Social Thought and Social Changes - Article Example

EVOLUTION SOCIAL CHANGE EVOLUTION. Evolution was espoused by Charles Darwin as survival of the fittest (Brinkerhoff, l988) and also where thenormal situation was for the males to dominate the females and the adults to dominate the children. This is known as the order of things. Evolutionary theory had been superseded by the social theory because sociology can explain why the rich are more fit to lead society and the poor are classified as unfit to lead society and other societal concerns which runs contrary to evolution theory. SOCIAL CHANGE. Social Change continues to this day because of the many inventions since the time of the cave dwellers. Humans had emerged from the caves during his 650th life time. New ideas, inventions, and conditions may have caused man to adjust to changes in society. The internet has allowed us to talk to persons from different parts of the world by using the chat and web camera technology of the computers. Social change has brought about equality between the male and the females. CONCLUSION: Social change had to happen because it was sparked by Evolution. DIVISION OF LABOUR AND STAGES OF HISTORY DIVISION OF LABOUR. During the ancient times, men worked men's jobs and women were delineated to work in the house to care for the family. During our present time men and women are now treated equally. According to Vecchio, Division of labor has helped speed up production. The work force has been divided into different departments. The workers in each department had gained mastery of their craft due to daily repetition and boredom from work. The finishing department employee was not allowed to transfer to grinding department because the new environment will cause delay in production as the new employee has to be trained in the new environment. In fact, Division of labor was recognized during the industrial revolution when farm and factory machines were newly put in place to replace manual labor in picking of farm produce. Because of this Adam Smith recognized the importance of division of labor as an important factor in production. (Vecchio, 1995) This has been further emphasized in our modern work place when each worker has been given job specifications to accomplish such as the secretary has to do the clerical works as instructed by the department heads or managers. The organization has become more complex as compared historically to the early times because computers were not yet invented and management, finance, economics and other related book were not as complicated as today . HISTORY. History shows that the early Americans bought black people from Africa to do everyday work as slaves. Today workers from different races are treated equally under pain of being violators of the law. Today, these blacks are free because the Union won over the confederates. Had the Confederates won, there may still be slaves in the United States. The blacks, Asians, American Indians and other non American races have now been catapulted in this SOCIAL CHANGE situation where they are treated under the law as equal to the White Americans in terms of applying for a job or asking for delivery of its services. CONCLUSION: History shows that Division of labour had already been in place a long long time ago because division of labour result to specialization. ORGANIC SOLIDARITY AND MERITOCRACY ORGANIC SOLIDARITY According to Sociology ( Bryjak, 1992) Organic Solidarity can easily be spotted in large and complex business societies marked by division of labour. Under this theory of organic solidarity, the workers are deeply dependent on each other to accomplish tasked. For example the painting department employee of a chair manufacturing plant is dependent on the work in process department to finish their work before sending the chair to the finishing department for painting the chairs. Society is dependent on all workers and departments in for the failure of one part will cause the failure of the entire organization or society itself. MERITOCRACY - is a system of government or other organization based on demonstrated ability (merit) rather than by wealth, family or other historical determinants of social position. Meritocray occurs when the bright ones win wealth, position and social status. This means that the bright, hardworking persons are promoted to the top while the lazy and less intelligent persons will be given lesser work as clerk. Meritocratic governments and organizations emphasizes stress talent, education, knowledge, motivation and competence, rather than often superficial differences such as race, social class or sex. Modern societies attempt to lessen the disadvantages of inequality through state intervention in education, health care, tax relief which is also a form of mediocrity. Meritocracy dominated governments believe in a principle of equal opportunity in terms of racism, sexism and other ism. CONCLUSION: Although the workers from different departmets have to work hard to help the other departments succeed for the entire organization, The use of merits in order to put the right people for the right positions will lessen the time spent and increase the quality of work in each organization. RATIONALISATION / BUREAUCRACY RATIONALITY. Rationality is based on the personal beliefs, traditions and upbringing of each individual and beliefs and actions are based on SOUND reasoning and VALID inference. Truth and rationality is based on rules governing social and cultural situations such as reasoning. ( Barker, 2002). Rationality helps in providing reasons for the why things are what they are. A good example of rationality is common sense. Rationality is needed in the company because a wrong company decision will cause a decrease in company sales because current customers may be driven away. BUREAUCRACY According to Schermerhorn, as the organization grows, more and more layers of management and departments are put into place. Bureaucracy refers to an organization' red tape in accordance with the legal rules society where many standard procedures or steps have to be followed and formal division of of responsibility and hierarchy and most importantly creates climate where the customer feels that their time is wasted because of red tape. CONCLUSION: By placing the people in the work place who can easily give the right answers to very situation, predicament and the like, and eliminating red tape in the company policy, then more jobs will be done in less time budgeted. REFERENCES: Brinkerhoff, D., White, L., Sociology, West Publishing, New York, 1988 Barker, C., Making Sense of Cultural Studies, Sage, London, 2002 Vecchio, R., Dryden Press, London, 1995 Shermerhorn, Oganizational Behaviour, John Wiley, London, 1997 Bryjak, G & Soroka, M., Sociology, Allycon and Bacon, London, 1992 Read More