Social Reproduction

Thamus left an interesting comment on one of yesterdays posts. I do read with pleasure any comment left but I’m also curious and as I didn’t know what the term “Social Reproduction” meant I researched it a little.

Reproduction is used in a number of ways in sociology. In each of the uses, it means the replacement of people or structures with a new set similar to the original, such that the social system can continue. A basic definition of reproduction is “producing again” or “making a copy.” Reproduction in the Oxford English Dictionary is the “Action or process of forming, creating, or bringing into existence again. (linked article)

I’m now, quite frankly, out of my depth, but here is an interesting extract from another paper on Social and Capitalistic Reproduction (The Perpetual Wheel, Ebin Lee Warner)

In today’s capitalism, society reproduces an admiring of people who are successful in order to feed off other’s need for that success. “we (society) will continue to rely upon the apparently unequivocal failures of others for reassurance that we ourselves have not failed; and consequently we will make policy choices and continue practices which, contrary to their ostensible remedial purposes, actually function to sustain those social problems which spawn the illusion of massive failure in others” [Lewis 155]. But it is capitalism itself that breads this illusion within society not the individual. “The capitalist controlled culture industry - from ads to news, from portraying the good life to tragic lives - is one of the major sources of the production of many people’s knowledge of nation, of nature/environment, of social norms and political issues, of leisure time and sports activity, of radicalized relations and people’s in other nations, of sexuality and gender, of all manner of things, commodities and role models that are presented, e.g., “to be desired”/consumed” [Adler 6]. Capitalism controls itself. It dictates what will be desired and then sells those desired goods to itself. The one whom owns your means of production, owns you; they dictate what you want, what your children what. This allows capitalism to grow and expand even more.

Thanks to Thamus I learnt something and that’s a good thing. I’ve never had the time to study Sociology or Philosophy but they are subjects that have always interested me. Maybe I should enroll on a course, not for an academic purpose but just for personal enrichment.