Marx and MicroCase Exercise
Testing Marx's Ideas with Data

Note: This exercise will be revised for 2008

While Marx is known as one of sociology's greatest theorists, he spent many years immersing himself in data on the industrial revolution and the development of capitalism. For Marx and for all great theorists, theory is at once informed by data and is a guide for knowing what kind of data to look at. Broad theories like Marx's are not easily either confirmed or disconfirmed by data, but specific hypotheses drawn from his theories can be tested. This exercise is designed to help you understand Marx's ideas better by linking them to data. However, because the MicroCase data we will be using were not created for this purpose, we will have to rely on second-best and often indirect measures of Marx's concepts. Nonetheless, I hope you will agree as you do this exercise that the combination of Marx and MicroCase is a fruitful one.

This exercise is meant to be done in conjunction with the readings we will be doing in the section on Marx. It will ask you to reflect on Marx's likely responses to the data on the basis of the broader understanding that the readings and lectures provide.

Marx's theory is sometimes characterized as "economic materialism." While there is still debate over exactly what this means and whether it's a fully accurate description of his position, the basic idea is that the need of any society to meet the material needs of its members results in an economic substructure upon which the rest of society is built. The fundamental economic system of production and exchange shapes society as a whole and guides its evolution.

Marx believed that this was true not just of capitalism but of all previous economic systems as well, so let's start by looking at data about preindustrial societies put together by the anthropologist George Murdock. Marx believed that the technological productive forces of a society determine the degree and nature of inequality in that society. Let's explore this idea in more detail.

Open MicroCase CP (found in the statistics folder in the public labs). The first thing you always have to do is to open a data file. Click on File Management and then Open File. Then go: Archive>Ecological>Cross Cultural>Xcworld.mc4. Click open. Now click on Basic Statistics>Cross Tabulation. Make the variable #43, degree of social stratification, the row (dependent) variable and variable #18, type and intensity of agriculture, the column (independent) variable. Click on Column %. Now examine the table and answer the following questions. Keep in mind that the units of analysis in this dataset are societies.

1. If we assume that the types of agriculture arrayed across the top of the table represent increasingly advanced productive forces in agriculture, does the proportion of societies that are highly-stratified increase with each advance of the productive forces?

To know whether these data really support Marx's hypothesis, we also need to know if they are statistically-significant, that is, that the differences are unlikely to have occurred by chance. Note that MicroCase CP does not provide asterisks to indicate the level of statistical significance for cross-tabulations, as the student versions do. Instead, you must click on Statistics-Summary and see if the probability value for the chi-square is less than .05. Only if this test of statistical significance is met can we say that a hypothesis is supported. (Click on Column% to return to the table.)

2. Is Marx's hypothesis that increasing productive forces in agriculture will result in more highly stratified societies supported by these data?

Note: For all further questions, it will be your responsibility to check for statistical significance before interpreting the data. It will also be your responsibility to remember that in cross-tabulations, the independent variable is always the column variable and the dependent variable is always the row variable.

3. In The Birth of the Gods, sociologist Guy Swanson draws on both Marx and Durkheim to hypothesize that highly-stratified societies will be more likely to believe in "high gods" than societies that are less-stratified. Give a reason below why Marx would probably agree with Swanson's hypothesis. Why would belief in powerful "high gods" increase with the level of stratification of societies? How might the experience of inequality in a society be associated with the kind of god the society believed in?

4. Now create a new cross tabulation by making statification (variable #43) your independent variable and making variable #23, High Gods, which measures whether high gods exist and if so, how active they are perceived as being (also a sign of their power), your dependent variable.

a. What is the modal (most common) response for low-stratified societies?

_____________________

b. What is the modal response for high-stratified societies?

______________________

c. Does the table support Swanson's proposition that increasing stratification is associated with increasingly high and active gods?

Yes

No

In the Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx predicted that the great majority of the population would become part of the working class. In the US, it is commonly asserted that most people are middle class and therefore Marx is wrong. Let's take a look at the data to assess this claim.

Go back to Menu>File Management>Open File. Find the Survey folder, then US>GSS, which stands for General Social Survey, an almost-yearly survey of American attitudes for three decades. You will notice that each year's survey comes in two forms, one with an "r" after the year and one without. The latter is the "enhanced instructional version," which includes fewer, but recoded, variables ready for student use. Generally this is adequate, but unfortunately the enhanced version does not include the variable we want to look at: self-reported class. So open the Gss72r.mc4 dataset (the "r" stands for original research version). Now click on Basic Statistics and then Univariate. Choose Variable 119, Class. Take note of the question on which it is based and answer the following question:

5. Is this a question that gets at the "objective" (etic) or "subjective" (emic) side of social class? Explain below.

Fill in the table below for 1972.

6. Go back to File Management and open Gss00r.mc4 (variable 188 this time) to find responses to the same question in the year 2000.

7. What was the modal class label in 1972?________________

8. What was the modal class label for 2000? _________________________

9. Is there evidence of a major shift in class identification between 1972 and 2000?

Yes

No

10. Do the data in this table support the claim that the vast majority of people in the U.S. consider themselves to be middle class?

11. Would Marx see the data in the table above as supporting his view as reflected in the quotation above? How might he account for the "middle class" numbers? Explain.

Marx's interest in social class was based on his belief that classes were the agents of social change, and that it was the process of class conflict that propelled history forward. Unfortunately the GSS does not have any direct questions that address this, but let's see what we can find out from what is there. Keeping the same dataset open (GSS00r.mc4), go back to Menu>Basic Statistics>Cross Tabulations. Make variable 188, Class?, your independent variable and variable #795, Conf. Welth, your dependent variable. (As always, read the question carefully so you know what it measures.) To make the table easier to interpet, click once on the top two row labels to highlight them in green, then click on Collapse. Label the new combined category "Strong" and click OK. Now click once on the next two rows and collapse them also, labelling the new combined category "Weak." Click on Column %. Print out the table and staple it at the back of your assignment when you are done.

12. Does perception of conflict between rich and poor vary with social class? If so, how? Discuss below. Note: in this and other questions, remember to state the relationship of variables in general terms, e.g. "The higher/lower......the higher/lower..."

Now create a cross-tabulation with self-reported class (var. 188) your independent variable and var. 771 (inequal 7) as your dependent variable. Click on Column %. Now collapse the two agree and two disagree response categories, relabeling them "Agree" and "Disagree." . Answer the following questions:

13. What is the modal response for the lower class? ____________________

14. What is the modal response for the upper class? ____________________

15. Is the following hypothesis supported: The higher the self-reported social class of respondents, the more likely they are to disagree with the statement that the reason why inequality continues to exist is because ordinary people don't join together to get rid of it?

16. How do you think that Marx would interpret the data in this table? How might he explain the class differences the data show?

Now return to the Menu>File Management>Open File and open the "enhanced instructional version" of the most recent GSS, GSS02.mc4. While this version has fewer variables than the "research" version, it is easier to use because the response categories have been pre-coded into a more manageable set of categories. Click on Basic Statistics>Cross-tabulation. Using family income (variable #59) as your independent variable, answer whether the following hypotheses are supported by the data or not. (Note: don't forget to check for statistical significance)

17. The higher the family income, the less likely a person or his/her spouse is to be unionized (var # 178).

Yes

No

18. Family income and belief in the likelihood of losing one's job (var #166) are negatively correlated.

Yes

No

19. The belief that the government spends too much on welfare (var #81) is positively associated with social classs, as measured by family income.

Yes

No

20.The belief that the government is spending too little on the environment (var #87) increases with family income.

Yes

No

21. The higher the family income, the less strong is the religious preference (var #124) of a person

Yes

No

22. In terms of the stages of class consciousness that Marx identified in the Communist Manifesto, what conclusion would you draw on the basis of the survey data we've examined in Questiions 6-21 about whether the working class in the US is a "class-in-itself" or a "class-for-itself" Discuss and justify your conclusion below.

Marx's theory has inspired extensive research around the world about how class inequality affects wide range of life chances. In this section, we will use nations as our unit of analysis and scatterplots as our way of graphing the impact of inequality on life chances. Return to the Menu and then File Management>Open File>archive>ecological>International>Global06.mc4. Then click on Basic Statistics>Scatterplot. While there are various measures of inequality we could use, let us use variable #183, which measures the percent of national income that accrues to the richest 10% of the population.

Reminder: The data for all the remaining questions are based on societies as the unit of analysis. Be sure your responses to the questions below reflect that fact. The data do not allow you to say anything about individuals.

23. For your first scatterplot, make #183 your independent variable and #132, Human Development, your dependent variable. Human Development is an index created by the United Nations Development Program based on literacy, life expectancy, and income. It is generally considered a better measure of development than GNP or economic growth alone. When you see the scatterplot, click on regression line. In addition to the slope of the line, always be sure to make sure that the results are statistically significant--easily seen by the existence of one or two astericks by the Pearson r. (If there are none, the data are statistically insigificant and you should conclude that there is no relationship between the two variables.)

Is there a relationship between inequality and human development? State the relationship as a general proposition.

24. Now change the dependent variable to #455, the proportion of the population that believes in heaven. Click on regression line. Is there a relationship between the level of inequality in society and the belief in heaven? Explain below.

25. Marx is famous for his observation, "Religion is the opiate of the people." Explain how the findings in Question 24 support and flesh out the meaning of Marx's statement.

26. Now change the dependent variable to #472, the percent of the population which is either very or somewhat interested in politics. Explain what the data show and how you might explain the findings.

27. Which countries in the scatterplot for Question 26 shows the highest and lowest interest in politics respectively?

Highest:

Lowest:

28. Marxists such as Vincente Navarro argue that a population's health depends a great deal on the class structure of a society. Change your independent variable to #184, Inequality, which is based on the Gini index, another widely-used measure of inequality. The Gini index basically measures the proportion of total income that would have to be redistributed to achieve equality, and hence can vary from 0 to 100. Now run scatterplots for variables #30 (child mortality); #45 (life expectancy) and #363 (expenditure on public health) as dependent variables. Are all these various health indicators related to the level of inequality of a society? Discuss below.

29. How do you think that Marx would explain the relationship between inequality and health found in the previous question?

30. On balance, would you say that the data reviewed in this exercise provide support for Marx's ideas about the importance of class and class inequality?

Affirmation of Independent Work

Submission of this assignment constitutes a statement on your part that apart from technical help, you completed this assignment on your own. Plagiarism will be reported to University authorities and can result in expulsion from the University.

I affirm that I accessed all the data required for this exercise and that the answers represent my own work.

Your Name: _____________________________ Signature: __________________________

Note: Please print your name on the first page as well. Don't forget to attach the printout from question 12.