Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 53

Structuralism

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Structuralism focuses on structures but is not concerned with their functions. While structural-functionalism focuses on quite visible structures, such as border fences, structuralism is more interested in the social impacts of hidden or underlying structures, such as the global economic order or gender relations. It adopts the view that these hidden structures determine what transpires on the surface of the social world. This perspective comes from the field of linguistics, which has largely adopted the view that the surface, the way we speak and express ourselves, is determined by an underlying grammatical system (Saussure [1916] 1966). A sociological example would be that behind-the-scenes actions of capitalists and the capitalist system determine the public positions taken by political leaders.

Marx can be seen as a structuralist because he was interested in the hidden structures that determine how capitalism works. So, for example, on the surface capitalism seems to operate to the benefit of all. However, hidden below the surface is a structure that operates mostly for the benefit of the capitalists, who exploit the workers and often pay them subsistence wages. Similarly, capitalists argue that the value of products is determined by supply and demand in the market. In contrast, Marx argued that hidden beneath the surface is the fact that value comes from the labor that goes into the products, and this labor comes entirely from the workers.

Marx’s frequent collaborator Friedrich Engels ([1884] 1970) looked at relationships between women and men and theorized that the structures of capitalism and patriarchy kept women subordinated to men.

Engels believed that female oppression was rooted in the hidden and underlying structure of private property rights in capitalism. As a result, he thought that the key to ending that oppression was to abolish private property. The connections he drew between gender inequality and the underlying structure of society have proved to be enduring, and many contemporary feminist theorists have built more sophisticated analyses on them (Chae 2014).

A structuralist approach is useful because it leads sociologists to look beyond the surface for underlying structures and realities, which determine what transpires on the surface. Thus, for example, military threats made by North Korea, and its test-firing of missiles, may not really be about military matters at all but instead about that country’s failing economic system. North Korea may hope that the symbolic expression of military power will distract its citizens, strengthen its global prestige, frighten others, and perhaps coerce other countries, especially the United States, into providing economic aid. The threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear missiles prompted President Trump to meet with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un in 2018 and to make various concessions such as halting, at least temporarily, “war games” with South Korea. A follow-up meeting between these leaders in early 2019 broke down early without any agreement.

Essentials of Sociology

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