SOCIOLOGY AND GLOBAL ISSUES

THE ECONOMY, BUSINESS AND WORK

Harishankar.N 08M118Srinath.N 08M155

Vignesh.K.L.M 08M159

THE ECONOMY

THE ECONOMY – AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM

The Economy is the social institution that accomplishes the production and distribution of goods and services within a society.

From a sociological view point, it is a social system comprising social relations of all kinds and profoundly affecting all aspects of social life.

Action perspectiveStructural perspective

ECONOMIC SYSTEMS AND IDEALS

Rise of Capitalism: The capitalist market is one recognized by

friend and foe alike as an extremely dynamic one, a system that has continued to create unprecedented wealth and revolutionized the means of production.

According to Adam Smith, a capitalist society is based on three basic principles

Private property, The profit motive and The free competition.

Private property: People in a capitalist society define fulfillment and success largely in terms of the ownership of property.

Profit motive: It is the driving force that provides capitalism for the means of production.

Free competition: No entrepreneur is able to earn more than what is assigned as a normal profit in that market

Capital Accumulation: A system that enables business people to focus

on long term investments rather than day to day transcations.

It calls for keeping track of the rate of return on one’s whole investment as well as the size of the profit.

The Creation of Wealth: Modern capitalists do not make money simply

by exchanging goods that are bought cheap and sold dear – they make money by organizing production in ways that increase the total supply of goods.

MODERN CORPORATE CAPITALISM

The modern American economy is not dominated by individual capitalists or their descendants. Instead American business activity is dominated by a few dozen of corporations – oil companies, automobile manufacturers, and various Conglomerates (giant companies made up of cluster of smaller companies)

A Corporation is an organization created by law that has an ongoing existence and powers and liabilities that are independent from those of its formers and managers.

THE BUSINESS

BUSINESS INSTITUTIONS IN AMERICA

The Large Corporation Many American industries are oligopolies –

industries dominated by only a few large firms. Overall, about 60% of manufacturing in this country is oligopolistic.

“The Invisible Hand” It is the phrase given to the market pressure,

the automatic reward foe work, creativity, and risk and the punishment for sloth, conventionality, and excessive caution that would be enforced by the market prices.

The Global Power of Multinationals: A multinational corporation is a private

business firm with operations and subsidiaries in many different countries.

By shifting assets and operations abroad, multinationals are able to avoid government regulations, high taxes, and labour unions.

Who controls these Corporations?: The top management consists of the board of

directors, which consists of a dozen or so senior managers of the company, prominent business people from other companies, and public figures.

Small Business

Although American business makes us think of corporate giants like General Motors and IBM, small business – defined by the government as any firm with 100 employees or fewer – are significant parts of the economic scene.

Fully one half of the labour force is employed by small businesses.

THE WORK

THE WORK

Work is an effort aimed at producing a product or service that we usually reward with pay and to which we often attach a moral value.

Work offers a way of defining ourselves and other people.

Work becomes a highly significant part of our own identity and that of others.

What is a Work Group? A work group is a group of people who work

together at the same time in the same place – whether the crews of a spacecraft or the kitchen help in a restaurant.

Factory or Labour work, Farmers, Lab technicians, Clerks, Salesmen, etc

Office work, CEO, Managers, etc

Blue collar jobs

White collar jobs

TYPES OF JOBS

HAWTHORNE EFFECT It was a research done on work groups done in the

Hawthorne works of the Western Electric Company, near Chicago, between 1924 and 1936.

These studies, which were undertaken to identify factors that would increase worker’s productivity, yielded a number of important findings, the most famous of which, since known as Hawthorne effect.

Many alterations were done to see how it affected the productivity, such as smaller workgroups, higher pay and so on.

Social factors such as the bond between the workers, the size and type of organization, its shared culture also affect it.

TYPES OF WORK CONTROL

It’s a characteristic of early capitalist enterprise and persists today in small businesses. It is direct and face to face interaction.

In a factory, for example, the physical process of labor compels workers to perform their tasks in a certain way within a specific time period.

In this case workers are controlled by a hierarchical system that awards several rewards to various levels of jobs.

Simple control

Technical control

Bureaucratic control

LABOUR MARKETS

Basically they match people and their skills to available jobs. And like jobs, workers have various attributes that make them more or less desirable.

Education, manual dexterity, and other abilities are considered legitimate advantages in the labour market, but race, gender and social-class background, which are not considered legitimate grounds for employment, usually matter as well.

It is in which workers are employed by

stable, successful, usually relatively large

firms.

These workers have job security, health and retirement benefits, and relatively good

incomes.

It fills in smaller, less stable niche in the economy, in which demand for product

fluctuates.

Most of these jobs are part-time and

seasonal like fast food restaurants, caterers, liquor stores, florists,

etc.

Primary Labour Market Secondary Labour Market