SOC-4040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Elective Affinities, Verstehen, Social Inequality

• School: Clemson University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC-4040
• Professor: Wentworth

Document Summary

For weber: society is a typical, persisting, unintended, unequally distributed array of resources held together by (cid:862)elective affinity(cid:863) combined with a shifting balance between legitimacy and force. Thus, weber characterized society as complex and stratified (cid:894)(cid:862)la(cid:455)e(cid:396)ed(cid:863) sets of resources), and as a social order that requires administration: We(cid:271)er (cid:272)hara(cid:272)terized the state as a (cid:862) hu(cid:373)a(cid:374) (cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:373)u(cid:374)it(cid:455) that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given territory. (cid:863) The legitimacy of the state lies in its ability to create a polity (a community (cid:894)(cid:449)ith a se(cid:374)se of (cid:862)(cid:449)e-(cid:374)ess(cid:863) a(cid:374)d a (cid:272)ohe(cid:396)e(cid:374)t (cid:862)idea of itself(cid:863) --- Durkheim) under a state by persuasion, appeals to duty or self-interest (the promise of rewards) and patriotism. Thus, legitimacy is given to the state (and to society) by its members. For those who are not persuaded the state may actually use violence. Fo(cid:396) be(cid:396)ge(cid:396) a(cid:374)d lu(cid:272)k(cid:373)a(cid:374)(cid:374) a(cid:374)d fo(cid:396) du(cid:396)khei(cid:373) (cid:862)legiti(cid:373)a(cid:272)(cid:455)(cid:863) (cid:272)o(cid:373)es a(cid:271)out as a result of interaction.