PEAC Certified

SELF – LEARNING
MODULE IN
UNDERSTANDING
CULURE, SOCIETY AND
POLITICS
SECOND QUARTER –
MODULE 4
ECONOMY, SOCIETY AND
CULTURAL CHANGE

ALEX A. DUMANDAN

STUDENT NAME: _______________________________________________________________

MODULE 4 - SECOND QUARTER TOPIC: ECONOMY, SOCIETY AND CULTURAL

CHANGE
OVERVIEW:
 2

Hello Dear Learners! Welcome To This Module on Economy, Society and

Cultural Change. This Module Deals with Activities That Could Help the Learners
To Explain The Context, Content, Processes And Consequences Of Socialization.
The Module Is Self – Instructional and Allows You to Learn In Your Own Space, At
Your Own Pace. So, Relax and Enjoy Learning.
CONTENT STANDARD: Demonstrates understanding of … the agents/ institutions,
processes, and outcomes of cultural, political, and social change.
PERFORMANCE STANDARD: Learners should be able…
1. evaluates factors causing social, political, and cultural change.
2. advocate how human societies should adapt to such
changes
LEARNING COMPETENCY:
Explain government programs and initiatives in addressing social inequalities e.g. local,
national, global.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
K: identify characteristics of the systems of stratification.
S: examine stratification from the functionalist and conflict perspectives;
A: analyze economic organization and its impact on the lives of people in the society;

CONTENT:

Lesson 1: Social inequality

The importance of economic structure Karl Marx, the father of scientific

socialism, famously stated in his a preface to a critique of political
economy the most controversial assertion in sociology:
“in the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations
that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations
of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their
material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of
production constitutes the economic structure of society—the real
foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to
https://
encryptedtbn0.gstatic.com/
which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode
images?
q=tbn:ANd9GcR8LnOIz1tc
of production of material life determines the social, political and
u_yJgqH6rzEnDwDisEGK_
ktckzRuyZQc8I2rTrx&s
intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of
men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social
being that determines their consciousness.”

SYSTEM OF STRATIFICATION AS SOURCE OF INEQUALITIES

Some sociologists, however, extend the definition of class to include not only access to the
means of production like land, capital, and technologies but also to the prestige attached to
one’s social position. Hence, some sociologists, writing along the Weberian tradition, use the
term stratification.

When regularly recognized social differences (of wealth, color, religion, ethnicity or gender,
for example) become ranked in some hierarchical manner, sociologists talk about strata
(Bruce and Yearly 2006, p. 290).

Max Weber defined class as a category of individuals who:

1. Have in common a specific causal component of their life

chances in so far as
2. This component is represented exclusively by economic
 3

interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income, and

3. It is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor market.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/
images?
q=tbn:ANd9GcTAvcPbq3O7x2JWOdilu

“I believe that ownership of property is crucial to the definition of class. Where class
referred to social differences based on economic divisions and inequalities, status
designated the differentiation of groups in the “communal” Sphere in terms of their social
honor and social standing”. ---Max Weber

CLASS SYSTEM

Among Filipino families, education is considered as the “ticket to

success.” This is supported by the theory of education-based
meritocracy proposed chiefly by American sociologists Daniel
Bell in the 1960s.

In this theory, education is supposed to be the great status

equalizer. Education provides much needed capital to climb the
economic ladder. Hence, many Filipino families will sacrifice
anything for their children to finish a college degree. This practice
is based on the belief that our society is an “open” society that
allows the movement of individuals from a lower class to a
relatively higher class. When people are allowed and are capable
of moving from one stratum or class to another class, it is called
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/ social mobility.
_WCsOjyRhpeM/TUlvvAKTr7I/
AAAAAAAACCo/AUiHAWZmGuU/
 4

KEY CONCEPT
Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), a French sociologist, who dealt
extensively with class inequalities by arguing that capital, in its
classic Marxist usage, does not refer only to economic assets
but also includes cultural, symbolic, and social capital. Cultural
capital refers to the forms of knowledge, educational
credentials, and artistic taste that a person acquires from family
background, which give them higher status in society.

Social capital refers to resources based on group

membership, relationships, and networks of influence and
support. Bourdieu (1984) described social capital as “the compressed.photo.https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/
goodreads.com/books/1480166440l /24851764.jpg
aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are
linked to possession of a durable network of more or less
institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” In traditional
societies, for instance, individuals are recruited in a bureaucracy on the basis of blood
relations. In his book distinction (1984), Bourdieu refers to symbolic capital as “the
acquisition of a reputation for competence and an image of respectability and
honourability…” (p. 291)

Politics

What does politics mean? Why does politics bear a negative connotation especially when
used by well-known politicians, celebrities, and media practitioners? What is the relationship
between power and politics? Where does power lie? Who wields power? Who seizes
power? What does it mean to be political? What does it take to be politicized? What are the
possible ways in which politics and empowerment can mean something meaningful and
fruitful for the majority?

POLITICS AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

All known societies are organized in ways that facilitate and maintain the everyday life and
culture of different social groups. This means that the morality made up of norms, mores,
and folkways that people live by are part of an organized system of “ways of doing and
mixing” Are ways of living in a world where each individual needs to mix with other people.
In other words, there are rules, unwritten or written, that guide people’s ways of socializing.
This way of inhabiting the world is conceptualized as social relations. Power is a nominal
term or another word we use to refer 7to social relations. This means that the rules for
relating socially are observed depending on one’s position in society. This is why all social
relations are power relations. This why politics is not even choice that those who can get
into. Politics is part and parcel of social life. It shapes the way people live and die.

FORMS OF LEGITIMACY 6

German sociologist Max Weber identifies 3 types of legitimacy which concertize the same in
its various concrete forms:

1. Traditional Legitimacy (TL)

Tl is the kind of moral authority that keeps society together by virtue of custom and
habit. This type of legitimacy emphasizes the authority of tradition by virtue of its
historical practice by a particular group. This form of rule is understood as historically
accepted by its practitioners: “this is how we have always done things.” Governments
or forms of rule that are based on traditional legitimacy are historically continuous
such as monarchies and the traditional legitimacy of customary law that govern tribal
societies.
2. Charismatic Legitimacy (CL)
In his book “charisma and institution building,” Weber studies the transition of power
from one regime to another through the seizure of power or revolution. He studies a
 5

dimension of regime change or revolution focusing on a charismatic leader. He argues

that seizure of power is often initiated by a leader who questions traditional authority,
brings together and leads followers to oust the old regime and bring forth a new one.
Fidel Castro of Cuba’s 1959 revolution, Mao Zedong of the 1949 Chinese revolution,
Vladimir Lenin of the 1917 October Russian revolution. Other examples of charismatic
leaders in world history are Zapata, Khomeini, and Mandela. The charismatic leader is
often regarded as endowed with
Exceptional powers and superhuman qualities. Charisma is the quality of political
leaders whose individual characteristics set him apart from ordinary people. Weber,
however, highlights that the charismatic leader’s authority over her followers can only
be maintained and reinforced when solidified in political institutions. This means that
as a quality of a leader, charisma must itself undergo institutionalization, the most
effective of which are formal bureaucracies or modern governments that have
replaced the traditional and hereditary rule of monarchs.
3. Rational-Legal Legitimacy (RLL)
Authority in this context derives from formal procedures of institutions. This is a type of
legitimacy that is based on a government’s capacity to use public interest as the
rationale for establishing and enforcing law and order. Rational-legal legitimacy is
therefore the basis of power and leadership of a government that pledges to abide the
law and wins consent from the people through public trust. Modern states or
governments premised on representative or participative democracies are examples
of the kind of authority that is derived from rational-legal legitimacy. Betrayal of trust
and culpable violation of the constitution by a government official strips him or her of
rational-legal authority. This explains the phenomenon of presidents leaving their
office due to public clamor and/or people power.

POWER AND AUTHORITY KEY DIFFERENCES

ORIGINS OF THE PHILIPPINE MODERN STATE

Modern principalia: “a continuity of leadership

recruitment from a tiny minority of elite families and,
in spite of “democratic” Elections, members of these
families get elected again and again.” –dante
simbulan

https://thephilbiznews.com/wpcontent/uploads/2018/09/congress.jpg

The ruling elite or the plutocracy refers to any given society’s economic and political elite.
 6

In this context, the melding of economic and political power is decisive in the formation of
the Philippine state and the different regimes or governments that have historically made it
up. In an ideal world, governance only requires political acumen or the ability to wield
political capital effectively. But the history of colonialism and neo-colonialism has shaped
the confluence of economic and political power in shaping the life of a nation.

Each province in the Philippines is almost always ruled by political dynasties that rule not
only the political life, they also shape and control ordinary people’s economic and social life.
Throwback in history
The Principalia is a product of Spanish colonialism that morphed into the modern
principalia all throughout American colonialism and neo-colonialism, up to the institution of
the modern Philippine state.
Caciquism is a system of rule introduced by the Spanish colonizers who ruled the
Philippines from 1571-1898. While leaders of Barangays and Datus already existed in the
social organization of the various regions in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao before Spanish
colonial rule, these sophisticated system of organization was used by the Spanish
colonizers against the colonized.
The Spanish colonizers introduced Caciquism or the rule of the cacique or chief
through local leaders like the datos and cabezas de barangay. In other words, local chiefs
were recruited to the Spanish colonial government as local collaborators. They were
compensated through the encomienda system, or land grants to local caciques. The
caciques then started to preserve and reinforce power through getting more land which
allowed them to make their constituents, the people, dependent on them. This newly formed
local elite group also served as tax collectors who extorted money from the locals, partly for
their use and part of it to be surrendered to their spanish superiors.
In the Bonifacio-led 1896 katipunan revolution, the Principalia played a counter-
intuitive role. The 1896 revolution was inspired by the reform movement initiated by the
Ilustrados, they are intellectual segment of the Principalia who are alienated from the
practices and interests of this elite group. They are the young intellectuals who studied in
Europe a midst the Philippines’ colonization of Spain. Their exposure to the literature on the
enlightenment and the different revolutions in the west, foremost of which is the French
revolution, these alienated young intellectuals would come home to the country to become
propagandists of the reform movement against Spanish colonialism. From this movement,
the revolutionary katipunan was born and eventually won the revolution against Spanish
colonialism.
During the United States colonization of the Philippines, the campaign to pacify
revolutionary anti-colonial forces ensued. The principalia during this period was comprised
of pro-American upper class Filipinos, who in December 12, 1900, came together, all 125 of
them, to organize the Federalista party. As part of the pacification campaign, local Filipino
elites were also appointed by Americans in different positions in the bureaucracy
culminating in the commonwealth period. This period marked the institutionalization of the
modern Principalia as pillars in the establishment of state institutions in the so-called post-
colonial period. This segment of the Principalia has its roots from the land-owning
Principalia that collaborated with Spanish colonizers. This is how the modern Principalia
became the local ruling elite that occupy seats in local government units, congress, senate,
and the Malacanang palace. Contemporary Philippine politician’s preference for foreign
investors, partnerships with big business, and us military forces is a disposition that has its
historical roots in the making of the modern Principalia which now comprise the modern
Philippine state. The phenomenon of making profits out of one’s seat in government or what
is known as bureaucrat capitalism is a logical trajectory of governance that was instituted
during colonial rule, and whose substance and bases (economic power based on land, and
later on, entanglement with foreign interests) have yet to be eliminated to make Philippine
politics a practice of genuine democracy.
 7

REFERENCES
A. BOOK
Maria Ella Atienza, Et. Al.Date.Understanding Culture, Society And Politics: Edition, C & E
Publishing Inc.

B. INTERNET SOURCES.
Error! Reference source not found.

Error! Reference source not found.

Error! Reference source not found.

Error! Reference source not found.

Https://Colnect.Com/En/Stamps/Stamp/469657-Juan_Sumulong_1875-1942-
Personalities_Portraits-Philippines

Https://Thephilbiznews.Com/Wp-Content/Uploads/2018/09/Congress.Jpg

Https://I.Grassets.Com/Images/S/Compressed.Photo.Goodreads.Com/Books/1480166440l/2
4851764.Jpg

Https://3.Bp.Blogspot.Com/_Wcsojyrhpem/Tulvvaktr7i/Aaaaaaaacco/Auihawzmguu/S1600/D
aniel%2Bbell.Jpg

Https://Encrypted-Tbn0.Gstatic.Com/Images?Q=Tbn:And9gctavcpbq3o7x2jwodilucf-
Gmtdfo8v2gq5uxumclpmute3es0&S

Https://Encrypted-Tbn0.Gstatic.Com/Images?Q=Tbn:And9gcr8lnoiz1tcu_-
Yjgqh6rzendwdisegk_Ktckzruyzqc8i2rtrx&S