sociology

for Science and Technology

W13C2S33
 How to change the structure?

last week
TINA and TATA
Thatcherism and Reaganomics

Understanding how things change may help !

 Sociology for Sc. and Tech.

Changing the Structure(s)

No… not a crash course on how to be a rebel. But let us understand how to change the structure !
 what are the major
changes that re-shaped
humanity?
(from global/international/ Indian history)

What did it / they change?

 Many of these changes are
revolutionary - sudden
but most changes are
evolutionary
gradual
they change the structure more
profoundly
and subtly
 Some major - but subtle
social changes are
Growth of technology and science
Commercialization/ Commoditization
Increasing division of labour,
growth of production,
Bureaucratization,
Urbanization,

Spread of literacy - Education - Higher Education

Increasing geographic and social mobility

these gradual process of change
is called

Social Evolution

let us understand it
What we know
There are structures Structures of different scales

We make the structure We adhere to the structure

Structure exercise : Coercion, Exchange, Normative

Power

We create as well as change the structure

WHAT
IS
CHANGE
Let’s start with a question

What are the TWO most important changes that

have occurred during your lifetime?
(not physical changes… obviously)

Explain your answer. – Why are they important.

… so if I ask you the same after 10 years, 20 years, 40 years after,

will you give me the same answers….. Perhaps NOT.
 But… “Change is constant”..
(we all know)
"Nothing is constant except
death”
Is that it…or there’s
more to it?
How many years would you like to live?
How’d you like to live?

Change is like a road, not the destination.

So more than point A-B : its important to
know what’s in between
 Principles of Change : In Society

Some changes Change is

Some changes sometimes
matter more matter more to intentional but
than others some than often unplanned
others
 (1) Some changes matter more than others

• Industrial revolution, information revolution – big change,

more impact.

• Fashion trend – (passing trend) – but sometimes deeply

connected to social structure and social change
Can you spot the change in these three ads?
What do they tell about the changing society?
2. Change is controversial
Some changes matter more to some than others
• Social change brings both good and bad consequences.
• Automation, AI brings profits, growth- but workers may lose
their job
What is unusual
(+ they cannot about
/ will not be able to learnthe
as fast as AI)

representation of ‘Family’
• Change in social interaction welcomed by some/ opposed
by others –
here?• E.g. interaction with gay, other religion, black, specific countries
(e.g.?)
• Changing family / relations
(3) Change is sometimes intentional but often unplanned.

• Automobile – a faster transport than

horses, new industry, jobs etc.

If I had asked
Unforeseen people what they wanted, they would have
Consequences-
-Scattering
What are the unforeseen consequences of Digital
family members,
said faster horses.”
threatening the environment,
Tech and AI in our lives?
and - Henry Ford
reshaping cities and suburbs.
+
Accidents = medical industry
= insurance etc.
WHAT
CAUSES
CHANGE
 Inequality and Conflict
change
• Social conflict arising
things
from inequality,
mostly.
- Economic inequality
- Social inequality (Class/
race)
- Gender inequality
- Power inequality
- War !
Ideas causes change
• Individual ideas (leaders, inventors, business)
• Group ideas ( environmentalists, separatists…. So on)
• Religious ideas (ideologies)
• Political ideas (ideologies/ agendas)

Result: People join together in the pursuit of a

common goal.
and Change (things, people, themselves… )
Culture changes
Starts with: new objects, ideas, and social patterns.
Then: people take note of existing elements.
And then: people, and information spread from one society to another.
Dynamic Process

Natural growth > human training > culture of

something > culture is a ‘thing’ > a whole way of life
 The Culture of ‘Beauty’

2000
1901
Shaving is
Gillette
normal
1915
A new culture
First Women
Razor

1910 Any body hair is bad Shaving is sexy

Armpit hair is bad 1960 1980
 sociology
for Science and Technology

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CHANGE
 let us get back to the core question
Why (do we want) change even though we know it’s not easy ?
Even if we know that Change is not easy
• It also means leaving the past –
• People: Parents, friends and family (and your childhood crush),
• Places: home, hometown, village, the streets, Theyour at
n whschool corridors
o u t o
motivated y
• Things: Your first cycle, first cricket bat, the firste toy ap?
tak the big alet
th
knowingyou
• Memories – (some, you take it with you… but- some, leave
the
nothing will be
behind) same- ever ag
ain

Question
What have you left behind in order to come to IIT ?
Will you ever be able to get the people/ things back the way you
wanted/ left them?
But. not matter the what
We want PROGRESS
1. We want to improve (money, status, technology…..)
2. We want to change something which is not right (who defines?)
3. We want to change ourselves to match the situation
4. We want to bring balance in our lives (reducing/ ending inequality)

MODERNIZE / DEVELOP / PROGRESS

What kind of progress?
Material affluence (mostly): better job, better income,
better lifestyle… so on.

Material affluence, is a mixed blessing

• made lives longer and materially more comfortable.
• Today's routines are too stressful, have little time to relax or simply spend
time together.
• New Tech revolutionized communication, but weakened traditional attachments

Is ‘change’ = ‘Development’ = ‘Progress’

At what cost? What are the consequences?
 So where are we heading?
• Do we know what the future looks like? - NO
• Do we believe it will bring progress and happiness for all? – Don’t know
• Then how can we predict what is required for the future?
We can guess,
not a wild guess, a calculated one
We can look back to find trends and try to predict what's there for us In the future
- How hard can it be !!!

After all, we all know …

“the key to the future lies in the past”
 How far into the history
We need to go back?

We don’t need to go that much

into the history… that’d be too
much
We start with the beginning of the modern life

Year-
1936 Dehumanizing
effects of
mass production
IMDB and
(2025) industrialization

8.5/ 10

Industrial revolution , to be precise

18th Century (1750 onwards - Europe)
Modernization
The theory of Modernization claims that in the past, theNoentire
t world
was poor entirel
y
true,
and at ’s
But th
the Industrial Revolution enhanced human productivitythand m
e clairaised
living standards in many nations.
Who made the world Invented, because they are
Who said these?
better? – Europe? superior/ more intelligent ?

So the solution to global poverty is to promote

technological development 🡪 more productivity🡪 improv
lives of all 🡪 end poverty 🡪 PROGRESS - Development !
Modernization tried to ‘change’
(revolutionize / paradigm shift is the correct word perhaps )

Rich societies help poor

IDEAS So countries grow
economically.
CULTURE People of they
TRADITION course proposed Exporting technology
Resisted the Investment
SOCIAL solution Aid
STRUCTURES these
Welcoming students
changes “process of Train experts
BELIEVES change”
It claimed to ‘jump start’ the development in
many countries / societies - tremendous progress!

You Have a CAR - and You don’t know driving, Your place do not have proper roads - and
the City Admin. do not have money to have infrastructure.

You are not properly ready for the change = But you want change =
What will you do ?
c
So the ‘society’ gets dependent - and Changes
gradually.

Dependency
where Money and Power are used to make societies dependent
 Dependency Theory
Dependency Theory – Poor societies have little abilities to modernize,
even if they want to. They remain poor and exploited.

→ You need ‘Development’ !

and we are here to help you!

But how does it work ?

We know → nothing comes free !!!
And there is a
pattern – its
does not
depend on West
or East… it
depends on …
yes you guessed
it …..
Who has
MONEY and
POWER !
Lets see this 1
minute video
clip
The societies/ countries became dependent on
donor countries → follow their structure (model of
development)
Some gain wealth through economic development, but they lose their
cultural identity.
Follow the same path of change – “McDonaldization”
(Same food, same taste, same ……… everywhere)

This is the 2nd most

recognizable logo on
the planet.
Can you guess the first
one?
 sociology
for Science and Technology

W14C1S35
 We have been discussing change

We have only 8 classes left

Some of you have only this sem left of your student life !

Things are going to change — forever !

MCQ-4 is scheduled on the final class
(last day / reserve day – whichever is the last class)
Important : I’ll bring the exam (mis-sem) copies tomorrow.
Back to the discussion
Recap
Dependency
Materialism
from good life to ‘goods’ life
[from Intrinsic to Extrinsic]

Consumerism
buying and owning things drives individual and societal progress
Recap

McDonaldization
breaking complex processes into simple, repeatable steps
to maximize efficiency, predictability, calculability, and
control

Dependency
Consumerism
 How are Western Materialism and McDonaldization connected ?

Recap Efficiency Calculability

fast-food model→ Assembly line model of ‘progress’
McDonaldization

Predictability Consumerism Control

perception of

Value in life
SUCCESS Happiness
[Western] Materialism

acquisition of
acquisition of
material goods acquisition of
physical comforts
Wealth
 HEALTHCARE ENTERTAINMENT
fast, standardized medical services fast, standardized pseudo-creative impulses
Efficiency - Predictability - Calculability – Efficiency - Predictability - Calculability –
Control Control

McDonaldization
breaking complex processes into simple, repeatable steps
to maximize efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control

How does it work in different sectors?

EDUCATION
producing educated individuals quickly and consistently
Efficiency - Predictability - Calculability – Control

AI tutoring / MOOCs Equivalency Tracking and Scheduled, Rules,

Automated grading / Grade transfer → similar measuring success Setting similar goals
Large classrooms process and outcome via metrics etc.
 Thats why
you can (and expect to) get
a burger, a movie or a degree
with the same ease anywhere in the world

Everything becomes a product to be consumed

 Food for thought

How dependent are you ?

Can you break free / even if partially?
But -
we don’t want
to eat the same So how
burger, see the does
same type of McDonaldization
movie or go to work
the same succeed?
hospital every
time !
Heterogeneity
of product
Creating ‘values’
or
Consumer
Culture
Which goes beyond
Homogeneity of the product itself.
process
 How does Heterogeneity of product and the Homogeneity of process work ?

How many types burgers can you make using these combinations?

Ans - 3X3X5 = 45

Process remains the same → variety of product increases

Well - actually a lot more

(extra cheese, double patty, extra bla, added blu)...

Ans - 3X3X5X2X2= 180

Let’s look at our favourite - Mr. McDonald once again - let’s make a burger :)
So many brands
Well … Thats why you-have
sochoices
many products
– unlimited choices ! - so
much to choose from !
Supermarket/ Hypermarket
mode of consumerism

No
window,
no clock,
same lights
Upbeat
music
and
Just
Choices…
Unending
Choices
and when you’re in the supermarket inside your phone - with no sense of time, just
scrolling through options and there is no end of things to consume . . . . . .
It’s like living in a supermarket - 24X7

Do you -
really have a choice ?
 sociology
for Science and Technology

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 Exam Copies
a few words about Sociology
- It’s not common sense / not fiction / not stories
- It’s not what you think - it’s what you think sociologically
- It requires regular engagement and discussion in class → but for
that, it requires you to come to class regularly.

- if someone thinks ‘its just sociology’ - well - think again-

- this time → Sociologically !
 sociology
for Science and Technology

W14C2S36
Those, who have missed any of the
MCQs (1st, 2-3rd) → I’ll be taking
an extra MCQ only for them.

back to the discussion

After the last MCQ (MCQ4)

on the same day
i.e. final day of the course
Consumerism
“CONSUMER ”
How did we become
consumer(s)?
 for that we need to go back to Mr. Henry Ford

1910 Ford Motor Co. released Model T

Production time was just 90 min / car
That means a lot of cars → to be sold
Needed a whole new market

Ford doubled the salary + Reduced the working hour

Ford employees could afford a model - T

created a Consumer base

it was more than a business move - it was a social move
Creating a Culture - based on Consumption
 Fordism (key features)
● Mass Production (uniformity)
● Assembly Line
● High Wages
● Vertical Integration - single company
controls all production processes

rise of a consumer middle class

Fordism (also…)
Reinforced traditional
gender roles
● Homemaker ideal
● Feminization of Labor
● Continued gender inequality
● Rise of Feminism (Liberal and
Marxist) Capitalism
→ New Class (men / women)
 Present
Post-Fordism
(1980s– globalization - Present)
● Flexible Production - customization
● Outsourcing - breaking the vertical
integration model
● Worker Dynamics:- gig work, temp
contracts, and lower union influence.

Workers aren’t consumers of their own products anymore →

many can’t afford a Tesla on their wages.
from price sensitive consumer to ‘daag achhe hai’ consumer

Fordism and post Fordism

created
different consumer classes
Ford - Consumer middle class
Tesla / new age companies - Consumer higher middle / rich class
FMCG companies- cheap/price-sensitive consumer class

Consumer Culture
shape how we value stuff and ourselves
 sociology
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 Class
This week - 15, 16
Next week - 21 (22 is Friday's schedule)
Final week - 28, (29 is reserve day)

MCQ4 - Final day (28th or 29th)

Extra MCQ (for those who missed any MCQ - Final day)
Back to discussion
Consumer Culture
shape how we value stuff and ourselves
 p.
Reca

Fordism and post Fordism

created
HOW ?

different consumer classes

Ford - Consumer middle class
Tesla / new age companies - Consumer higher middle / rich class
FMCG companies- cheap/price-sensitive consumer class
 Don’t just sell products— engineer desire

Consumer Culture
How does it engineer our desires ?
Obsolescence Cultural Cachet
Built to Break or Fade Status as a Sales Pitch
- Physical - Branding and
- Technological Exclusivity
two
- Perceived - manufacturing FOMO
interconnected
ways
- Amplification (celeb)
 Ford’s average ≈ 2.4 months
wage in 1920s - salary to buy a
$1,300/year
$260 model T

Tesla’s
Average wage - is
not clear (as many 4.4 months
parts are produced
in cheaper $40,000 of salary for
countries) a Model 3.
Roughly - $108,037
 Consumption
Targeted marketing ? Consumer Behavior Patterns

Feedback Loop

Data on
Consumer culture (today)
preferences, Cultural Alienation
grievances, and replacing traditional cultural values with materialism
behaviors

Positive feedback
Tailor (make it simple)
products, Continuation
advertisements, of
and experiences
Negative feedback Consumption
consumer oppression theory (discounts)
 Consumer Oppression Theory
- Limited Consumer Power and Control over their purchasing decisions
- Choices are heavily influenced and manipulated
- Cultural Erosion
- Society becomes centered around consumption
- Media and Social Pressure
- Media and peer pressure drive individuals to conform to consumerism
- Manipulation by Corporations

Opposite Consumer Sovereignty Theory

consumers have ultimate power in the marketplace
Food labels – to check Consumer Sovereignty
Companies (usually group of large companies) pay
billions of dollars in lobbying to keep things vague.

They also promote the idea of

Consumer Sovereignty

How do the consumers know if they’re kept stupid

“they don’t know - what they don’t know”
 sociology
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 I ended the class with this

Consumer(s) need to have a basic level of knowledge to

understand what's actually happening!

But it makes more profit if the system make the consumer believe that
he/she has knowledge as well as choice.
 Behaving like monopolies
Barriers to Entry
Marketing Manipulation
Price Collusion Moderate Innovation
Limited Competition

How do monopolies and oligopolies impact consumer culture?

Price making Lower Product Quality Lower Innovation

Reduced Consumer Choice Economic Inefficiency

Dependence on Regulation and Exploitation

How do monopolies and oligopolies create
extreme inequalities?
 the final touch

How have we come here?

Market
INEQUALITIES and the SOCIETY
But how much Money and inequality
are we talking about ?
 Let’s take a look at ‘Amazon’
It’d take 31 seconds for Besos to earn what an Amazon worker makes
in an entire year
$80,556
Per minute
Bezos’ wealth increase over 2020-25 is nearly 12 million times (1.2 crore
23.2:1
times) the income increase of a single Amazon worker. 12000000 : 1

$3,467
It’d taker about 2,788 years , to earn Per
what Jeff Bezos gains
month
in a single day ($116 million) / 62 workers, their whole working life (45 yrs)
 The change in last 40 years
(since early globalisation / post Fordism )

1970s: Top 1% - 30% wealth Bottom 50% 3%

2000: Top 1% - 40% wealth Bottom 50% 1%
2025: Top 1% - 47% wealth Bottom 50% 1.5%

1970s: Top 10% - 70% wealth Bottom 50% 3%

2000: Top 10% - 80% wealth Bottom 50% 1%
2025: Top 1% - 78% wealth Bottom 50% 1.5%
who are they ?
 “Oligarkhes”
Oligarch Greek Word
Meaning - few to rule or
commend.
a small group of
Oligarchy people having
And by definition - a
system (also democracy)
can be an Oligarchy if
control of a country economic and political
power becomes
or organization. concentrated in the
hands of a few financial
elites.
1st Increasing Income inequality Impacts of

Oligarchy
Rise of the Economic Elite (super
2nd rich)

3rd Policies beneficial to the Elites

4th Common people losing grounds

 But the
So, WORLD
Oligarchy How are has mostly
“Oligarkhes” they been ruled by
Meaning - few to rule
or commend. different the few
? (except in functional
Democracies)
 ? Techno-Feudalism
Digital Platforms
Data as the New Land
The Starting Point Rent-Seeking
Feudalism Erosion of state power
Extensive control on the labour
Land as the primary Digital
→ Consumer
resource Capitalism
Rent on Land Information as a
Owns the labour resource
Market Capitalism
Industrial Capitalism Centralized power
land to capital Monopolies/Oligopolies

Labour Power
 What’s next? We don’t know yet
Control- minds
GLOBAL
? Techno-Feudalism

Digital Capitalism
Market Capitalism

Industrial Capitalism

Feudalism Scale: LOCAL

Control- Labours
Impacts on Common People
 IMPACTS
Income Polarization:
- Widening the gap between high-skilled elites and

Precarity
low-wage workers
- Top 5% benefit from knowledge-based economies, while
minorities and women dominate low-paid service roles
Globalized Labor Hierarchies:
- Manufacturing to developing nations
- Retaining high-skilled roles in advanced corporations
Global Labor Arbitrage: Reverse hierarchy - mid-level job to
developing countries / low-skilled for Developed countries

Welfare Retrenchment: Reduced state support / safety nets

Wage Instability Increasing Health
and Polarization and Social Costs

Precarity
Decline of
Collective Immaterial Labor
Reduced state
Protections support
Deterritorialization Disconnections Distrust
 Thrives on + Manipulates
creative desires and existence

Informational Skills.
technical and cognitive skills

Consumer
Citizen Immaterial Labor behaviour
Political
Informational cultural, and affective Consumer
Behaviour content rather than physical goods.

Cultural Content Dev.

shape cultural standards
purchase decisions
social views etc.

Social Factory
Maurizio Lazzarato and Paolo Virno externalizes labor and transforms communities Immaterial labour / post-autonomist
 Who are the

YOU
Immaterial Labor