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SOC1: Understanding power - Coggle Diagram
SOC1: Understanding power
Marxism
Def of Power
Power is used to reproduce class inequalities. It allows the economically dominate class to exploit the dominated. Power is therefore a translation of economic capacity (like land or capital).
And people are forced to act the way they do because of their location in the social structure.
Amenta, Edwin, Nash, and Scott defined that Marxist power is “linked to class relations to economics, politics, and ideology.”
the material conditions of the Industrial Revolution and the clear polarisation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat has morphed the Marxist portrayal of power into an economically centred view with material gain and capacity at its core.
Marx argued that authority is always based on power. Power is violence and authority and power are interchangeable
power is perceived as more as a ‘thing’ or a ‘capacity’ rather than a relationship
Who?
narrow view on power that was centred — mainly — around economic resources, capacities, and interests, particularly on how economic alienation preceded political alienation, thus resulting into power being concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie.
Marx views the economic capacity of an individual as the main form of domination, therefore, in the context of the Industrial Revolution, those that detain power were those than own the means of production, and those that were subjected to power were those that had only their workforce to offer.
the state is not “inherently capitalistic” , rather it is the pro-capitalist forces that happen to control the state.
One's position in the production process determines one's preferences and actions (i.e?)
Elitism
Problem
particularly problematic for a Marxist because they regard human labour, particularly creative work in other spheres beyond the material wealth for the sake of comfort and luxury, as one of the most fulfilling activities that one can do to liberate oneself from Nature’s domination and should therefore not be used to reproduce class inequalities.
Pertinence in today's world
Power relations
Zero-sum
Struggle
Based on structure
Yes determinism
Liberalism
Def of Power
the probability that actors within a social relationship can carry out their will despite resistance from others, regardless of their source of power.
power is effectiveness. And the focus here is on agency.
Econ + pol
Weberian portrayal also recognises how power can emerge from economic sources but also from other sources such as status or party.
Weber distinguished authority and power, with the former always requiring some sort of obedience, whether it is through tradition, the recognition of law, or charisma (Weber’s three forms of authority), while the latter can use any means necessary to realise one’s will.
power is perceived as more as a ‘thing’ or a ‘capacity’ rather than a relationship
Who?
Pluralism
society is the result of an aggregation of individual behaviours.
when linked with Weber’s Politics as a Vocation, we understand that Weber’s liberal view on power regarding agency was conceived during a time when power was visible and tangible.
The agency however that Weber describes there is the realist structured agency, with the characteristics that we discussed in the supervision; not the liberal agency that leaves everyone equally happy!
power for a Weberian resided in the individuals, in rational actors; the powerful figures of Weber’s time were not bourgeois capitalists, but rather the likes of Woodrow Wilson, Wilhem II, or David George.
Power relations:
Positive-sum
Competition among actors
Based on agency
No determinism
Weberian portrayal of power “focuses on the unblocking of situations and the constituting of new situations,”
Problem
Social life is usually reciprocal and cooperative, every action creates a reaction, and power operates by tacit submission rather than a clash of wills. (tacit power)
reduces others to obstacles to be overcome. Although this is debatable when we confront Poggi's def (a marxist) against Weber's OG text “Economy and Society” [vol.1 p.53] motivations differ in different contexts, and thus there is nothing meaningful that can be said at a general abstract level about them; they need to be studied in their specific historical context.
doesn’t mention the hierarchy with the source of power
Post-structuralism
Def of power
both Foucault and Bourdieu’s analysis is informed by Marxist assumptions: they see all power as oppression, even if they deny that when they are accused for it.
power evolves. It used to be visible and oppressive, but by the late nineteenth century is has become subtle and diffuse, imperceptibly producing submissive subjects.
Power is no longer about oppression or exploitation. Its sole aim now is to discipline people.
Power relations
If, for Bourdieu, habitus triggers certain tendencies of acting that shapes our identity and that we will keep throughout our lives — what Bourdieu calls the ‘hysteresis of habitus’ — then the Foucaultian conception of power is also focused on how power is exercised in a passive and invisible way by making individuals more predictable since, for Foucault, repressive power has become second grade in this day and age with “power relations [being] rooted deep in the social nexus"
Foucault studies how “humans are made subjects” and disciplined.
, power has therefore become a means to regulate society by observing the predictable patterns of the individuals that constitute it and by making irregular behaviours the new norm.
Who
State + citizens
there is “no such entity as power” and that power is no longer exercised “immediately on others” but it is exercised through “action upon action” by the individuals.
Realism
Def of power:
Bourdieu's conception of power more complex than Weber and more expansive than Marx.
Society consists of interlocking power fields. Everyone is immersed in one or more. And, according to his realist view of power, most people use whatever skills and advantages they have to maintain or improve their lot.
reject any power theory that power is concentrated in certain areas of the society, rather power, as it was manifested in the 20th century onwards, is diffused and embedded in every part of society: “power is neither an agency nor a structure.”
both Foucault and Bourdieu’s analysis is informed by Marxist assumptions: they see all power as oppression, even if they deny that when they are accused for it.
Power relations
acknowledge that humans are shaped by the world they live in, but they also structure it back by living and engaging in said world.
no escaping power, there is not anything ‘outside’ of power
Bourdieu, with his theory of habitus, emphasised that power is a ““relations between” rather than “either/or.””
power is about maintaining or improving one’s position in the different fields of society and habitus — a “structured and structuring structure”
is a way for individuals to acquire the necessary skills and understand the rules to the game. This is because the ‘structured structures’ are shaped by our social construct, but it’s also a ‘structuring structure’ because our habitus is no longer a consequence, it will be a cause; in other words, it’s in our habitus that we will take our social conducts to adapt to new circumstances.
Grenfell considers that Bourdieu “aims to transcend philosophical dualisms to offer epistemologically powerful accounts of the social world.”
Who
Rational actors within a society
Essay
Some core reasons why theorists disagree among themselves in the social sciences in general [this is a broader issue, not just specific to the topic of power] : they do not all answer the same question; there are conflicts of interest and conflicts of values and social scientists are themselves members of the societies they try to describe and understand, and thus are influenced by these interests and conflicts; we do not agree on what science is about (description, explanation, critique etc.).