Week 11 - November 05, 2007

Chapter 12 - Economics and Politics focuses on these two entities are both major social institutions, or organized spheres of social life or societal subsystem, designated to meet human needs. The economy is the social institution that organizes a society’s production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The agricultural, industrial, and information revolutions all led to led to a dramatic expansion of the economy. The Information Revolution has caused tremendous changes in the economy. Our society must face the challenge of providing millions of men and women with the language and computer skills needed in the new economy. The global economy will continue to expand. Analysts around the world are rethinking conventional economic models.

Politics is the social institution that distributes power, sets a society’s agenda, and makes decisions. Power is the ability to achieve desired ends despite resistance from others. To a large degree, the exercise of power is the business of government, a formal organization that directs the political life of a society. Social organization depends on creating agreement about goals and how to attain them. This brings us to the concept of authority, power that people perceive as legitimate rather than coercive. Traditional authority is power legitimized by respect for long-established cultural patterns. Its importance declines as societies industrialize. Rational-legal authority is power legitimized by legally enacted rules and regulations. Charismatic authority is power legitimized through extraordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion and obedience. Because it is inherently unstable, charismatic authority must undergo a process of routinization of charisma in which it is transformed into a combination of traditional and rational-legal authority.