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SHS DEPARTMENT
(S.Y. 2021-2022)

Learning Module
In
UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY, CULTURE AND
POLITICS

Prepared By:

Ms. Leslie F. Fabellon

Checked and Approved by:

Angelika Tibayan Jojie R. De Ramos

Instructional Development Committee

Noted By:
Vina N. Mendoza
Directress for Academic Affairs

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UNIT I. THE SOCIETY IN THE INDIVIDUAL

(WEEK 5) LESSON 5: Economy, Society and Cultural Change

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:

1. Analyze economic organization and its impact on the lives of people in the society;

2. Examine stratification from the functionalists and conflict perspectives;

3. Identify characteristics of the systems of stratification;

4. Discuss the process of economic globalization and its consequences;

5. Suggests ways to address global inequalities

6. Describe how human societies adapt to new challenges in the physical, social and cultural
environment and;

7. Identify the social goals and the socially acceptable means of achieving these goals.

The Economy as Foundation of Social Life

The distribution of wealth in society will always be dependent on the economic structure of the
society. One of the major impacts of economy therefore, on society is on defining the status and class
of individuals within society.

According to Karl Marx and Engels “The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggle” For Marx, Class refers to relations among people who share the same
class interests in relation to the means of production.

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Bourgeoisie or the capitalists this are the people who own monopolize the means of
production in the classic Marxist analysis under capitalism. Proletariat (from French proletariat, from
Latin proletarius) This people are those who own nothing expect to sell their labor power in the
market. Classes are real or objective entities that shape the way people think about themselves and
how they relate with others in the real world.

Marx, however, argued that workers do not necessarily have consciousness over their class
interests. But they can possess this class consciousness through collective struggle. When they
become aware of their oppression, they organize themselves into unions.

There are 3 three types of class according to Marx:

1. The Bourgeoisie- which the Communist Manifesto referred to as “owners of the means of
social production and employers of wage labor.
2. The Proletariat or the Working Class- which are said to be “the class of modern wage-
laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor-
power in order to live.
3. Land Owners- they are the one who exploit the labor of the ploretariat

Finally, Marx also included the dangerous class otherwise known as the Lumpenproletariat which
is said to be composed of the “social scum” that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layer
of old society.

System of Stratification as Source of Inequalities

Some sociologists however, extend the definition of class to include not only access to 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.

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Stratification

regularly recognizes social differences become ranked in some hierarchical manner, sociologists
talk about strata

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

2. This component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods
and opportunities for income
3. It represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor market.

He was closed to Marx’s view because he believed that ownership of property is crucial to the
definition of class. But Weber’s sociology distinguished status from class as the two principle bases
of social stratification.

Class

-referred to social differences based on economic decisions and inequalities

Status

-designated the differentiation of groups in the communal sphere in terms of their social honor
and social standing.

For Weber and his followers, status group are differentiated less on the basis of wealth but by
the kind of shared lifestyle they have. It is well-known that Weber saw class as only one aspect of the
distribution of power

Caste System

Caste System- a system of social stratification differs from class in its rigidity and in the basis
of legitimation. It is also called a closed system in contrast with the class system that is relatively
open.

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Membership of castes is ascribed rather than achieved, and social contact between castes is
heavily constrained and ritualized. Unlike in the caste system the positions of people are already
determined at the moment they were born.

In his famous essay on “The Future Results of British Rule in India”, Karl Marx characterized
the Indian castes as “the most decisive impediment to Indians progress and power. Karl Marx
correctly argued that the caste system of India was based on the hereditary division of labor, which as
inseparably linked with the unchanging technological base and subsistence economy of the Indian
village community

Over one-sixth of Indians

population, some 170 million
people, live a precarious
existence, shunned by much of
Indian society because of their
rank as “untouchables” or
Dalits at the bottom of the
castes system.

Class System

Under the class system, individuals are positioned according to their access to the means of
production and contribution to productive labor. To talk about the class system it is the way in which
individuals from a definite family background can advance to a relatively better economic position
than their parents. In most class system, education has become the accepted means to advance
one’s social mobility.

Among Filipino families, education is considered as the “ticket to success” Hence many
Filipinos will sacrifice anything for their children to finish college degree.
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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 relative-ly higher class.

When people are allowed and are capable of moving from one stratum or class to another
class, it is called social mobility. According to Bruce and Yearly (2006) Social Mobility
“signifies the movement of people between positions in a system of social stratification. In modern
societies this means the movement of people between social classes is defined by occupational
scales.

Status and Class

According to Max Weber, status groups normally are communities. Status groups refers to
life chances that are determined by social honor or prestige. People who belong to status groups
usually from exclusive communities with clear boundaries. They distinguished themselves from the
“outsider” by the use of the term “us” vs. “them”

In contemporary sociology, it is Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), a French sociologists, 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, social and symbolic capital.

 Cultural Capital
-refers to the forms of knowledge, educational credentials and artistic taste that as person
acquires from family background, which give them higher status in society.

 Social Capital
-refers to a resource based on group membership, relationships and networks of influence and
support. Bourdieu described social capital as “the 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”.

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 Symbolic Capital
-refers to the acquisition of a reputation for competence and the image of respectability and
honorability.

These forms of capital constitute the resources of a person’s habitus- it is refers to the
personal psychological dispositions of a person that are shaped by these forms of capital and family
background, while also modifying them in the light of engagement with the social world.

Economy and Globalization

Globalization Through Free Trade Agreement

Anthony Giddens, a British Sociologists, explains the multiplication of risks in a new globalized
economy. “In the new global electronic economy, fund managers, banks, corporations, as well as
millions of individual investors, can transfer vast amounts of capital from one side of the world to
another at the click of a mouse.” Giddens is, of course referring to global financial crisis. Financial
crisis has become global because world economies are integrated.

From an economic point of view, Globalization may be seen as “the process of progressive
growth of economic activities which transcends any kind of geographical border.”

The original and continuing fundamental goal of economic internalization is free trade. The
dream of economists after World War II was a system of multilateral trade through the International
Trade Organization (ITO) to reverse the protectionism of the Great Depression. Today, this dream
has come true in the major agreements organization such as:

 European Union (EU)

 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
 Association of Southeast Asian Notion (ASEAN)
 Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR)

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Economic globalization today is facilitated by the interlocking of nation states through market
agreements by supra-national organizations such as;

 International Monetary Fund (IMF)

 World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO)

The WTO, in particular, is an organization that supervises and liberalizes international trade. It is
one of the pillars of economic globalization. The organization officially commenced on 1 January 1995
under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
which commenced in 1948. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international
organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements,
negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments

The WTO is supposed to promote free and fair trade. Yet, it must also be pointed out that the
agreement establishing the WTO commits its member states to a variety of noble objectives:

1. Improved standards of living, full employment, expanded production of and trade in

goods and services, sustainable development, and an enhanced share of developing
countries in world trade
2. By entering into reciprocal and mutually advantageous arrangements directed to the
substantial reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade and to eliminate of
discriminatory treatment in international trade relation

World Capitalists System, Neoliberalism and Inequality

Economic Globalization through world trade implies a division of labor between societies. From
world system analysis, popularized by Immanuel Wallerstein, the core or the

Advanced industrial countries- do capital-intensive, high value adding production while

Peripheral societies or less developed countries do labor-intensive, low value adding production.

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Many critics of globalization argue that the persistent inequality that the world confronts is largely
a product of neoliberalism and the policies implemented under it.

Neoliberalism- is a plural set of ideas rather than a singular body of economic theory.

As a theory, neoliberalism has its own origin in the economic theory that emerged from the Mount
Pelerin Society, the name of a small village close to Lake Geneva, under the leadership of the Swiss
businessman Albert Hunold and Friedrich August von Hayek.

Neoliberalism was an attempt to challenge the growing power and influence of the state over the
market. The Market is a place where private individuals transact business freely.

Today with the globalization under full swing, scientist are divided between those who argue that
globalization promotes economic growth and those who argue that globalization is increasing
the gap between the rich people and poor people in developed and developing nations. Those
scholars who criticize neoliberalism make a distinction between globalization as a universal process
of shrinking the globe into small village, and globalism as an ideological version of neoliberal
globalization. Some neo-classical economists even think that inequality is good.

According to Austro-Hungarian economists Friedrich von Hayek, one of the founders of

neoliberalism, made it clear that he advocated inequality unreservedly: “Inequality is not regrettable,
but highly pleasing.

According to Joseph Stiglitz, however, a former employee of the World Bank and Noble Laureate,
in his recent book The Chances of Globalism in contrast to the euphoric promises of the theoreticians
of globalization through free trade, the respective deregulation and opening of markets have not led
to prosperity for all.

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Economic Globalization and the Environment

-Classical theories of development equated development society with economic growth or the rise
in Gross National Product (GNP). But as Mark Hanson (2008) rightly points out, “In this age of
globalization, a distinction between growth and development must be made. Growth signifies more of
something while Development signifies betterment of something.

 For example for Growth it is quite possible to have growth through more school, books and
teachers but still have the same old bad education. Or better factories, machines, and jobs, but
still generate no improvement in the quality of life.
 For example for Development signifies qualitatively better schools, books and teachers; or
better factories, machines, air quality and jobs that collectively improve the caliber of life”.

The productivist paradigm, or the belief in endless growth, simply advocated for
continuous growth and rejected any notion of limits to the environment and resources. If ever there
were problem with the environment, they were treated merely as technical problem that can be solved
through technological advancement or “technological fix”.

Herman Daly, (2004), a proponent of ecological economics, while acknowledging the

peril of growth on the economy, also suggests redistribution of wealth. He argues, “Finally, we know
that the economic system cannot grow forever on a finite planet. We must limit growth to ensure the
well-being of the future. But one cannot ethically tell poor people they must continue to suffer
deprivation to ensure that the future does not suffer. If the pie must cease to grow, then we are
ethically obliged to redistribute it”.

An important factor in understanding the necessary linkage between the rich and poor
countries in relation to global environment problems is the fact that most of the necessary materials
and resources for industrialization of the West at the turn of the 20 th century came at the expense of
other countries.

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Moreover, the global nature of environmental degradation van largely be linked to rise of the
fossil fuel economy and to the decreasing parts of the globe.

These phenomena are intrinsically linked to the rise of modern capitalism. Also, the extension
of consumption and the increased demand of the leading to more efficient production methods and
the advances in technology and scientific knowledge contribute to strain on the environment,
Consumerism worldwide led to the vast extension of trade and consumption of resources especially
by rich countries.

Economic Globalization and Managing Risk in Everyday

The globalization of economy through trade and new technologies provided the people of our
planet immense benefits and new exiting possibilities. Yet the conseqiences o economic globalization
seems to be a “runaway world” Today, people around the world are confronted with the Giddens calls
as manufactured risks- which are man*made risks, having arisen as a result of new
technologies developed through advances is scientific knowledge.

As a result of advancement in scientific knowledge and the rise of a reflexive society- a

society where people constantly monitor their lifestyle, peple are more conscious of the impact of
globalization on their economic life. As Giddens argues, “Globalization isn’t only about what is “out
there”, remote and far away from the individual. It is an “in here” phenomenon too, influencing
intimate and personal aspect of our lives”.

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Anthony Giddens, coined the term “Giddens Paradox” to explain the phenomenon: “since
the dangers posed by global warming aren’t tangible, immediate or visible in the course of day-to-day
life, however awesome they appear, may will seat on their hands and do nothing of an concrete
nature about them”. Faced with the paradox, Giddens suggests that the states will have an important
role to play in addressing climate change: “The state will be an all-important actor, since so many
powers remain in its hands, weather ones talks of domestic or of international policy.

There is no way of forcing states to sign up to international agreements and even if they
choose to do so, implementing whatever is agreed will largely be the responsibility of each individual
state”.

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Summary

The economic structure is the pillar of social reproduction. Social relations that arise
from economic production largely shape the new people behave and think.
Consequently, access to resources determines an individual position within a
stratified society. In turn, stratification can be based on the class, status and power.
This stratification system leads to inequalities. Toda, with the growth of globalization
through free trade agreements and the spread of transitional corporations, scholars
argue whatever globalizations promotes inclusive growth or exacerbates the existing
inequalities worldwide. Economic globalization is forcing people to be aware of the
social risks that accompany globalization such as environmental problems and
climate change.

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UNIT I. THE SOCIETY IN THE INDIVIDUAL (WEEK 5)

LESSON 5: Economy, Society and Cultural Change (Activity 6)

(Activity 5)

Name: ___________________________ (ActivityWeek:

3) ____________ Date: ______________

Grade/Section: _____________________ Score

DIRECTION: Using a Compare and Contrast Triangle Diagram, Compare and Contrast the
Bourgeoisie, The Proletariat or the working class and the landowners from each other.

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UNIT I. THE SOCIETY IN THE INDIVIDUAL (WEEK 5)

LESSON 5: Economy, Society and Cultural Change (Activity 7)

(Activity 5)
DIRECTION: Answer the following questions. (Use the back of this paper if needed)
(Activity 3)
1. How does one’s economic status shape and influence one’s identity? Explain your answer

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2. What are the economic causes of inequalities?

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