Inequality and the division of labor: the Davis-Moore theory reexamined

1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-256
Author(s):  
Dennis H. Wrong
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
Occupational Selection ◽  
Limited Scope

Social inequality has long been subject to theoretical dispute with moral and political overtones. The most recent debate was over the argument of American sociologists Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore that unequal rewards were ‘functionally’ necessary to maintain a complex division of labour. Their theory has gained new credibility as a market model of occupational selection assuming competition among self-interested individuals. Its abstractness and limited scope need recognition, but it remains a valuable starting point for the consideration of inequality.

Housing Evaluation Methodology in a Situation of Social Poverty to Guarantee Sustainable Cities: The Satisfaction Dimension for the Case of Mexico

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 11199
Author(s):  
Pilar Mercader-Moyano ◽  
Oswaldo Morat-Pérez ◽  
Carmen Muñoz-González
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Evaluation Methodology ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Sustainable Cities ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Emergency Scenarios ◽  
Urban Conditions ◽  
Qualitative Characteristics

Currently, one in eight people live in neighborhoods with social inequality and around one billion people live in precarious conditions. The significance of where and how to live and in what physical, spatial, social, and urban conditions has become very important for millions of families around the world because of mandatory confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, many homes in poor condition do not meet the basic requirements for residential environments in the current framework. Theoretical models for the urban evaluation of this phenomenon are a necessary starting point for urban renewal and sustainability. This study aims to generate a model for evaluating homes in a situation of social inequality (hereinafter Vrs) with indicators on physical, spatial, environmental, and social aspects. The methodology used in this study evaluates housing, taking into consideration habitability factors (physical, spatial, and constructive characteristics), as well as the qualitative characteristics assessing the satisfaction of users with the adaptation and transformation of the housing and its surroundings. The application of 51 indicators distributed in four previous parameters was established for this study. This quantification identifies the deficiencies of the dwellings and sets the guidelines for the establishment of future rehabilitation policies for adapting the dwellings to current and emergency scenarios. The innovation of this study is the construction of a tool for social research surveys designed to include individual indicators from the dwellings’ users, to provide a more dependable representation of the problems found in Vrs. The results of this research identified the deficiencies of precarious housing and could be used for applying effective proposals for improvement of habitability and their surroundings in the future. Furthermore, the results showed that when all the indicators were considered, the level of lag reached would be similar to that of a real housing situation, further confirming the suitability of the methodology applied in this investigation.

Uncertainty, Profit, and the Limits of Markets

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110358
Author(s):  
Roni Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Allocative Efficiency ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Perfect Competition ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Knowledge Uncertainty ◽  
Market Benefits ◽  
Capitalist Democracies ◽  
The Ideal

The neoclassical market model is the overwhelming basis for contemporary views of markets as fair, efficient, or both. But is it an appropriate starting point? The article draws on Frank Knight’s 1920s work on the economics of uncertainty to show that the ideal of perfect competition conceals a tacit trade-off between equality and certainty. Largely undetected, this trade-off continues to govern financialized capitalist democracies, evading normative and political debate. By explaining how markets and firms resolve the problem of uncertainty, Knight shows that all supposed market benefits, even allocative efficiency, are not costless to society. More specifically, Knight argued that modern markets are premised on a tacit agreement between a handful of “daring” entrepreneurs and the “risk-averse” public: the former agree to carry the uncertainties of business-life in return for a substantially larger share of its power and rewards. Despite the highly static assumptions of neoclassicism, therefore, and its linked assumption of perfect knowledge, uncertainty is far from absent in modern economics. It is built into firms and markets and manifests itself as a steep social and material hierarchy.

Durkheim, Émile (1858–1917)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Orru
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
Social Facts ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

Émile Durkheim is generally recognized to be one of the founders of sociology as a distinct scientific discipline. Trained as a philosopher, Durkheim identified the central theme of sociology as the emergence and persistence of morality and social solidarity (along with their pathologies) in modern and traditional human societies. His distinctive approach to sociology was to adopt the positivistic method in identifying and explaining social facts – the facts of the moral life. Sociology was to be, in Durkheim’s own words, a science of ethics. Durkheim’s sociology combined a positivistic methodology of research with an idealistic theory of social solidarity. On the one hand, Durkheim forcefully claimed that the empirical observation and analysis of regularities in the social world must be the starting point of the sociological enterprise; on the other hand, he was equally emphatic in claiming that sociological investigation must deal with the ultimate ends of human action – the moral values and goals that guide human conduct and create the essential conditions for social solidarity. Accordingly, in his scholarly writings on the division of labour, on suicide, on education, and on religion, Durkheim sought to identify through empirical evidence the major sources of social solidarity and of the social pathologies that undermine it.

scholarly journals Exploring the impact of social inequality and poverty on the mental health and wellbeing and attainment of children and young people in Scotland

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Gaynor Mowat
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Impact

The poverty-related attainment gap is an internationally recognised problem. There is growing recognition that it cannot either be understood or addressed without taking cognisance of children’s mental health and wellbeing. The focus of this conceptual article is to examine the impact of social inequality and poverty on the mental health and wellbeing and attainment of children and young people in Scotland through the lens of resilience. While not a ‘state of the art’ literature review, a systematic approach was adopted in the selection of the literature and in the identification of themes to emerge from it. A range of risk and protective factors at the individual, social, societal and political levels emerged as impacting on the mental health and wellbeing and attainment of children living in poverty, and three important mediating variables are the negative impact of social stratification and adverse childhood experiences and the positive impact of a supportive adult. Schools alone cannot solve the problem. The findings revealed that there is a need to build a strong infrastructure around families and schools and to examine how economic, social, health and educational policy interact with each other as a starting point in addressing the problem, supported by inter-disciplinary research.

scholarly journals The diachronic analysis of pastoralism through comparative variables

2001 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 395-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Nixon ◽  
Simon Price
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Specific Model ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Comparative Analyses ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
Heuristic Devices ◽  
Gender Division Of Labour

Diachronic analyses of pastoralism over the millennia pose a problem. Studies of one period can use models based on other periods as heuristic devices, to pose problems and questions for investigation. But survey archaeologists and others engaged in diachronic analysis cannot assume a period-specific model as a starting point. Instead, we propose that investigation begin from a set of seven variables, which constitute the elements for the formulation of comparative analyses: environment, location, scale, specialization, links with agriculture, gender/division of labour, and cultural integration. The first five have been discussed before in the literature, but the last two have not previously been given sufficient attention, because of the old dominance of environmental and economic preoccupations.

The Birth of the Gods

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-376
Author(s):  
Alexandra Maryanski
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Stage Model ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organic Solidarity ◽  
Initial Choice

Emile Durkheim’s ideas on religion have long served as foundational blocks for sociological theories. Yet, a mystery remains over where Durkheim’s insights into religion came from and especially the event that opened his eyes to religion’s importance in social life. Durkheim never supplied details on this conversion, but he did credit Robertson Smith for his new understanding. Did Smith really play the key role in Durkheim’s turn to religion? This essay examines Durkheim’s revelation in 1895 by starting from a novel angle—the first edition of The Division of Labor and his original stage model with the “cult of nature” as the starting point for religion. Tracing the implications of his initial choice of naturism as the elementary religion, a choice he would later soundly reject as “the product of [a] delirious interpretation,” offers new insights into why Durkheim found Smith’s ideas so inspirational. It also sheds light on why Durkheim overhauled his theory of solidarity, discarding his famous distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity. In Robertson Smith’s work, Durkheim discovered a more inclusive and enduring basis of solidarity in the social universe.

scholarly journals Differentiation of Students in the Early Danish Welfare State: Professional Entanglements Between Educational Psychologists and Psychiatrists

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-96
Author(s):  
Christian Ydesen ◽  
Bjørn Hamre ◽  
Karen E. Andreasen
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Iq Testing ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Professional Groups

Historically, numerous contextual factors have influenced the practice of differentiating students. Scholars and practitioners consider it a context-sensitive practice subject to negotiations and entanglements among various agents, groups, interests, ideas, and values. Drawing on Foucault, this article pursues the practices, negotiations, and entanglements surrounding differentiation processes and IQ testing’s use in the early Danish welfare state. We argue that the differentiating practice of IQ testing in the Danish educational system resulted from various factors, including the increasing professionalisation of the educational system. This practice entailed an increased division of labour among professional groups; debates reflecting differing ideas about eugenics, heredity, and social equality; the schooling of psychologists and psychiatrists in Denmark; and the development of psychology and psychiatry as academic disciplines. In that sense, we will demonstrate that changes in society’s understanding of intelligence incorporating a greater use of environmental explanations can be said to reflect the emerging welfare society’s security mechanisms, and a willingness to cope with and address social inequality in an evolving and supposedly universalistic Danish welfare state.

scholarly journals The Enlightenment in Practice: Swedish Travellers and Knowledge about the Metal Trades

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Göran Rydén
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Tree Of Knowledge ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Mechanical Arts

Ever since the publication of the Encyclop&eacute;die, in the decades after mid-eighteenth century, there has been an on-going debate about the implications of the metaphor of enlightenment, mainly based on themes discussed in Diderot&rsquo;s and d&rsquo;Alembert&rsquo;s work. Sadly, however, one major field has been left outside; scholars have dealt with two branches of the tree of knowledge, science and the liberal arts, but ignored the branch of mechanical arts. This article takes a starting-point in the reintroduction of political economy, with division of labour, and technology into an assessment of the Enlightenment. It has the ambition of discussing the process whereby progress became a central feature of eighteenth-century thinking, as well as relating this to a discussion about travelling to other places. It deals with Swedish travellers going to Britain, and central Europe, to view differently organised trades with elaborate division of labour, more skilled artisans, fitted<br />into a commercial economy.

scholarly journals President and Assemblies—25 Years After Shugart and Carey’s Book: Introduction to Special Issue

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-11
Author(s):  
Anna Fruhstorfer ◽  
Gianluca Passarelli
Keyword(s):  
Regime Change ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
Balancing Efficiency

Why are some institutions capable of enhancing democracy, while others struggle under pressure? Shugart and Carey wrote their seminal book Presidents and Assemblies at a crucial time in modern history in an effort to answer these fundamental questions. Because of bold claims and huge theoretical and conceptual contributions, their timely publication became the starting point for a new way to think about institutional specifications and types of political systems. And although their examples are by now dated, the idea of “trade-off” or “balancing efficiency and representativeness” still speaks to the fundamental questions of regime change and democratic sustainability. While their study made clear that there are distinctions between system types, they also argued that not a specific type is more conducive or damaging to democracy; rather specific institutional configurations lead to a vulnerability of a political regime. Twenty-five years after the first publication of Presidents and Assemblies, this special issue uses this argument and reconnects Shugart and Carey’s book with the recent debate on individual attributes of legislative–executive relations and their effect on democracy. This article serves as an introduction and highlights the rationale and the major themes that run through the contributions to the special issue.

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