Question:
Discuss about the Role of Family in the Capitalist Social Organisation.
The essay focuses on the role of family in the capitalist social organization. Capitalist social organization now exists in all the nations around the globe. Under this organization, the means for production and distribution of products that includes technology, land and transport system etc are basically owned by less minority of individuals. The capitalist organization describes the institution that is featured by the hierarchical dominance and bureaucartic corporations (Genovese 2014). Family has huge significance in carrying out this essential production, consumption and accumulation functions, which are associated with both the social as well as economic empowerment of people. The main pathways to all these functions and to social as well as economic empowerment mainly include family resilience and capital. The family executes ideological functions in this capitalist social organization. The family mainly acts as the consumption unit and teaches acceptance of hierarchy. It is basically the organization through which wealthy people pass down their properties to their child and hence this leads to class inequality. Industrial capitalist social organization has affected several family structures. They play decisive role in legally transferring ownership rights in the capitalist social organization. The social organization that integrates in the capitalist society treats by the similar laws as that of the individuals (Glavin and Schieman 2012). This social organization can take the legal action and can also purchase and sell the properties. The main motive of this capitalist social organization is to attain higher profit and to provide freedom to the individuals. In this type of organization, all the individuals in the family invests to build the relationship as well as improve their skills of communication as they helps in believing that social capital has been the vital factor for the success of the individuals.
Social organizations are mainly the establishment that helps in functioning of a society. This institution is basically considered as the societies backbone. It becomes difficult for the society to achieve its fulfillment without this social organization. Even they help in organizing the society as well as its people. The family has been considered as the significant group for the society and the individuals. In addition, they plays a crucial role in forming the human society by binding each of their members. The family is also defined as the transformation point of people’s culture. The main characteristics of the family are given as under-
The family’s role is to fulfill the economic requirements all of their members to a particular extent by giving them all the necessities that includes clothing, shelter etc. sometimes the members work together in pursuing certain occupation, which in turn provides steady employment and income to each member of a particular family. the role of family in the capitalist social organization has changed over the years under the influence of the said factors namely- Industrialization, modern education, urbanization, legislative measures etc. the family size has been significantly decreased under urbanization as well as industrialization’s influence. In addition, evolution of nuclear families has transformed the inter-relationship between their members. There has been decline in functions that are performed by few families to the substantial extent. However, many organizations were initiated in order to cater the requirements of each members of family came up although their functions being particular and not being holistic. In the primitive society and in settled districts, the family usually carries all the vital industrial activities (Deephouse, D.L. and Jaskiewicz, 2013). In this organization, the family produces various types of raw material, produces finished goods and even consumes the same. However, the development of complex society leads to the huge industrial labor division. Hence, the family has been delegated into industrial activities to this organization. According to the World population action plan, the family has been defined as the central unit of the society and hence must be confined by appropriate policy as well as legislation. It has been opined by (), that the families play vital socio-economic as well as cultural functions in each country. Despite several reforms that have revised their functions, the families continued to give financial as well as emotional support that is vital to the development of the members. However, the family in every form is basically the keystone of the global community. Being the key representative of socialization, the families has also been considered as the crucial means of transmitting as well as preserving the cultural values. In the broader sense, the families often aid in educating and motivating their members and thereby act as the significant source of their future development. The families also acts as the vital agents of the society’s development and hence their contribution to such areas leads to decisive success. It has been argued by Gilpin, (2016), that the family has been considered as one organization within the capitalist society that operates in regulating the desire of members through proscription. Therefore, the capitalist social organization facilitates in producing the oedipal framework of the capitalist society. The oedipal structure in Freudian terms refers to the relationship between the children, mother reflecting the desire object and father being the authority who intervenes between object and its desire. In addition, the capitalist social organization highlights the oedipal framework that has been modeled on families. The function of the families in this capitalist organization is to conduit desire as well as to endorse the authority’s internalizationb (Hodson 2014). For example, the framework of the capitalist social institute mimics the family with emphasizing on groups and the individuals in authority. Ironically, the family has been prevalent in some structures of organization that signifies unity, paternalism and harmony. The social organizations are not mainly the functional arrangements for manufacture of products and services, but are the mechanisms of self-creation and the crucial part of society oedipalization. Moreover, this social organization helps in providing the products and services in response to the demand of the customers. In other words, they exist in channeling the desire into manufacturing as well as consumption of output of capitalism.
In such social organization environment, the members of the families contribute in several processes for survival of household. In the capitalist period, the working class families in several forms have been considered as the non-capitalist organization. Even the family working under the capitalist social organization does not operate according to the principles of the capitalist that includes quest of profit, family member’s treatment as products and the market valuation as accounted by social worth (Lubinski, Fear and Pérez 2013). In addition, the families are considered as the various types of social organizations from capitalist institute. On the contrary, if the capitalist social organization mainly relies on the capitalist principles, it will sell their services to the capitalist. The gendered labor division that characterizes the family was not present at that time. Moreover, the recent study highlights that industrialization has changed the roles of families in the capitalist social organization by translating it from production unit into consumption unit. This change had occurred unevenly and this varied in terms of social class as well as occupation. In addition, industrialization has disrupted the relationship among the generations. The entrepreneurial families faced external realities for surviving financially.
The organization that functions on the basis of capitalism believes that the investors role in the organization helps in creating business machine that in turn facilitates in gaining profit and is then returned to investors or shareholders. Additionally, the capitalist social organization believes that the companies leadership role in creating the culture considers all the multifaceted constituencies that is also known as stakeholders. One of the vital changes in the family as the institution has an significant effect in the society that basically comes as the result of industrialization as well as capitalism (Hayek 2012). The perspective of Marxism about the family’s role in capitalist social organization is that the society that is structured along the lines of class with them generally works with the low elite class’s interest those who have huge economic power (the Bourgeoisie) and that of the working class (the proletariat). The Bourgeoisie attains their asset from exploitation of proletariat. As a result, there is huge disagreement of interest between these two categories. However, this interest conflict boils over to revolution as the institution that includes the family performs the vital function of control or convincing the people and this reflects that the existing unequal system has been inevitable (Rose-Ackerman 2013). Another aspect that the Marxists recommend about the families is that they basically changes with the society and specifically the family emerges not due to the requirement of industrialization but only due to the requirement of capitalist system. The capitalist social institute under which individuals of the specific historical epoch as well as the specific nation lives is actually determined by the production type; by the various development stages of labor on one side and family on the other side (Lubinski, Fear and Pérez 2012). In bourgeois epoch that has been contrasted with historical epoch, all the families became the main region of personal life, the respite place from the productive life and from alienated labor, which the laborers must face. The division between the personal and the productive relations as well as between the families and work is exclusive to the capitalist social organization. Moreover, in precapitalist social workers formation that has been operated within amalgamated life circumstances while working or not working, under capitalist social organization the family has one part of life at leisure and another part at work. It has been opined by (), the social worth and intellect of identity cannot be achieved in the productive worker under this capitalist social organization and hence the split of economic life from social illustrates that the interpersonal relations and the family took on larger burden.
Marxists have critical view about the family and specifically about the nuclear family because they consider that it underpins capitalist ideology (Genovese 2014). Moreover, it has been argued by the Marxist that bourgeoisie (ruling class) have control over the society by possessing the production means that includes infrastructure, tools etc and thereby controls the proletariat (the working class).
Under contemporary Marxism, the family has been depicted as the ideological apparatus, which means that it helps in socializing the individuals for thinking in the way that validates inequality as well as encourages all the people in accepting unchangeable capitalist system (Gilpin 2016). In this capitalist social organization, the owners of the business try to keep the wages of the laborers down in order to maximize profit. But in order to take this action, they must have the ability to sell the products of the workers or in other way create demand for the manufactured goods. In this case, the family plays the significant role in building demand for the products in several ways. This is explained below:
One of the vital changes to families as the institution that in turn had significant influences on the women’s position in the capitalist society that comes because of industrialization and origination of capitalism (Giddens, 2013). In this pre-industrial society, the families were not the part of economic classes that were basically the economic centers of production (Berkman, Kawachi and Glymour, 2014). The families in these capitalist social organizations organize the resource flow from the generations to the sectors that promotes the skills acquisition and society’s modernization. In this organization, the families facilitates in serving the economic function that elicits savings as well as organizes investment in the individuals. Moreover, the family in this capitalist organization has been important in managing the risk of the business. In addition, the Marxist has different perspective about the family’s function in this capitalist social institution. They provides the view that the main role of family is to generate huge labour power that helps in maintaining the capitalist society (Hodson and Sullivan 2012). It has been stated by Galaskiewicz, (2016), the family is the main control mechanism, which helps in exerting social control on their families. As the families exist in the capitalist society, both the children and parents faces huge competition in terms of advancement with the technology from their peers and other parents respectively. This huge pressure to exists in this competing society, the families adopts new competitive strategy (Firth 2016). However, this family has been considered as the integral part of ‘commodity fetishism’ as it facilitates in fueling the initiation of false requirements that in order to satisfy needs the individuals hard work.
The recent study reflects that the family has been seen playing the functions as ideological equipment in socializing the ideology of the pro-capitalist and their own for maintaining the family patterns during the period. The capitalist social organization motivated the workers in earning money in order to become independent. In addition, this organization provided new laborers who are socialized and disciplined. However, the family helps in making the laborers more effectual by fulfilling their requirements for shelter, food, clothing etc. The families play significant role in various social as well as economic settings (Alesina, A., Ardagna, S. and Trebbi 2016). The society was polarized between hierarchical organization and interplay of the decisions of the individual family members. Neither of the two by itself gives feasible way of organizing both social as well as economic interaction. The family’s role in this organization is to strengthen the individual members capacity in functioning and attaining their present and future targets and objectives. They also provided typical role model, which facilitate in keeping alive the insight that education has great value and steady employment being viable substitute to welfare. The family as an institution has three vital functions that includes – to provide education to their children, to spread cultures between two generations and supporting their members in all types of work they do. Over the centuries, the family has been summarized as the work movement from household to market. This resulted to liberation of the people from redundant and shifting to main role of the families. The family was the main unit of both the political and economic production in the social organization before capitalism. The economy that was basically based on agriculture and on crafts, production in the economy was the main survival of the families and executed with limited capital that the families possessed. With this limited amount of physical capital, the labor intensive production methods were needed in agriculture and this makes the families preferable.
Conclusion
The family functions in transmitting social possessions between two generations. Properties in form of personal properties, land and hence the societies allows these families in passing along the generations. In addition, the family transmits the material commodities between the generations. As the family has been considered as the base of society , the development as well as the progress of the capitalist society based on the development of sound family. In other words, the families has been the primary unit of the capitalist social organization in each societies (Apple, 2013). Since prehistoric period, the families have been serving as the basic institution for providing the individuals with basic requirements and satisfying the individuals requirement for support. Various types of families vary among various cultures and in various nations. They performs necessary functions for both the individual members of family and for whole society. The capitalist social organization refers to the institution where the family plays the significant role in strengthening their members and encouraging them to attain future objectives. In addition, they have also contributed to stability in society by holding their religious values. In other words, the family cohesiveness as well as moral strength helps this social organization in stabilizing the society both economically and socially. The effective role of the families that they play in the capitalist social organization is nurturing as well as supporting their individual members that includes promoting as well as safeguarding the children health, instilling social values within their members and achieve the goal that ensures the future generations being productive as well as socially responsible. They also plays the role in safeguarding social alienation. The structure of the family and their composition has also been influenced by both the political as well as socio-economic changes. Moreover, the family playing the vital role in social organization adversely affects the capitalist society by making the members overconfident in reaching their target level.
References
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