Power, Authority, and the State

Power determines which individuals and groups will be able to translate their preferences into the reality of day-to-day social organization.

• The State The state rests on force and consists of people who exercise an effective monopoly in the use of physical coercion within a given territory.



• Sociological Perspectives on theState Functionalists say the state performs four functions: enforcement of norms, overall social planning and direction, arbitration of conflicting interests, and protection of a society’s members and interests against outside groups. Conflict theorists say the state is a vehicle by which one or more groups impose their values and stratification system upon other groups and depict it as an instrument of violence and oppression.



• Legitimacy and Authority Sociologists distinguish between power that is legitimate and power that is illegitimate. Legitimate power is authority. Sociologist Max Weber suggested that power may be legitimated by traditional, legal-rational, and/or charismatic means.




Political Power

Politics refers to the processes by which people and groups acquire and exercise power. Political power is power that is organized and wielded by the state.

• Types of Government Government can take the form of totalitarianism,authoritarianism, or democracy, which is promoted by a strong civil society.



• Political Power in the UnitedStates A constitutional system of government defines and prescribes the boundaries within which political power is pursued in the United States. Central to American political processes are politicalparties, popular electoral participation, interest-group lobbying (including politicalaction committees), and the mass media.



• Models of Power in the UnitedStates Marxist theory holds that political processes are affected by class interests and conflict. The elitist model depicts major decisions as being made by a power elite. The pluralist perspective says that no one group really runs the government.




Economic Power

Modern economic systems provide a different answer to the question of how economic activity is organized—by the market or by the plan—and to the question of who owns the means of production—individuals or the state.

• Comparative EconomicSystems Capitalist economies rely heavily on free markets and privately held property, and socialist economies rely primarily on state planning and publicly held property. Most nations are characterized by mixed economies that include elements of both.



• Transition from a Command to aMarket Economy Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China are undergoing a transition from a command to a market economy, with marketization and privatization proceeding slowly and resulting in a high level of social uncertainty.




The Power of Corporations

The government is an important participant in the U.S. economy, but the primary productive role is played by private business.

• The Power of NationalCorporations Large corporations exercise enormous power in American life and constitute oligopolies. The decisions made by their executives have implications and ramifications that reach throughout the nation.



• The Power of MultinationalCorporations in the GlobalEconomy The rise of multinationalcorporations and the growing internationalization of the world economy, including core regions and periphery regions, have given economic power a new dimension. Such firms rival nations in wealth and frequently operate as private governments pursuing their worldwide interests by welldeveloped foreign policies.



• The Control of Corporations Some social scientists say that a managerial revolution has separated ownership and effective control in corporate life, but others point to the institutional constraints, such as corporate interlocks, that operate on corporate decision makers.




The Sociology of Work

Power extends into the workplace, determining whether work will be available, how work will be organized, and the manner in which work will be remunerated.

• Changes in the Work Experience The work experience of Americans has undergone significant change over the past 160 years; the proportion working on farms has declined, while the proportion employed in service industries has risen. Work in nonindustrialized societies is very different from work in industrialized societies.



• The Significance of Work People work for many reasons in addition to “self-interest,” and work has many social meanings, especially those that define a person’s position in the social structure.



• Satisfaction and Alienationin Work Individuals in occupations that combine high economic, occupational, and educational prestige typically show the greatest satisfaction with their work and the strongest job attachment. When individuals fail to find their work satisfying and fulfilling, they may experience alienation. Marx and Durkheim had differing conceptions of alienation.