CSP250/Beauty Within the Beast:

The Sociocultural System

1) SuperStrucrure: The mental life of the system (Ideas, believes, values, norm

2) Structure: The Organization of the system A) The Political Economy: a1) The Economic Organization a2) The Political Organization B) The Domestic Economy: Kinship (Family, Marriage & Descent Rules)

3) Infrastructure: Technological/Environmental Base of the System A) The Mode of Production B) The Mode of Reproduction

Structure: A) The Economic Organization

Economy: The institutionalized (patterned) mechanisms of acquiring, producing, and distributing goods and services in a particular sociocultural system.

Reciprocity: An organizational economic principle of exchanging goods and services without overt acknowledgement of economic worth or a balance need to be achieved in order to maintain relationships between members of a sociocultural system.

Redistribution: An organizational economic principle of exchanging goods and services in which surplus is brought to a central place where it will be redistributed to producers and non-produces (Egalitarian/Stratified) at specific times and events.

Market:: An organizational economic principle of exchanging goods and services based on buying and selling at a price measured in money.

Structure: A) Economic Organization

Capitalism: An econo-political system where societal critical resources are privately owned and/or controlled. Maximizing profit is the sole objective of Capitalism.

The Circuit of Capitalism

Production

More Capital (Consumption)

Capital (Investment)

Structure: The Political Economy The Principles of Capitalism

1) The necessity of Perpetual growth (Economic Growth)

2) The creation of need3) The creation of dissatisfaction4) The necessity of unemployment (The creation of a

reserve labor source)5) The necessity of externalizing cost (socializing risk

and privatizing profit)6) The quantification of human and natural resources

into measurable economic units7) The necessity of aggression, competition, and the

survival of the mightiest8) Amorality9) The necessity of Standardization (harmonization)10) The valuing of scarcity

Appearance

Social Structural Social Structural RealmRealm

Realm of SocialRealm of Social

InteractionInteraction

Representational Representational

RealmRealm

Sexuality

Worldview

Class & Caste

Gender

Whiteness &

White Privilege

Race

The Culture The Culture of Capitalismof Capitalism

World World SystemsSystems

World World SystemsSystems