in England 1842 British Mines Act forbids underground employment for women and girls and sets up inspectorate to supervise boy labor 1843 Skiing becomes a sport 1845 Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England 1845 Florida and Texas gain statehood 1846 Height of potato famine in Ireland 1848 Revolutions against monarchy/aristocracy in Europe (Paris, Berlin, Prague, Budapest) 1848 Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto 1848 California Gold Rush 1850 Sydney University established 1854 Charles Dickens, Hard Times 1859 Peaceful picketing during a strike legalized in Britain 1862 Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation declaring slaves free 1862 Lincoln issues the first legal US paper money 1862 Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 1866 National Labor Union (crafts union) established in the US 1867 Marx, Capital (Das Kapital) 1871 Trade Union Act in Britain secures legal status for trade unions, but picketing illegal 1872 Penny-farthing bicycle in general use 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone 1877 US railroad strike; first major industrial dispute in US 1879 Thomas Edison produces incandescent electric light 1882 Standard Oil Company controls 95 percent of US oil-refining capacity BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Karl Marx was born in Germany (in Prussia, in 1818) into a middle-class family and completed several years of university education studying law, history, languages, and philosophy. Rather than pursuing an academic career, he turned to journalism and devoted his attention to business and economics, writing about labor conditions during this era of rapid industrialization. The year 1848 was the “Year of Revolutions” in Europe, as workers and ordinary people rose up against the ruling monarchies in Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and France. Marx himself had participated in the German revolutionary movement, and that same year he and Friedrich Engels published their famous treatise The Communist Manifesto. Marx was expelled from Germany and subsequently too from France because of his revolutionary views. He eventually settled in England in 1849, with his German wife, Jenny von Westphalen. For many years subsequently, they and their six children suffered abject poverty, relying on money from Engels and small fees from Marx’s political articles for the American radical newspaper the New York Daily Tribune. He died in 1883, predeceased by his wife and three of their children (Tucker 1978: xvii; Kimmel 2007: 170). Marx’s Writings 1844a: “Alienation and Social Classes,” ASC1844b: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, EPM
1846: The German Ideology (with Engels), GI
1847: Wage Labour and Capital, WLC
1848: The Communist Manifesto (with Engels), CM
1852: “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” Bru
1858: The Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, Gru
1859: “Preface to ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,’ ” Preface
1867: Capital (Das Kapital), Cap
EXPANSION OF CAPITALISM
When you hear the name Karl Marx it is tempting to wonder why you should be studying his ideas. Marx has been dead for well over one hundred years, and communism, the political system with which his theoretical vision is associated, has all but disappeared around the world. The dominant communist power of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union, collapsed – an event captured literally by the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Today, the largest ex-Soviet republic, Russia, is in the throes of adopting capitalism, crystallized by the development of shopping malls even in Siberia, and by the expanding global economic reach of Russian millionaires and billionaires. One, for example, owns the world-famous Chelsea (England) Football (soccer) Club, another was an early capital investor in Facebook, another paid $88 million for a luxury Manhattan penthouse in 2012, another owns the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA professional basketball team who have recently made their home in the spectacular Barclays arena in Brooklyn, a venture in which Jay-Z is also an investor. Such developments would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. Capitalism is steadily expanding too in China (see Topic 1.1); China occupies a major role in the global economy and it is expected to be the world’s number one economy by 2030, displacing the US.
Lest you think that this capitalist expansion is all the more reason not to study Marx, you might be surprised to know that Marx, in fact, predicted it:
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie [the capitalist ownership class] over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere … The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into...
