chapter 7 Flashcards
(26 cards)
Capital:
the resources we use to get things we want and need.
Economic capital:
financial resources that are or can be converted into money, including cash, investments, and valuable goods and property.
Economic elite:
the minority of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth.
Social mobility:
opportunity to move up or down in the economic hierarchy.
Wage:
cash payments given to workers in exchange for their labor.
Capitalism:
an economic system based on private ownership of the resources used to create wealth and the right of individuals to personally profit.
Proletariat:
people employed by others who worked for a wage
Bourgeoisie:
the people who employed the workers.
Means of production:
resources that could be used to create wealth.
For example: land factories and money to invest
Labor:
the work they could do with their bodies and minds
Alienation:
describes this feeling of dissatisfaction and disconnection from the fruits of one’s labor.
Crisis of Capitalism:
a coming catastrophic implosion form which capitalism would never recover
Class consciousness:
an understanding that they are members of a group with shared economic interest.
Socialism:
an economic system based on shared ownership of the resources used to create wealth that is then distributed by the governments for the enrichment of all
Free market capitalism:
a capitalist system with little or no government regulation.
Labor unions:
associations that organize workers so they can negotiate with their employers as a group instead of as individuals.
Social safety net:
a patchwork of programs intended to ensure that the most economically vulnerable do not go without basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter.
Welfare capitalism:
a capitalist economic system with some socialist policy aimed at distributing the profits of capitalism more evenly across the population.
Contradictory class locations:
positions in the economy that are in some ways like the proletariat and in other ways like the bourgeoisie
Service and information economy:
one centered on jobs in which workers provide services (for example, at restaurants, salons, and in retail stores) or work with information (in engineering, technology, and marketing, for instance).
Precariat:
a word referring to a new class of workers who live economically precarious lives
Protestant work ethic:
this is the idea that one’s character can and should be measured by one’s dedication to paid work.
Glass floor:
an invisible barrier that restricts downward mobility.
Wealth gaps:
differences in the amount of money and economic assets owned by people from different social identity groups.
