An Overview of Families and Households Topic Two – Marriage, Divorce and Cohabitation, covering key sub-topics, key concepts and some exam style questions (short answer and essay questions).
You need to be able to identify key trends in marriage, divorce and cohabitation and outline the social factors which explain why the trends are happening (ideally using sociological perspectives), and analyse the importance of each factor. You also need to be able to outline different perspectives views on the consequences of the changing patterns of each of the above.
Sub topics
2.1: Explaining the trends in marriage
2.2: Explaining the trends in divorce
2.3: Perspectives on the consequences of declining marriage and increasing divorce
2.4: Examining how marriage, divorce and cohabitation vary by social class, ethnicity, sexuality and across generations
Key concepts, research studies and case studies you should be able to apply
Civil Partnerships
Divorce
Legal separation
Empty shell marriage
Secularisation
Cohabitation
The pure relationship (Anthony Giddens)
The negotiated family (Ulrich Beck)
Consumer culture
Postmodernisation
Gender roles (changing)
Genderquake
Individualisation
Monogamy
Serial Monogamy
Possible exam style short answer questions
Outline three reasons for the overall rise in the divorce rate since 1969 (6)
Using one example briefly explain one reason for the recent decrease in divorce rates (4)
Outline three social changes which explain why there has been a decline in the marriage rate (6)
Outline and explain two consequences of an increasing divorce rate (10) hint – use the perspectives.
Define the following terms – the matrifocal family, polygamy, polygyny and polyandry (4*2 marks for each term).
Possible Essay Questions – You should plan these!
Assess sociological explanations for the changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation over the last 40 years or so (20)
Assess sociological explanations for changes in the divorce rate since 1969 (20)
Assess different perspectives on declining marriage, increasing divorce and increasing co-habitation (20)
This is the first of seven* broad topics within the sociology of the family for A-level sociology (*as defined by most A-level text books!)
Perspectives on the family: a summary
Below is a brief summary of the seven main perspectives, click the links for further details!
Functionalism – focus on the positive functions of the nuclear family, includes Murdock’s theory that the nuclear family is universal and Parsons’ Functional Fit Theory.
Marxism – Engel’s theory that the nuclear family emerged with capitalism and private property so the bourgeois could pass their wealth down to their children; and the modern idea that the family is a unit of consumption.
Feminisms – Liberal Feminists believe there is nothing inherently wrong with the nuclear family, Marxist-Feminists believe the subordination of women within the family is essential to keeping capitalism going; radical feminists argue the nuclear family is the main source of oppression for women through such things as domestic violence.
The New Right – believe the nuclear family is the ideal type of family
Postmodernism – there is no longer a normal type of family but rather family diversity because people have more freedom and choice in postmodern society.
Late Modernism – family diversity and breakdowns are more common, but people don’t choose this, it is because of increasing uncertainty and fragmentation in society.
The Personal Life Perspective – there is no universal definition of the family. What counts as a family varies from individual to individual.
Being able to critically apply different perspectives is the most important skill you can demonstrate in Sociology. You can also apply the perspectives to many of the other topics within the family, most obviously Marriage and Divorce and Social Policies.
Key concepts, research studies and case studies
Please click here for a post containing brief definitions of many of these key terms.
The Nuclear family
Stable Satisfaction of the sex drive
Primary Socialisation
Dual Burden
Stabilisation of adult personalities
Primitive communism
ideological functions
family as a unit of consumption
Socialisation
Parson’s functional fit theory
Traditional society
Extended family
Triple Shift
Negotiated Family
The Underclass
Moral Decline
The Pure Relationship
Risk Society
Consumer culture
Globalisation
Negotiated family
Individualisation
‘The normal chaos of love’
Possible exam style short answer questions
Please click here for my hub-post on exam advice with links to some of the questions below.
Outline and briefly explain two positive functions that the nuclear family might perform (10)
Using one example, explain what is meant by the term ‘the stabilisation of adult personalities’ (4)
Using one example explain how the nuclear family’ fits’ industrial society? (4)
Outline and briefly explain two criticisms of the ‘The Functionalist Perspective’ on the family (10)
Outline three ways in which the family might perform ideological functions (6)
Using one example, explain what is meant the phrase ‘the family is a unit of consumption’ (4)
Define the term Patriarchy (2)
Outline and briefly explain the difference between the Liberal and Radical Feminist views of the family (10)
Using one example explain postmodern society has influenced family life in recent years (4)
Possible Essay Questions
Assess the Contribution of Functionalism to our Understanding of Family Life (20)
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the contribution of feminist sociologists to an understanding of family roles and relationships
Evaluate the New Right Perspective on the family (20)
Evaluate the postmodernist view of the family and relationships (20)
Assess the view that the main aim of the nuclear family is to meet the needs of Capitalism (20)
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that, in today’s society, the family is losing its functions (20)
The final question is emboldened because it is more likely you’ll get a question like this rather than a straightforward ‘assess this perspective’ type question.
This post summaries some of the changing trends (and continuities) in family and household structure in the UK, using data from the Office for National Statistics which collects a range of data annually on families and households in the UK.
There were 19.4 million families in the UK in 2022.
The most common family type in the UK 2022 was the married couple family, making up 65% of all families (down from 67% in 2012).
Cohabiting couple families made up 19% of all families, up from 16% in 2012.
There were 2.9 million lone parent families in 2022, representing 15% of all families.
43% of families had no children living with them and 42% of families had at least one dependent child.
Only 15% of families had only non-dependent children living with them.
Households in the UK in 2022…
The breakdown of family and non-family households in the UK in 2022 was as follows…
There were 28.2 million households in the UK in 2022, an increase of 1.6 million since 2012.
18.8 million (57%) of households were one family households, either with or without children living in them. Approximately half of these had children living in, the other half were ’empty nest’ households.
(10% of households were lone parent family households (84% of which were lone-mother households. NB this 10% is included in the 57% in the first bullet point above!).
8.5 million households (30%) were single person households, up from 29% in 2012 and representing 13% of the population in 2022.
3% of households were occupied by unrelated adults living together
1% of households were multi family, which includes multigenerational.
The average household had 2.36 people living in it in 2022, similar to 2012.
Changes to families and households 2012-2022
I’ve used the 2022 statistics where I can to summarise trends, but in some cases below I’ve had to go back to the 2018 analysis because that’s the last time the ONS focussed on changes over time using the particular graphics I wanted. NB the trend between 2018 and 2022 probably hasn’t changed anyway, so no worries!
(With any luck I’ll have the visualisation skills to update this with the 2022 data soon enough anyway!)
Changes to Family Households
There has been a continued decrease in married couple families, from 67% of families in 2012 to 65.2% of families in 2022.
Opposite-sex cohabiting families have seen the most signficant growth, up from 15.4% to almost 19% of all families today.
The number of lone parent families has decreased slightly in the last ten years to 15% of all families in 2022.
Same-sex cohabiting and same-sex civil partner families have both increased and together make up 1.2% of all families in 2022, up from 0.8% of all families in 2012
This means same-sex families have had the fastest growth rate over the past decade but from a very small base.
Marriage and Cohabitation Trends
The chart below clearly shows the long term increase in cohabitating families between 1996 to 2018, and when combined with stats above, from 1996 to 2022.
In 1996 there were only 2 million cohabiting families, in 2022 there were 3.7 million.
The number of married families remained stable between 1996 and 2018, but have declined quite sharply in the last four years to 2022.
Family Size in the UK
The one child family is the most common type of family in the UK in 2022.
44% of families are one child, around 3.6 million families
41% are two children families, around 3.4 million families
15% are three children families, around 1.2 million families.
Family size appears to have remained pretty stable over the past 15 years (1)
Households Size in the UK
The average household size in the UK is 2.4, but the infographic below taken from the 2021 UK Census (2) shows how this breaks down more specifically. The dots are local authority areas, so the national average is in the middle of each cluster.
30% of households have one person in
35% have two people in
17% have three people in
14% have three people in
5% have five people in.
The above are estimates based on looking at what’s below!
Multi Family Households
There were approximately 280 000 multi family households in the UK in 2022, which is down from the peak of just over 300 000 in 2014, but a significant long term increase since 1996 when there were only 180 000 such households…
Increase in People Living Alone
There has been a slow and steady increase in the overall numbers of people living alone, but this varies a lot by age – generally the number of older people living alone has increased, the number of younger people living alone has decreased.
Signposting and related posts.
This is a key topic in the families and households module, usually taught in the first year of A-level sociology.
Stratification is one of the core themes within A level Sociology and Sociology more generally. One of the major sources of stratification is found in differences between wealth and income within the UK. According to various sources of statistics (of course you should always question where these come from!) the UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, and this is something I like to bang on about a lot. Below are a few handy infographics which illustrate the extent of wealth and income inequality in the UK.
This first infographic from the excellent Equality Trust (authors of The Spirit Level) provides a nice general overview. The headline figure is quite easy to remember – the top o.1% earn about 100 times more than the bottom 90%, and the ratio is roughly the same for the earnings of a CEO of a FTSE 100 company compared to the average UK income.
2. This infographic from Income Inequality Briefing reminds us that the wages of the richest have increased, while the relative wages of the poorest have decreased in real terms.
3. This third infographic, again from the Inequality Briefing, looks at things regionally – Basically I think it tells us that the wealthiest region (London) is twice as wealthy in terms of wages as the poorest (up north somewhere or Welsh valleys). It also reminds us that the UK is one of the most unequal countries in Europe. Basically the average income in London is double the average income in the West Midlands.
4. This final infographic from the Office for National Statistics at least reminds us that taxation and benefits do help to reduce income inequality to an extent. Before tax and benefits the richest 20% of households are 14 times richer than the poorest, but after tax and benefits, the ratio reduces 4. NB1 – If you were comparing the richest 10% with the poorest 10% the difference would be larger. NB2 remember that most people who receive benefit are actually in work, and benefits (e.g. housing benefit) tops up their low wages.
Strain Theory argues that crime occurs when there aren’t enough legitimate opportunities for people to achieve the normal success goals of a society. In such a situation there is a ‘strain’ between the goals and the means to achieve those goals, and some people turn to crime in order to achieve success.
Strain Theory was first developed by Robert Merton in the 1940s to explain the rising crime rates in the USA. Strain theory has become popular with Contemporary sociologists.
Robert Merton
Strain Theory: The Basics
Merton argued that the cultural system of the USA was built on the ‘American Dream’. This was a set of meritocratic principles which assured the American public that equality of opportunity was available to all, regardless of class, gender or ethnicity.
The ‘American Dream’ encouraged individuals to pursue a goal of success which was largely measured in terms of the acquisition of wealth and material possessions. People were expected to pursue this goal through legitimate means such as education and work. The dominant cultural message was if you are ambitious, talented and work hard, then income and wealth should be your rewards.
However Merton pointed out that these goals were not attainable by all. The structural organisation of the USA meant that the means to get on were not fairly distributed. It was difficult, if not impossible for some to compete an achieve financial success.
Merton developed the concept of ‘anomie’ to describe this imbalance between cultural goals and institutionalised means. He argued that such an imbalanced society produces anomie – there is a strain or tension between the goals and means which produce unsatisfied aspirations.
Crime: A consequence of Anomie
Anomie was a socially fostered state of discontent and deregulation that generated crime and deviance. American society promised so much to everyone but denied many people equal access to achievement.
People might have been motivated to succeed, but they confronted class, race and other social barriers which contradicted the myth of openness. For example, it was not easy for a poor, inner-city teenager to gain qualifications or get a job.
In American society at the time failure was interpreted as a sign of personal rather than structural weakness. Failure tended to lead to individual guilt rather than collective or political anger.
The pressure to succeed could be so powerful that impelled disadvantaged people to bypass legitimate careers and adopt illegitimate careers.
As Merton puts it:
‘The culture makes incompatible demands… In this setting, a cardinal American virtue – “ambition” – promotes a cardinal American vice – “deviant behaviour”
Merton (1957) Social Theory and Social Structure.
Five Adaptations to Strain
Merton argued that when individuals are faced with a gap between their goals and their current status, strain occurs. When faced with strain, people have five ways to adapt:
Conformity: pursing cultural goals through socially approved means.
Innovation: using socially unapproved or unconventional means to obtain culturally approved goals. Example: dealing drugs or stealing to achieve financial security.
Ritualism: using the same socially approved means to achieve less elusive goals (more modest and humble).
Retreatism: to reject both the cultural goals and the means to obtain it, then find a way to escape it.
Rebellion: to reject the cultural goals and means, then work to replace them.
Strain Theory, Social Class and Crime
Merton’s strain theory can be applied to explain why there is higher rate of crime among the working classes.
Merton developed his theory from a well-established observation from official statistics – that a higher proportion of acquisitive crime is committed by those from unskilled manual backgrounds (or ‘lower social classes’).
Merton noted that American society promoted material success as a ‘legitimate goal’, and encouraged self-discipline and hard work as the ‘legitimate means’ of pursuing that goal, with the idea that any individual, irrespective of their background could, with sufficient effort, achieve material success.
HOWEVER, Merton argued that for those from lower social classes, this ‘dream’ had become an ideology, masking the fact that the legitimate opportunities are not available to all, and worse, those who failed to achieve success via legitimate means were condemned for their apparent lack of effort.
This situation puts great pressure on people to achieve material success by illegitimate means (acquisitive crime) to avoid being branded a failure.
In short, Merton argued that America was a highly unequal and divided society which promoted goals that only some of its population could realistically hope to achieve. Many young, working class men especially had internalised the desire to achieve material success (they wanted cars and nice clothes for example), but the only way they could meet these goals was through crime.
Thus, it is not so much the individual’s flaws that lead them to crime, but rather ‘anomie’ in society – the combination of the pressure to be materially successful and the lack of legitimate opportunities to achieve that success.
Criticisms of Strain Theory
Not all working class individuals turn to crime, and so we need something else to explain why some of them do and some of them do not. Subcultural theorists argued that the role of working class subcultures plugs this gap in the explanation – deviant subcultures provide rewards for individuals who commit crime.
Merton’s reliance on official statistics means he over-estimates the extent of working class crime and underestimates the extent of middle class, or white collar crime.
Strain theory only really explains economic crime, it doesn’t really explain violent crime.
Marxists argue Merton is not critical enough of capitalism. They point out that lack of equality of opportunity is at the heart of the Capitalist system. (Elites make the system work for them, which disadvantages the lower classes).
The Continuing Relevance of Strain Theory
Merton’s strain theory is an important contribution to the study of crime and deviance – in the 1940s it helped to explain why crime continued to exist in countries, such as America, which were experiencing increasing economic growth and wealth.
Baumer and Gustafson (2007) analysed official data sets in the USA and found that instrumental crime rates were higher in areas where there was a ‘high commitment to money success’ alongside a ‘weak commitment to legitimate means’..
It is possible to apply Merton’s theory of anomie to explain White Collar Crime – white collar criminals (those who commit fraud at work, for example) might be those who are committed to achieving material success, but have had their opportunities for promotion blocked by lack of opportunities – possible through class, gender or ethnic bias, or possible just by the simple fact that the higher up the career ladder you go, the more competition for promotion there is.
The (2009) applies Merton’s strain theory to explain rising crime rates during a period of economic growth in Malaysia, suggesting we can apply this theory to developing countries and that a ‘general theory of crime’ may thus be possible.
Philip Bourgeois (1996) In search of respect shows us that some of the most despised criminals have actually internalised Merton’s success goals.
Carl Nightingale: On the Edge – Carl Nightingale developed Merton’s Strain Theory, applying it to inner city youths in the 1990s.
Applying Strain Theory to Mass Shootings in America…
Merton’s Strain Theory can be applied to explain the rise in mass shootings in recent years in the United States. However, we need to take into account more than just Strain Theory. We also need to recognise that mass shooters tend to be white, working class men. Thus the ‘crisis of masculinity’ has a lot to do with the increasing trend of mass shootings too!
Kalish et al (2010) argue that a culture of hegemonic masculinity in the US creates a sense of aggrieved entitlement conducive to violence.
Today in America young men face barriers to achieving traditional markers of male success. Getting a decent paying job, buying a house and finding a partner are all harder than ever. There are a significant number of young men who fail to achieve any of these normal masculine success goals. Many men feel they are entitled to these things, which is part of patriarchy. Not achieving these goals means lots of men feeling anxious and their masculine sense of identity threatened.
When this happens, some of these men blame others for taking their opportunities away from them. Some of them (wrongly) blame ethnic minorities for taking their jobs, houses, and women. Some of these enact these feelings through mass-murdering ethnic minorities.
This kind of white-male racist reaction has a long history in America as outlined in this article in The Conversation.
The article above also notes that many of these mass shootings end with the shooter committing suicide. Suicide fits in with the masculine narrative: a pre-planned, successful suicide is the final way a young man can assert their masculine identity. (This may sound bonkers, but read the article, it’s in there!).
While most sociologists agree that modern society is more fragmented and uncertain, they disagree with some elements of post-modernism
a. Lyotard’s idea about the collapse of grand narratives can be criticised because it is itself a ‘grand narrative’
b. Frederick Jamieson argued that Post-Modernism is the ‘cultural logic of late capitalism’ – In the same way as modernist social theories are products of modernity – so post-modernism is a product of advanced capitalism – Capitalism has produced a world of fantastical objects and lifestyles – which invites those of lucky enough to be able to afford it to play rather than worry about the conditions under which our goods and services are produced – Post-modern thought which focuses on ‘how we play’ rather than worrying about the big problems that face us (poverty etc) could be seen as being similar to what the Transnational Capitalist Class want of us – that we identify ourselves as consumers and play rather than worry about the ‘dual logics of exploitation’ (people and planet) that lie behind the productive processes of late-Capitalism.
c. Zygmunt Bauman argues that it is Capitalism that has produced this unstable post-modern world in which we live…And It tends to be the poor that experience instability in a negative way (think refugees) while the rich experience it in a positive way (we can ‘play in our consumer playground and avoid the worst bits of the world). If we want a better world we need to figure out a way of being more in control of what kind of world we are creating, rather than just accepting our fate as consumers and playing like little children. Lyotar’ds idea that now we are ‘free from the tyranny of metanarratives’ that’s as good it gets’ denies our capacity as humans to act collectively for the common good.
d. Building on the above – thinkers on the left argue that p-m is a middle class, intellectual view point – a luxury of the chattering class – the new proletariat in the developing world may not see the relevance of post-modernism to their lives.
e. Social thought that focuses on how we construct our identities in a world of hyper-reality is uncritical. One might argue that it suffers from a ‘myopia of the visible’. Just because the world appears more fragmented, and just because our media-mediated world is removed from reality doesn’t mean there isn’t a reality out there that needs to be understood – Lets face it once the oil runs out and three quarters of the planet is dying because of global warming ‘actual reality’ might once again begin to seem to be more real than hyper reality.
Neoliberalism is an economic theory that believes free-market principles are the best way to organise society. The New Right is a political movement in the UK which has applied neoliberal thinking to social policies from 1979 to the present day.
Last Updated on October 21, 2022 by
What is Neoliberalism?
Neoliberalism is a pro-capitalist economic theory which believes that the ‘free market’ in capitalist economies is the best basis for organising society. Free market economies are based upon the choices individuals make when spending their money. The general principle is that if you ‘leave everything to the market’, then businesses will provide what people demand – because businesses want to make a profit and they can’t make a profit if they don’t provide what people want.
Market forces also encourage competition – when people see high demand for a product, they are encouraged to produce and sell that product – and the better product they can make and the cheaper they can sell it for, then the more profit they make.
The advantages of a free market system
According to Neoliberalism – the advantages of a free-market system are:
Individual Freedom – They are based on the principle of allowing individuals to be free to pursue their own self-interest – this is seen as the best way to pursue the maximum good in society.
They are efficient – businesses try to be efficient in order to maximise profit.
Innovation – Competition and the profit motive encourage people to produce new products to stimulate demand – we probably wouldn’t have had the iPad without Capitalism!
Economic Growth and jobs – The end result of leaving businesses free to do do business is more wealth and more jobs.
Neoliberalism and Social Policy
Neoliberals believe that governments should play a reduced role in managing the economy and in controlling people’s lives. In Neoliberal thought, the free market knows best, and individuals should be allowed as much freedom as possible to go about their businesses should be allowed more freedom to compete with each other in order to make profit.
Deregulation – Removing restrictions on businesses and employers involved in world trade – In practice this means reducing tax on Corporate Profits, or reducing the amount of ‘red tape’ or formal rules by which companies have to abide – for example reducing health and safety regulations.
Fewer protections for workers and the environment – For the former this means doing things like scrapping minimum wages, permanent contracts. This also means allowing companies the freedom to increasingly hire ‘flexible workers’ on short-term contracts.
Privatisation – selling to private companies industries that had been owned and run by the state
Cutting taxes – so the state plays less of a role in providing welfare – social security, education and health for example.
IMPORTANTLY – In most neoliberal theory, the state does have a minimal role to play – it needs to protect private property – given that profit is the main motive, the system won’t work if anyone can steal or vandalise anyone else’s property – and so the state needs to maintain control of law and order.
The New Right
The New Right is a political philosophy associated with the Conservative Government (1979-1997 and 2010 to the present day). The New Right adopted and put into practice many of the ideas of Neoliberalism, but there are some differences (indicated below).
The New Right: Five Key Ideas:
The introduction of free market principles into many areas of life (Like Neoliberalism) – The best example of this is the Marketisation of Education, and we also see it with academies.
Reduced Spending by the State (Like Neoliberalism) – The 1979 Conservative government cut taxes on the highest income earners and the current conservative government is cutting public services massively.
An emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility (Like Neoliberalism) – The New Right have cut welfare spending enormously – believing that welfare breeds dependency. Similarly, tax breaks for the rich are seen as promoting self-interest.
A strong state in terms of upholding law and order – we see this in ‘Right Realist’ ideas of crime control – with Zero Tolerance Policing and increasing use of Prison as a form of punishment – this links with the above idea of holding people responsible for their own actions (rather than blaming their backgrounds like other perspectives might).
A stress on the importance of traditional institutions and values(unlike neoliberalism). The New Right believe in maintaining some traditions, as they see this as the basis for social order and stability – they strongly support the traditional nuclear family as the backbone of society for example, and still support the idea of a National Curriculum, set by the government, which sets the agenda in education.
Signposting and Related Posts
The distinction between neoliberalism and The New Right is especially important for the social theories aspect of the theory and methods module.
Post modernists argue that we need new ways of thought to understand and conceptualise this new ‘post-modern society’ – the age old theories of modernity are no longer relevant!
Lyotard – the abandonment of the Enlightenment Project
Lyotard refers to post-modernism as‘incredulity towards metanarratives’. A metanarrative is a theory that holds that it is the universal truth, or it contains within it a great hope of salvation if only everyone would go along with it! Science, religion, political ideologies are all metanarratives. According to Lyotard, in the postmodern world, people have seen all of these metanarratives turn to ashes, the promises they once held have turned out to be disastrous.
The greater diversity and freedom of the post-modern age means that individuals abandon the search for one universal truth. Lyotard argues that this is a good thing, because the search for universal truths has led to such terror and oppression in the past. Hence post-modern diversity is good because it should promote tolerance!
In a nutshell, Modernists tend to believe that if we can find the truth, then we can apply this to society and it will enable us to be free; while according to post-modernists, in order to be free, we need to be liberated from the concept of truth!
Michel Foucault1 – Knowledge is not objective – rather it is distorted by power
Michel Foucault argued that the modernist Enlightenment project is a myth – throughout history knowledge has not been objective and it has not necessarily been used to make the world a better place. This is because the knowledge we collect about the world is shaped by the subjective views and values of those with power. Foucault illustrates this through exploring how societies have dealt with insanity and criminality throughout history. He basically argues that those in power define their own behaviours and values as ‘normal’ –and then those most unlike them as mentally ill or criminal – once these basic categories have been established, experts then emerge to construct ‘expert knowledge’ about why people are insane and how they are best treated. The labels ‘sane’ and ‘insane’ according to Foucault are subjective.
To illustrate this, in the 1940s the social norm was to have children within marriage. Women who had children outside of wedlock were labelled as insane, and sometimes put in mental institutions and subjected to study by experts. The point here though is that there is nothing objective, value free, or progressive about the original categories of ‘sane’ and insane’ – these are simply a function of power.
Jean Baudrillard – Hyper reality is more important than actual reality
The post-modern era has witnessed a huge expansion in media technology. One consequence of this is that our society has an increased reliance on the media to tell us what is going on in the world. Jean Baudrillard argues that the media creates something called ‘hyper reality’ where what we see in the media is different from and yet more real than reality. Baudrillard argues that the media coverage of war for example is different to reality, yet is the only reality most of us know. The media is thus a world different from reality, and thus a modernist project that focuses on how ‘reality’ influences people’s lives and how we should try to ‘improve’ society seams irrelevant in a society where most people have not lived experience of this social reality.
A Sociology of Post-Modernity
Post-modernism has influence Sociology….
For Zygmunt Bauman2, the central feature of post-modern society is that we are all consumers. Rather than basing our identities around work (and hence class), we are much more likely to define ourselves through the products that we buy. It follows that post-modern sociology is much more focussed on how people use consumption to define and understand themselves. There is much more of a focus on how people construct their identities in a world of huge potentiality. Post-modern sociology is thus much more interested in describing the diversity of life and looking at how people cope in the hectic, post-modern world around us, and much less interested in social structures and how these shape people’s identities. The Sociology of post-modernity is also very interested in deviance and subcultures and in individuals and groups transgress ‘normative boundaries’
Transgression….. Because post-modern society is different, and as culture has become more important, it means that new areas have opened up for study. Such new areas include studies of rave culture, the study of new genders and the development of ‘queer theory’, and the emergence of cultural and media studies as sub- disciplines of sociology.
Narrative – Much of this new post-modern sociology limits itself to a description of the ways of life of these groups, and at best tentative attempts to theorise specific to that group under study. Post-modernists are not interested in constructing generalise able social theory as they believe such a mission is flawed.
1 Strictly a post-structuralist, but for A level we can let that distinction pass!
2 KT thinks the term ‘critical late modernist’ is a better way of categorising Bauman’s work
The third of three posts on Marxism for A2 Sociological Perspectives – Arguments and evidence for the continued relevance of Marxism
Contemporary Marxists argues that Marxist analysis is still relevant to an understanding of modern society. A considerable amount of contemporary Marxist thought focuses on how Capitalism has become globalised and emphasises the injustices of the global capitalist system; another strand of contemporary Marxist theory focuses on how the values of capitalism (in the form of ‘neo-liberal hegemony’) have penetrated Western culture to the detriment of us all.
You might like to think about what Marxist concepts are illustrated by these cartoons
Some Sociologists argue that a class based analysis of global society is still relevant.
Leslie Sklaire argues that recent decades have seen the emergence of a ‘Transnational Capitalist Class’. These are the leaders of global corporations, certain politicians and their bureaucrats who control billions of dollars of assets and financial flows. They wield their power through undemocratic international economic institutions such as the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund and the G20. These institutions were established after World War Two to help co-ordinate the expanding global economy and facilitate redevelopment after the war. However, many left wing theorists such as Joseph Stiglitz argue that since the 1970s these institutions have forced dozens of developing countries to adopt neo-liberal economic policies. Neo-Liberal policies include such things as privatising public services, cutting taxes and regulating industry less, thus allowing Transnational Corporations to open sweat shops, pollute local areas, and take all the profits away without giving very much back. The basic idea here is that the global economy is run by Corporations and Politicians for the benefit of Corporations and their high powered political supporters (One of whom is ‘Gideon’ Osborn)
Watch Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story – which demonstrates how the TCC view nation states
Click here for links to evidence that this class (the richest 1%) have got $5.5 trillion dollars richer in the last year, while the bottom 99% have got poorer)
There is considerable evidence that exploitation still lies at the heart of the Capitalist system.
Corporations are frequently criticised for exploiting workers and the environment – through sweatshop labour and pollution, where they can get away with it. Some of the most obvious examples include Shell and oil pollution in Nigeria; Coke’s legacy of draining water local water supplies in India to produce Coke, which results in drought in local areas and Apple’s use of sweatshops in China to produce the ipad.
There is some evidence that those with economic power still have disproportionate influence over the superstructure.
Marxist Theory is still relevant because…. There is some evidence that those with economic power still have disproportionate influence over the superstructure.
I should just point out that the point of this post is to provide soundbites that you can use in an exam (or an arguement with a Tory supporter of the neo-liberal state apparatus) rather than a comprehensive or balanced account of evidence for or against (the variety of) Marxist theory.
Evidence of Elite control over the government
By far the best example of state putting the interests of Capital before the interests of the majority of people is how the government has responded to the present ‘economic crisis’.
Simply put, the state is making the poor pay for the economic problems caused by the Transnational Capitalist Class. The average guy on the street is getting poorer while the rich are still getting richer! Consider also the recent case of Ireland, where the minimum wage is being cut by one euro, VAT is being increase, and public sector jobs axed, while Corporation Tax remains at an incredibly low 12.5%
Getting back to the cuts in Britain, this is no surprise if you actually look at the characteristics of those who make up the cabinet and the wider Tory Party; you actually find that many of them are themselves extremely wealthy. The prime minister, deputy prime minister and Chancellor are all millionaires – They are the Transnational Capitalist Class – and they are hardly likely to hurt themselves.
Evidence of Elite control over the Criminal Justice System
Another example of the elite class having control over the superstructure lies in the differential treatment of white collar crime and street crime. Even though White Collar Crime costs more to the economy than street crime, White Collar Criminals are still less likely to get punished. According to Tombs and Whyte, this is partly because the government invests fewer resources into investigating fraud and health and safety crimes (the types of crime Corporations are most likely to be guilty of) than it does into working class street crime.
Evidence of Elite Control over the mainstream Media
Greg Philo argues that it is simply crazy it is that the agenda in the media is about ‘what services should the government cut’ rather than ’should we tax the wealthy or make cuts.[1] Philo points[2] out that there are other solutions to the current economic crisis – there is enough property wealth in the country – we could just take it off them, but the government is making the average man on the street pay instead. In his film,
Evidence of Elite Control of the Education system
Evidence for elite control of the education system lies in the fact that if you are wealthy, you can buy your children a private education, which gives them a much greater chance of getting into a top university and high getting a highly paid, prestigious job. The statistics make for extremely uncomfortable reading… Intelligent children from the 20% of richest homes in England are seven times more likely to attend a high-ranking university than intelligent children from the poorest 40%’.Looked at another way, of 80,000 15-year-olds who’d been on free school meals in 2002, only 45 had made it to Oxbridge- compared to the high-end private Westminster school which averages 82 successful applicants every year.[3]
People from upper middle class, public school backgrounds dominate every economic sector except those – such as sport and hard science – in which only raw ability counts. Through networking, confidence, unpaid internships, most importantly through our attendance at the top universities, we run the media, politics, the civil service, the arts, the City, law, medicine, big business, the armed forces, even, in many cases, the protest movements challenging these powers. The Milburn report, published last year, shows that 45% of top civil servants, 53% of top journalists, 32% of MPs, 70% of finance directors and 75% of judges come from the 7% of the population who went to private schools.’[4]
There is evidence that we are still under ideological control – but we don’t realise it.
Antonio Gramsci, A humanist Marxist writing in the early twentieth century first pointed out that what he called ‘Hegemonic Control’ plays an ever important role in advanced Capitalist societies. Hegemonic control occurs when the intellectual and moral leadership provided by the dominant class provides the fundamental outlook for the whole of society.
Greg Philo points to one very good recent example of this in recent years – the fact that we are so willing to accept cuts to public services when the richest ten percent of the country own so much wealth that if we just took one fifth of their wealth we would clear the national deficit, yet this idea doesn’t not even appear in the media. Agenda Setting has removed it and so we do not even consider it.
Capitalism is kept going by creating ‘false needs’ –
Successful companies today spend billions on advertising campaigns to convince us that we need the products that they make. Looked at objectively much of what we buy we don’t need, yet the Capitalist class invests billions convincing us to buy things that we do not need.
Worse that ideological control – More generally, numerous Sociologists such as Richard Wilkinson and David Garland point out that the more unequal a country, and the more a country has adopted neo-liberal policies – the higher the prison population. It would appear that the closer a country is to ‘pure capitalism’ the more punitive the elite class is.
We in west have become so obsessed with consumer culture that we end up defining ourselves through the products we consume, and how we ‘pick and mix them’ (this means fashion, holidays, houses, cars, mobile phones). From a Marxist point of view this is incredibly shallow – Marx believed that we are only fully human when we are fully engaged with the political and economic processes of our society. From the Marxist point of view, Capitalism just encourages us to be childlike and define ourselves through our styles and our hobbies and to forget about politics and economics. In the truest sense we are alienated from our productive base while our identities become more and more dependent on material goods.
David Harvey argues that economic crises are inherent to the Capitalist system and that in recent years these crises have become more severe and more frequent.
Capitalist exploitation is so bad in some parts of the world that there is vehement resistance to it – especially in Latin America – President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, for example, perceives himself as an anti-Capitalist, as do many people of Latin America. The Zapatistas in Mexico is another good example and the World Development Movement also has Marxist undertones.
See the first 20 mins or so of John Pilger’s ‘War on Democracy’ to here Hugo Chavez talk in Marxist terms – on stream
Although you don’t see it in the media there are tens of thousands of people who call themselves Communists and who sympathise with Marxism and the wider anti-capitalist movement. Left Wing criticisms and the anti-capitalist movement are still very much alive today.
Control of the economic base does not mean control of the superstructure
False consciousness is a problem concept in postmodern society
There is less alienation today
Capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty
Communism didn’t work
Marxism was a metanarrative.
Writing in the 19th century Karl Marx saw society as clearly structured into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the former exploiting the later. He believed the Bourgeoisie controlled the superstructure and that they used institutions such as religion to spread false consciousness which distracted workers from their alienating working conditions which prevented them from rising up in revolution.
Today in 2022 it is clear that many of the these ideas are no longer valid. This post summarises eight criticisms of Marx’s view of society and social change including
The class structure today is more complex than Bourgeois-Proletariat.
There is no clear dividing line between the Bourgeois (who in Marxist terms are the investor capitalist class who own the means of production) and the Proletariat (the people who have to sell their labour power to earn wages and survive).
In most Western Nations and increasingly in developing nations there is an extensive middle class who have stocks and shares invested in Corporations run by what Marxists would call the ‘Capitalist Class’. Also in Britain 70% of people own their own homes and see these homes (our private property) as ‘economic assets’ so many of us are, in a sense, petit-capitalists.
There are also more social class today. The Great British Class Survey (GBCS) conducted in 2011 found seven distinct social classes, with cultural and social capital being almost as important as economic capital in determining which class someone falls into.
The GBCS did find evidence of an ‘ordinary elite class’ of wealthy, high income individuals who tended to own their own homes, with an average age over 50, but these made up 6% of the population and are nothing like the ‘Bourgeoise’
Age also has a significant influence on what class you fall into today: older people are more likely to be elite or traditional working class, younger people more likely to fall into the new social classes in the middle.
In short social class today is something of a complex, messy, picture, and certainly not as simple as one small class of capitalists exploiting a larger working class.
Capitalism today is less exploitative
Two historical examples of this are when Henry Ford, the famous car manufacturer, realised that paying his workers good wages would generate demand for the cars he produced – a process which lead to workers being less exploited and ‘buying into’ the Capitalist system.
A second example is the move towards ‘Keynsian Economics’ in which the state came to play a more central role in regulating Capitalism to ensure that worst excesses of exploitation, inequality and insecurity that pure Capitalism generates were minimised.
Part of this involved the introduction of the welfare state in many European Countries after the Second World War. In the United Kingdom the state now provides universal health care, education, pensions and social security, these are paid for through a progressive taxation system: the more you earn, the more you pay, and yet everyone benefits.
Possibly the most obvious piece of evidence that Capitalism has lost its exploitative power is the introduction of a minimum wage in the UK in 1998, which has gradually increased broadly in line with inflation and stands at £10.42 an hour in 2023. Employers are legally obliged to pay this.
All of these things act as a safety net to ensure that the worst excesses of Capitalist exploitation are ameliorated.
Control of the Economic Base does not mean control of the Superstructure
Marx argued that those who control the economic base (the economy) controlled the economic superstructure (religion, education, media for example) – yet many of our institutions today have at least relative autonomy from Bourgeois control.
Much of the media today is completely independent of Bourgeois control, with many media outlets being critical of governments, Transnational Corporations and the global wealth elite. This is especially true of media companies which operate purely online, and there are hundreds of these today.
Many popular music artists are also extremely critical of the Capitalist system and have audiences of hundreds of millions of people.
Similarly education systems today are increasingly free of bourgeois and government control. Granted national curriculums may be shaped by national governments but there is an ever increasing amount of educational material available online for free which is not controllable but a small elite.
In short it seems that as we have shifted to a Postmodern society the superstructure (the media and education systems) have grown massively in size and are increasingly controlled from below by a diverse array of individuals. The superstructure is simply too large today to be controlled by a small minority.
Criticisms of False Consciousness
Given the above three points, it seems ludicrous to argue that the superstructure is controlled by the Bourgeoisie and is used to create false consciousness.
Firstly, post-modernists argue that culture (mainly the media) exists independently of Bourgeois control and is used by people in different for a variety of different purposes. If institutions are not controlled by the Bourgeois, then there can be no False Consciousness.
What we really have in post-modern society according to Post-Modernists is free individuals who correctly see class as irrelevant and who do not feel exploited and who are happy to identify themselves through the products they buy – products that are themselves the final outcome of a successful Capitalist system of production.
From a more philosophical point of view Marx’s concept of ‘false consciousness’ implies that there is also a ‘correct consciousness’ which in turn rests on the idea of there being ‘one truth’. This idea is problematic from a postmodern stand point which believes there is not one truth, but many different interpretations of reality and so many truths.
Work is less Alienating today
Work has changed a lot in the last hundred years. In general, jobs today are much less alienating than when Marx was writing in the mid 19th century.
At least 45% of jobs in the UK today are associate professional/ technical or above (1) and these are skilled jobs which tend to allow workers more autonomy than the kind of unskilled factory jobs which Marx saw as alienating.
There are also more than four million self employed people who directly control the terms and conditions of their working lives, and if you control your own working conditions then by definition you are NOT alienated.
Following Covid there is now much more working from home and flexible working hours, which means companies are flexing around the needs of workers, making work fit their home-lives rather than the other way around.
In modern companies workers have a lot more say, partly due to unionisation and partly due to enlightened management techniques.
Capitalism has changed and works for many
Classic Marxist theory has been criticised for being economically deterministic. Marx argued that economic laws would result in ever increasing amounts of exploitation for the poor an increasing concentrations of wealth at the top.
However, as it turns out the evolution of the global capitalist system has resulted in increasing wealth and prosperity for most people, and while the very rich have got VERY rich, we have also seen a persistent decline in global poverty over the past thirty years.
Different societies have responded differently to the global spread of Capitalism – some have pushed neo-liberalism (America and Britain since the early 1980s) whereas other European countries have taken a social democratic line and used the state as a buffer to protect citizens from the worst excesses of Capitalist exploitation (Scandinavian countries).
Whatever form state-capitalism has taken in Europe, there has been a general long-term trend towards ever increasing wealth, with the majority of people today being better off now than they were in one hundred years ago. Granted, there is a current squeeze in the form of a cost of living crisis, but the long term trend has been one of growing prosperity for most Europeans.
India and China, the two most populous countries in the world have also seen rapid economic growth in the last few decades, and have done so through embracing capitalist models of development (albeit in very different forms). Both of these countries have expanding middle classes with an increasingly global outlook.
Communism didn’t work
The Communist Revolutions in Eastern Europe did not lead to greater equality and freedom as Marx would have hoped. The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of Communism in Eastern Europe and the gradual transition of ex Soviet-bloc countries to capitalist systems; while China has gradually become more open to capitalism over the same period.
Given the failures of communism it is difficult to see what the alternative to Capitalism might be. NB – As a counter critique, contemporary Marxists would argue that the state communism of Eastern Europe was hardly true communism.
Traditional Marxism was a Metanarrative
From a more philosophical point of view Marx’s concept of ‘false consciousness’ implies that there is also a ‘correct consciousness’ in which workers realise the truth that they are being exploited and join a revolutionary movement for social change which pushes towards the Communist future.
However, as mentioned above, this idea that we should all be seeing the world in the same way because there is only one truth (Marx’s truth) is problematic in postmodernism which believes there are many different and equally valid ways of seeing the world.
Postmodernists would argue that Marx’s ‘grand theorising’ about the world is no longer relevant: IF we are interested in getting political then rather than researching with the intention of creating the perfect society, we would be better off focussing our attention of much more specific and localised social issues.
Signposting and Related Posts
This post has primarily been written for A-level sociology students focussing on the Theory and Methods module in the second year.
