Economy / capitalism

Capitalism

1) history

To find the origins of modern markets we have to go back to the Roman Empire and the Islamic Golden Age and Muslim Agricultural Revolution. In there the earliest form of capitalism began in between 8th-12th centuries. Many Muslim mechants lead innovative trades.
In 16th-18th century the mercantilism took lead, geographic discovery and overseas trade grew rapidly. Empires bulit colonies and merchants used colonies as there markets and source of surplus. In this time system of trade for profit was made. The commercial stage began with British and Dutch East India Company. Through Industrial Revolution, industrial capitalism was on the rise. Division of work and routinization of individuals position made much more profits.
In late 19th century, oligopolistic firms earning enormous profits took a lead in economy. Large industrial monopolies were made. In last quarter of the 19th century, people raised hare about tyrannys of specific oligopolistic firms. They want trust and ethics in trade, and those needs provoked legislation of commerce.

2) how capitalism works.

Individuals engage in economy as sonsumers, labours, or investors.
Business firms seeking profits as much as they can get, they decide what and where they will produce. By profit motive, they produce what consumers want.
Capitalism is compeletely competetive structure. Each labours' income is determined by individuals' ability. If you have high-degree skill, you will get high income, but if you don't, you will get lower wages. Following this competetive structure, unemployment is neccessary factor of capitalism to influence labours to work hard and make more profits.
In capitalism, goverment has important role, too. goverment allows private property and also labours have freedom to choose where they want to work. And government issues money, provides public utilities, make laws to protect labours and prevent excessive competetion between firms.

My opinion

I grew up in capitalism, and I got used to it. When I was young, I learned that capitalism gives motivation to people to work hard, and that makes the country strong. But in socialism, because whther individuals work hard or not they all get same income, nobody wants to work and evetually that makes the country poor. So, I naturally thought capitalism is good and socialism is bad.
But as I grow up and studying capitalism and socialism deeper, now I learned that capitalism also has lot of problems that makes people sacarstic, selfish and makes society many unfair.
I think when we think of most of social issues, we should not determine what is right or what is wrong, and there is no absolute answer. To make better world we have to consider each opinions deeply, and try to think thoroughly. And that's the reason that we study sociology.

Quesiton

Is there any other theories that put together capitalism and socialism? Or any other scholars who tried to supplement the problems of each theories?

What is culture?

1. summary

-introduction

Each person has their own biological characters(nature), but what determines people who they are is nurture, which is made by culture. Culture includes objects, symbols, behavior, norms, values, beliefs, and it is changeable.

-The change of meaning of culture

At first, stance that a person who is civilized is who is cultured showed a preponderence. This view is influenced by imperialism which dominated then powerful nations. At that time, people who enjoy so-called 'high' culture (e.g. classical music) and who engage in those cultural works were thought to be cultured.
After then, the meaning of 'cultured' was changed. It didn't indicate people who are civilized anymore, every society has their own culture, so every human being is cultured. Culture is not what should be ranked.
So now, culture is thought to be what is learned by what the peopled are surrounded. Culture is not what formed by blood, it is formed by study. Culture is not built biologically but is what people acquire.

-Several terms that we have know

1. -subcultures : It is a term that refers some cultures that are subordinated to total culture. It is formed by small groups which are part of big society.

   -countercultures : They are one of subcultures which takes antisocial charater.

2. -ethnocentrism : It is the view of people who thinks their own culture is the best.

    -cultural relativism : People who believe cultural relativism thinks no one can determine what is superior and what is inferior between cultures. And in this view, people should understand other cultures with other cultures' view.

-Cultural change

It is a diagram of Griswold's theory about cultural chagne. It is kind of circular. They influence each other, and culture changes continuously.

2. What I learned

I thought cultural relativism is a view that simply thinks there are no superiority between cultures. But I learned that it also believes that the concepts and values of a culture can not be fully understood in other languages, they should be understood through the culture's own words. And the following example of the article which talks about Spanish word 'tranquil' was very interesting.

3. Questions

I want to know more about Griswold. His name was mentioned in the article pretty much times, I think. I guess he was very important scholar who studied culture in sociological way, so I want to learn what exactly his achievements are.

Introduction to Sociology/Sociological Methods

1)Summary

This chapter introduces the way of studying social life used by sociologists.
In ancient philosophy, there were no differences between fields of study. They basically
used same methods to make a study, so many ancient scholars crossed the fields.
(such as Aristotle)
Since Thomas Hobbes and Isaac Newton, expressing philosophical ideals and studying human behavior by mathematical methods became a law. This is the orgin of what is being called 'social science'. To sum up, the point of this chapter is that sociologists use scientific methods.

To talk about sociological methods in more detail, first, research of sociologists is started with characterization. In this step, sociologists identify concepts which are what sociologists wants to study. Characterization should be clear and specific. Then, they make hypothesis and prediction. In the hypothesis, there are dependent variable and independent variable, which have clear relationship. Next, they construct experiments to test the hypothesis whether it is true of not, and conduct the experiment. After that, they evaluate their research, and if the result of the experiment is confirm, they state new theory, but whenever they find errors they go back to former process and do it again and again.

The third part of this chapter talks about attitudes of researchers which are sociologists must have. And it also distinguishes confusing concepts such as correlation vs causation and objective vs critical.

2) My opinion

When I was in high school, I attended the class called 'social and culture'. So I studied such things like quantitative and qualitative methods, process of scientific methods etc..
But in university, to study about those things deeper is much more difficult but also very interesting.


3) Questions

What are other attitudes that sociologists must have to study social life?
And what do you think the most important attitude that sociologists never forget in any circumstances?