Understanding Class Formation & Collective Action: Rationality, Solidarity & Struggle, Lecture notes of Sociology

Download Understanding Class Formation & Collective Action: Rationality, Solidarity & Struggle and more Lecture notes Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! OUTLINE. Sociology Lecture 16 RATIONALITY, SOLIDARITY AND CLASS STRUGGLE Definition of Solidarity as an Element in Class Formation: Class solidarity refers to the willingness of individual members of a class to support the collective struggles of the class by bearing various kinds of individual costs or sacrifices. I. Solidarity and the free-rider problem 1. The formal structure of the free-rider problem EVERYONE ELSE Cooperates Defects Cooperates A C “ME” Defects B D 2. Three quantities: A-D: the gain from cooperation. B-A: the gain from free-riding D-C: the loss from unilateralism -- “sucker penalty” 3. The PD preference ordering: BADC. 4. A false solution II. Solutions to the free rider problem in collective actions 1. Collective Action with Rational, Selfish Actors. 2. Collective Action with Rational, Nonselfish Agents: conditional altruism & assurance game 3. Collective Action with Irrational Agents. III. Social Conditions for Solidarity 1. Concentration and Interdependence of Workers. 2. Community 3. Leadership, activists and organization. docsity.com