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Social Structure Essay, Research Paper

Social Structure

This essay will begin by describing the three spheres that tie society

together. The main institution of society is the family or household which

is broken up into thousands of units. Secondly, it will discuss the economic

institution and its ties to the family. The use of labour power and how

that effects the power struggle with the capitalist marketplace will also

be discussed. Lastly, the political institution of government will be shown

along with its relationships to the family and the families ability to

create reform and change regulation.

One of the main institutions in society in the household or family.

It is here that almost all the consumption in society takes place. It is

also here that almost all the labour power in society originates. The make-up

of the family is not as “cut and dry” as it once was. The nuclear family

is dead and what has replaced it has put all old theories about the family

to the test.

One major change has been the rise of the dual-earner family. In 70%

of households today there is no single breadwinner. (Burggraf, 1997:54)

Women’s position in the family has been changed radically from that of

one-hundred years ago. Three important issues have been raised about women’s

position in the family. One is that the development of gender inequality

within the family is a result of the changing economy. This being the extra

accumulation of property in private households. The second issue is that

capitalism being the only form of economy we are familiar with pushes for

the working of every family member to create a strong economy. Lastly,

the evolution of the family dispersed from economic development and instead

become a more social issue. (Wilson, 1982:37)

Because the position of women in the family has been so altered from

past history, projections made, even forty years ago, are increasingly

wrong. Though, even with the changing structure of the family the economic

labour power has not significantly increased. The role of housewife in

the post-industrial age was just as important to women as today’s dual

earning household. The housewife was the counter-part to the husbands role

of breadwinner. It was the wife who cleaned the husbands clothes, prepared

his food and provided emotional support, without which he could not fulfill

his role as breadwinner. (Burggraf, 1997:174)

With the evolution of the labour market and capitalist economy with

the ever increasing consumption of the family unit the homemaker was called

to enter the workforce. In 1901 only 12% of Canadian women were economically

active, however, in 1961 there were 29.5% economically active. (Wilson,

1982:71). This percentage has gotten exponentially bigger with time. In

1981, 54% of women with dependent children were economically active.(Purdy,

1988:203)

Another facet of the economic family unit is reproduction. The goal

of the family unit is to produce children, which in turn expands the labour

force, which creates a larger economic base. In Canadian families the emphasis

is on quality not quantity and because of this there are gaps in the unskilled

labour force. It is only through immigration that the capitalist economy

has been able to keep up with the demand for cheap unskilled labour. (Purdy,

1988:229)

So the value of labour power is determined outside capitalism, in non-capitalist

units that maintain and reproduce labour power…families. Corporations

produce wealth in the form of goods and services and a can last well beyond

an individuals life span. Capitalism is a powerful institution with holds

on the economy, political state and family as well. The payment of wages

allows the corporations to grow and continue to produce goods and exploit

workers. (Bailey, 1974:127)

Families consume. In the modern era, most families are not units of

production and consumption, mainly just consumption. They do not accumulate

wealth, but simply take the wage and spend it on commodities that satisfy

their needs. As Karl Marx put it, “if I exchange a commodity [labour power]

for money, buy a commodity for it and satisfy my need, then the act is

at an end.” (Smith, 1982:29) Families have a limited life span, related

to the cycle of growth and decline of individual family members. The family,

unless it has property, will inevitably decline to be replaced or reborn

in new formations down the generations. Wages earned allow families to

survive and reproduce labour power, in the form of children. It is the

children that will outlive the family and become the new labour power.

Working for wages allows those with economic activity to support the

non-wage-earning members of the household, young and old, caring and dependent.

In the spirit of support the family acts with altruism to aid reproduction

and in turn this aids the reproduction of the capitalist enterprise. (Smith,

1982: 105) Marx put it like this :

The maintenance and reproduction of the working-class is, as must ever

be,

a necessary condition to the reproduction of capital. But the capitalist

may safely leave its fulfillment to the labourer’s instincts of self-preservation

and of propagation. (Smith, 1982:106)

If Marx is correct in his ideology then the family will be forever in

the service

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