SOC 103 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Capitalism, Capital Accumulation, Corporate Welfare

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 103
• Professor: Lock Rebecca

Document Summary

The state is an organized poliical structure that carries out tasks required by more complex socieies as their populaion and geographic size increase, as welfare and trade expand, and as social inequaliies. The separaion of the private and the public spheres. In agrarian socieies, the owning class was in direct control of the state, which was used to appropriate surplus from the producers. In capitalist socieies, in contrast, the owning class is separated from the state. It is only the beneits of producive acivity that are privaized in capitalist socieies, while the costs are transferred to the public sphere. In the pluralist analysis society consists of variety of groups and associaions with highly diverse and oten conlicing interests. A key funcion of the state, from this perspecive, is mediaion between the many diferent interest groups. The state has a high degree of autonomy, that is the ability to act independently of any single pressure group.