|
|
Post by karlmarx on Jul 2, 2014 20:30:43 GMT 5.5
Hi friends, Lets start sharing and discussing relevant things. All the best to all  |
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Jul 4, 2014 15:15:18 GMT 5.5
|
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Jul 6, 2014 21:01:05 GMT 5.5
|
|
|
|
Post by ysfonline on Jul 6, 2014 22:01:41 GMT 5.5
|
|
|
|
Post by Heisenberg on Jul 8, 2014 22:59:23 GMT 5.5
Lisbeth Salander Salander do you have any thing on paper 2?? sources to be used, notes... anything would be helpful...
|
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Jul 9, 2014 12:48:59 GMT 5.5
Lisbeth Salander Salander do you have any thing on paper 2?? sources to be used, notes... anything would be helpful... Hi! I'm referring a no. of resources for Paper-2, reason being we don't have a Haralambos which deals with the Indian part.  I was a distance learning student of VisionIAS and their notes have been my benchmark. Apart from that, I've read bits from CN Shankar Rao and IGNOU (very selective). For Indian thinkers, I've relied on google. There's a website which is a good repository for online study material. The link is as below: sociologyguide.com/PS: If you have any specific doubt, please let me know. |
|
|
|
Post by Heisenberg on Jul 9, 2014 15:43:47 GMT 5.5
Thanks Lisbeth Salander ... I will try to see if I can get Visionias notes for paper-2... |
|
Jason Bourne
New Member
कालोऽस्मिलोकक्षयकृत्प्रवृद्धो
Posts: 2 
Optional: Sociology
|
Post by Jason Bourne on Jul 10, 2014 17:21:47 GMT 5.5
|
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Jul 10, 2014 17:52:28 GMT 5.5
 I had purchased the printed notes of Upendra but things went tangent  |
|
|
|
Post by Don Quixote on Jul 10, 2014 23:23:18 GMT 5.5
I had purchased the printed notes of Upendra but things went tangent Do you mean you did not end up reading them or they were of not much use? Planning to buy a copy in the next few days... |
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Jul 11, 2014 12:39:37 GMT 5.5
I had purchased the printed notes of Upendra but things went tangent Do you mean you did not end up reading them or they were of not much use? Planning to buy a copy in the next few days... I'd say get the notes, but if possible get some handwritten notes too, say from Mohapatra. I don't have class notes of Upendra, hence I cannot comment. But, people have given a good feedback. |
|
|
|
Post by Don Quixote on Jul 11, 2014 18:51:31 GMT 5.5
Do you mean you did not end up reading them or they were of not much use? Planning to buy a copy in the next few days... I'd say get the notes, but if possible get some handwritten notes too, say from Mohapatra. I don't have class notes of Upendra, hence I cannot comment. But, people have given a good feedback. Thanks, I am getting Upendra's printed/class notes both. I have a copy of Mohapatra's class notes, but didn't really enjoy reading them, not sure if they were bad, or the set I got was bad... |
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Jul 11, 2014 18:54:36 GMT 5.5
I'd say get the notes, but if possible get some handwritten notes too, say from Mohapatra. I don't have class notes of Upendra, hence I cannot comment. But, people have given a good feedback. Thanks, I am getting Upendra's printed/class notes both. I have a copy of Mohapatra's class notes, but didn't really enjoy reading them, not sure if they were bad, or the set I got was bad... I was going to suggest the same i.e. get whatever notes are available because Mohapatra may have explained one particular topic lucidly. On the other hand, Upendra's notes may enhance your understanding in another topic. |
|
|
|
Post by lalatendu on Sept 1, 2014 13:41:05 GMT 5.5
Thanks, I am getting Upendra's printed/class notes both. I have a copy of Mohapatra's class notes, but didn't really enjoy reading them, not sure if they were bad, or the set I got was bad... I was going the suggest the same i.e. get whatever notes are available because Mohapatra may have explained one particular topic lucidly. On the other hand, Upendra's notes may enhance your understanding in another topic. I took coaching from mohapatra....He seldom goes deep into paper 2... Only the base he builds...you have to build the superstructure by yourself....that website sociology guide is very useful+ shankar rao + Indian Society Ram Ahuja(Traditional topics like Mrrg, Family, Religion, Power n Politics etc) + Society India J.L. Kachroo(Book Hives Publications-It will help you in non-conventional topics that you will find nowhere else---But this book is not a bible....This has to be used as a last weapon(Viz. caste system in tribes ....you will not find anywhere else except a para or two here) + ignou BA and MA selected modules...+ Contemporary issues (search the framework from these aforesaid 3 books and add spice to it by yourself)....Dude think yourself as a sociologist while writing answers of sociology irrespective of your professional background................Hope my post will be of some use...Thanks |
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Sept 1, 2014 15:50:03 GMT 5.5
lalatenduHaving appeared in the Mains before the pattern change, I've come to understand that the most important thing in sociology is to revise. One may have studied a no. of books like Holborn, Bottomore or Giddens. But if one is not able to recall and reproduce in the exam there's no point in referring to a myriad of resources. My priority now is to cut down my sources and focus on recall. Let's see. And yes I agree with you that one needs to develop a sociological perspective in order to come up to the examiner's expectations.
|
|
|
|
Post by madhurbinda on Sept 6, 2014 19:18:41 GMT 5.5
Looking for sociology group for mains 2014
Whtsapp I'd 8719856357
|
|
|
|
Post by gadoosingh on Sept 18, 2014 14:07:27 GMT 5.5
Hi people. I am a second-attempter. Has anyone of you joined sociology test series of Praveen Kishore? If so, kindly upload the test paper so that others can access them too. I scored pretty decent marks (200+) in Socio last year. SO if anyone needs any advice, they can write to me here. Thanks. All the best to all of you.
|
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Sept 18, 2014 15:35:38 GMT 5.5
Hi people. I am a second-attempter. Has anyone of you joined sociology test series of Praveen Kishore? If so, kindly upload the test paper so that others can access them too. I scored pretty decent marks (200+) in Socio last year. SO if anyone needs any advice, they can write to me here. Thanks. All the best to all of you. Since you scored such high marks in sociology, why don't you share your strategy for the benefit of all? |
|
|
|
Post by gadoosingh on Sept 18, 2014 21:20:21 GMT 5.5
Hi people. I am a second-attempter. Has anyone of you joined sociology test series of Praveen Kishore? If so, kindly upload the test paper so that others can access them too. I scored pretty decent marks (200+) in Socio last year. SO if anyone needs any advice, they can write to me here. Thanks. All the best to all of you. Since you scored such high marks in sociology, why don't you share your strategy for the benefit of all? I did my coaching under Mohapatra sir. However, I have not referred to his notes after the classes because I found a number of conceptual mistakes in what he taught in Paper 1. For Paper 2, I used his material briefly for the Indian thinkers part only. I would not advice anyone to focus too much on Mohapatra or Upendra notes after they have attended their classes, mostly because I believe that your answers would not seem fresh and the paper checker would also discover that what you are writing is coaching institute stuff. For Paper 1- For thinkers, multiple readings of Ritzer are important. Each time one discovers, interprets and understands more and more of their sociology. I have read Haralambos a few times but now I prefer to study only Giddens sociology. For Paper 2 - I follow the printed notes of Praveen Kishore. However, newspaper reading and magazines are most important. I try to think about the issues covered in Hindu and anything else that I come across from a sociological perspective. (However be warned that I may not be the best person to suggest strategies for Paper 2 as I got only 90 in it.) Test Series - I joined Praveen Kishore's test series last year. I found both the test and the discussion classes particularly to be very good. That's all. I do not believe in reading too many books. I would suggest everyone to focus more on understanding and revision of the material they already have than fishing around for material on the internet or youtube. Hope this is fine. |
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Sept 18, 2014 22:16:47 GMT 5.5
gadoosinghThat really helped. Thanks a ton for your strategy! I'm of a similar opinion w.r.t. coaching notes, as sometimes we lose our originality if we're too intent on following them.
|
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Sept 21, 2014 13:09:35 GMT 5.5
I found the following article quite useful in terms of understanding the return of Marx Democracy in the Twenty-First CenturyNEW YORK – The reception in the United States, and in other advanced economies, of Thomas Piketty’s recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century attests to growing concern about rising inequality. His book lends further weight to the already overwhelming body of evidence concerning the soaring share of income and wealth at the very top. Piketty’s book, moreover, provides a different perspective on the 30 or so years that followed the Great Depression and World War II, viewing this period as a historical anomaly, perhaps caused by the unusual social cohesion that cataclysmic events can stimulate. In that era of rapid economic growth, prosperity was widely shared, with all groups advancing, but with those at the bottom seeing larger percentage gains. Piketty also sheds new light on the “reforms” sold by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s as growth enhancers from which all would benefit. Their reforms were followed by slower growth and heightened global instability, and what growth did occur benefited mostly those at the top. But Piketty’s work raises fundamental issues concerning both economic theory and the future of capitalism. He documents large increases in the wealth/output ratio. In standard theory, such increases would be associated with a fall in the return to capital and an increase in wages. But today the return to capital does not seem to have diminished, though wages have. (In the US, for example, average wages have stagnated over the past four decades.) The most obvious explanation is that the increase in measured wealth does not correspond to an increase in productive capital – and the data seem consistent with this interpretation. Much of the increase in wealth stemmed from an increase in the value of real estate. Before the 2008 financial crisis, a real-estate bubble was evident in many countries; even now, there may not have been a full “correction.” The rise in value also can represent competition among the rich for “positional” goods – a house on the beach or an apartment on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Sometimes an increase in measured financial wealth corresponds to little more than a shift from “unmeasured” wealth to measured wealth – shifts that can actually reflect deterioration in overall economic performance. If monopoly power increases, or firms (like banks) develop better methods of exploiting ordinary consumers, it will show up as higher profits and, when capitalized, as an increase in financial wealth. But when this happens, of course, societal wellbeing and economic efficiency fall, even as officially measured wealth rises. We simply do not take into account the corresponding diminution of the value of human capital – the wealth of workers. Moreover, if banks succeed in using their political influence to socialize losses and retain more and more of their ill-gotten gains, the measured wealth in the financial sector increases. We do not measure the corresponding diminution of taxpayers’ wealth. Likewise, if corporations convince the government to overpay for their products (as the major drug companies have succeeded in doing), or are given access to public resources at below-market prices (as mining companies have succeeded in doing), reported financial wealth increases, though the wealth of ordinary citizens does not. What we have been observing – wage stagnation and rising inequality, even as wealth increases – does not reflect the workings of a normal market economy, but of what I call “ersatz capitalism.” The problem may not be with how markets should or do work, but with our political system, which has failed to ensure that markets are competitive, and has designed rules that sustain distorted markets in which corporations and the rich can (and unfortunately do) exploit everyone else. Markets, of course, do not exist in a vacuum. There have to be rules of the game, and these are established through political processes. High levels of economic inequality in countries like the US and, increasingly, those that have followed its economic model, lead to political inequality. In such a system, opportunities for economic advancement become unequal as well, reinforcing low levels of social mobility. Thus, Piketty’s forecast of still higher levels of inequality does not reflect the inexorable laws of economics. Simple changes – including higher capital-gains and inheritance taxes, greater spending to broaden access to education, rigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws, corporate-governance reforms that circumscribe executive pay, and financial regulations that rein in banks’ ability to exploit the rest of society – would reduce inequality and increase equality of opportunity markedly. If we get the rules of the game right, we might even be able to restore the rapid and shared economic growth that characterized the middle-class societies of the mid-twentieth century. The main question confronting us today is not really about capital in the twenty-first century. It is about democracy in the twenty-first century. joseph stiglitz |
|
|
|
Post by Don Quixote on Sept 21, 2014 19:36:30 GMT 5.5
>>We simply do not take into account the corresponding diminution of the value of human capital – the wealth of workers.
That is the crux of the argument about return of Marx in the sense that the state of polarization of societies is only increasing day by day. And of course, only at the height of Capitalism will revolution start.
|
|
|
|
Post by Don Quixote on Sept 22, 2014 14:45:12 GMT 5.5
Keeping with Marx, I was searching for this when I made my previous reply, but it took some time as the link for this was in my Office email: A Point of View: The revolution of capitalismAs a side-effect of the financial crisis, more and more people are starting to think Karl Marx was right. The great 19th Century German philosopher, economist and revolutionary believed that capitalism was radically unstable. It had a built-in tendency to produce ever larger booms and busts, and over the longer term it was bound to destroy itself. Marx welcomed capitalism's self-destruction. He was confident that a popular revolution would occur and bring a communist system into being that would be more productive and far more humane. Marx was wrong about communism. Where he was prophetically right was in his grasp of the revolution of capitalism. It's not just capitalism's endemic instability that he understood, though in this regard he was far more perceptive than most economists in his day and ours. More profoundly, Marx understood how capitalism destroys its own social base - the middle-class way of life. The Marxist terminology of bourgeois and proletarian has an archaic ring. But when he argued that capitalism would plunge the middle classes into something like the precarious existence of the hard-pressed workers of his time, Marx anticipated a change in the way we live that we're only now struggling to cope with. He viewed capitalism as the most revolutionary economic system in history, and there can be no doubt that it differs radically from those of previous times. Hunter-gatherers persisted in their way of life for thousands of years, slave cultures for almost as long and feudal societies for many centuries. In contrast, capitalism transforms everything it touches. It's not just brands that are constantly changing. Companies and industries are created and destroyed in an incessant stream of innovation, while human relationships are dissolved and reinvented in novel forms. Capitalism has been described as a process of creative destruction, and no-one can deny that it has been prodigiously productive. Practically anyone who is alive in Britain today has a higher real income than they would have had if capitalism had never existed.
Negative return
The trouble is that among the things that have been destroyed in the process is the way of life on which capitalism in the past depended. Defenders of capitalism argue that it offers to everyone the benefits that in Marx's time were enjoyed only by the bourgeoisie, the settled middle class that owned capital and had a reasonable level of security and freedom in their lives. In 19th Century capitalism most people had nothing. They lived by selling their labour and when markets turned down they faced hard times. But as capitalism evolves, its defenders say, an increasing number of people will be able to benefit from it. Fulfilling careers will no longer be the prerogative of a few. No more will people struggle from month to month to live on an insecure wage. Protected by savings, a house they own and a decent pension, they will be able to plan their lives without fear. With the growth of democracy and the spread of wealth, no-one need be shut out from the bourgeois life. Everybody can be middle class. In fact, in Britain, the US and many other developed countries over the past 20 or 30 years, the opposite has been happening. Job security doesn't exist, the trades and professions of the past have largely gone and life-long careers are barely memories. If people have any wealth it's in their houses, but house prices don't always increase. When credit is tight as it is now, they can be stagnant for years. A dwindling minority can count on a pension on which they could comfortably live, and not many have significant savings. More and more people live from day to day, with little idea of what the future may bring. Middle-class people used to think their lives unfolded in an orderly progression. But it's no longer possible to look at life as a succession of stages in which each is a step up from the last. In the process of creative destruction the ladder has been kicked away and for increasing numbers of people a middle-class existence is no longer even an aspiration. Risk takers
As capitalism has advanced it has returned most people to a new version of the precarious existence of Marx's proles. Our incomes are far higher and in some degree we're cushioned against shocks by what remains of the post-war welfare state. But we have very little effective control over the course of our lives, and the uncertainty in which we must live is being worsened by policies devised to deal with the financial crisis. Zero interest rates alongside rising prices means you're getting a negative return on your money and over time your capital is being eroded. The situation of many younger people is even worse. In order to acquire the skills you need, you'll have to go into debt. Since at some point you'll have to retrain you should try to save, but if you're indebted from the start that's the last thing you'll be able to do. Whatever their age, the prospect facing most people today is a lifetime of insecurity. At the same time as it has stripped people of the security of bourgeois life, capitalism has made the type of person that lived the bourgeois life obsolete. In the 1980s there was much talk of Victorian values, and promoters of the free market used to argue that it would bring us back to the wholesome virtues of the past. For many, women and the poor for example, these Victorian values could be pretty stultifying in their effects. But the larger fact is that the free market works to undermine the virtues that maintain the bourgeois life. When savings are melting away being thrifty can be the road to ruin. It's the person who borrows heavily and isn't afraid to declare bankruptcy that survives and goes on to prosper. When the labour market is highly mobile it's not those who stick dutifully to their task that succeed, it's people who are always ready to try something new that looks more promising. In a society that is being continuously transformed by market forces, traditional values are dysfunctional and anyone who tries to live by them risks ending up on the scrapheap. Vast wealth
Looking to a future in which the market permeates every corner of life, Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto: "Everything that is solid melts into air". For someone living in early Victorian England - the Manifesto was published in 1848 - it was an astonishingly far-seeing observation. At the time nothing seemed more solid than the society on the margins of which Marx lived. A century and a half later we find ourselves in the world he anticipated, where everyone's life is experimental and provisional, and sudden ruin can happen at any time. A tiny few have accumulated vast wealth but even that has an evanescent, almost ghostly quality. In Victorian times the seriously rich could afford to relax provided they were conservative in how they invested their money. When the heroes of Dickens' novels finally come into their inheritance, they do nothing forever after. Today there is no haven of security. The gyrations of the market are such that no-one can know what will have value even a few years ahead. This state of perpetual unrest is the permanent revolution of capitalism and I think it's going to be with us in any future that's realistically imaginable. We're only part of the way through a financial crisis that will turn many more things upside down. Currencies and governments are likely to go under, along with parts of the financial system we believed had been made safe. The risks that threatened to freeze the world economy only three years ago haven't been dealt with. They've simply been shifted to states. Whatever politicians may tell us about the need to curb the deficit, debts on the scale that have been run up can't be repaid. Almost certainly they will be inflated away - a process that is bound to be painful and impoverishing for many. The result can only be further upheaval, on an even bigger scale. But it won't be the end of the world, or even of capitalism. Whatever happens, we're still going to have to learn to live with the mercurial energy that the market has released. Capitalism has led to a revolution but not the one that Marx expected. The fiery German thinker hated the bourgeois life and looked to communism to destroy it. And just as he predicted, the bourgeois world has been destroyed. But it wasn't communism that did the deed. It's capitalism that has killed off the bourgeoisie. Src: www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14764357 |
|
|
|
Post by Lisbeth Salander on Sept 22, 2014 16:14:38 GMT 5.5
Don QuixoteHighly indebted for the article! I've always been in two minds regarding Marx's ideas. Knowing that his philosophy still holds true gives me a sense of satisfaction
|
|
|
|
Post by Don Quixote on Sept 22, 2014 17:42:42 GMT 5.5
Don QuixoteHighly indebted for the article! I've always been in two minds regarding Marx's ideas. Knowing that his philosophy still holds true gives me a sense of satisfaction , Marx has always been relevant, the problem is with the Marxists |
|
I was a distance learning student of VisionIAS and their notes have been my benchmark. Apart from that, I've read bits from CN Shankar Rao and IGNOU (very selective). For Indian thinkers, I've relied on google. There's a website which is a good repository for online study material. The link is as below:
I had purchased the printed notes of Upendra but things went tangent 
