UGC NET Sociology Economy and Society Syllabus

Economy and Society syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Economy and Society in UGC NET Sociology, not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Exchange, Gift, Capital, Labour and Market

   13 topics

   • Mode of Production Debates
   • Property and Property Relations
   • State and Market: Welfarism and Neoliberalism
   • Models of Economic Development
   • Poverty and Exclusion
   • Factory and Industry Systems
   • Changing Nature of Labour Relations
   • Gender and Labour Process
   • Business and Family
   • Digital Economy, E-Commerce
   • Global Business and Corporates
   • Tourism
   • Consumption

Economy and Society flashcards for UGC NET Sociology

18 of 55 cards from the Economy and Society deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. In Marx's framework, what does the 'mode of production' consist of?

   The combination of the forces of production (means of production plus labour power) and the relations of production (the social relationships, especially property and class relations, that organize production).

2. What was the central question of the 'Mode of Production Debate' in Indian agriculture (1970s)?

   Whether Indian agriculture after the Green Revolution was capitalist, semi-feudal, or a colonial/transitional mode of production. Scholars like Utsa Patnaik, Ashok Rudra, and Pradhan Prasad debated whether wage labour and reinvestment signalled capitalism or whether bondage and tenancy showed persisting semi-feudalism.

3. What is meant by 'semi-feudalism' in the Indian mode of production debate?

   A characterization (notably by Amit Bhaduri) of backward agriculture marked by sharecropping, perpetual indebtedness/usury, lack of accumulation, and forced/bonded labour, which obstruct the transition to capitalism.

4. According to Marx, what are the main successive modes of production in history?

   Primitive communism, ancient/slave, feudal, capitalist, and (projected) socialist/communist modes of production.

5. What is the 'Asiatic Mode of Production' in Marxist theory?

   A concept describing societies (often Asian) marked by an absence of private land ownership, communal/village self-sufficiency, and a despotic centralized state that extracted surplus through tribute and controlled large-scale irrigation works.

6. Define 'property' in a sociological sense (as opposed to a mere object).

   Property is a social relationship and a bundle of socially recognized and enforceable rights over a resource—rights to use, exclude others, derive income from, and transfer—not the physical thing itself.

7. What are the three broad forms of property ownership?

   Private property (owned by individuals/firms), common/communal property (owned collectively by a community), and state/public property (owned by the government on behalf of citizens).

8. What distinguishes 'property relations' from 'property rights'?

   Property rights are the legal entitlements over resources; property relations are the wider social and power relationships between people that those rights create—e.g., between owners and non-owners, landlords and tenants, capital and labour.

9. What is the 'bundle of rights' theory of property?

   The idea that property is not a single absolute right but a divisible bundle—rights of use (usus), to derive income (fructus), to transfer/sell (abusus), and to exclude—which can be held by different parties simultaneously.

10. Define 'welfarism' (the welfare state).

    A model in which the state takes primary responsibility for citizens' economic and social well-being, providing services like healthcare, education, unemployment benefits, pensions, and social security, often funded through redistributive taxation.

11. Define 'neoliberalism' as an economic doctrine.

    A political-economic approach favouring free markets, deregulation, privatization of public assets, free trade, reduced state spending, and a minimal welfare state, with the market treated as the main mechanism for allocating resources.

12. Contrast the role of the state under welfarism versus neoliberalism.

    Under welfarism the state actively intervenes to redistribute resources and guarantee social rights; under neoliberalism the state withdraws from provision, deregulates markets, privatizes services, and confines itself to enabling and protecting market functioning.

13. What set of policies is associated with the 'Washington Consensus'?

    A neoliberal policy package promoted by the IMF/World Bank/US Treasury: fiscal discipline, trade liberalization, privatization, deregulation, removal of capital controls, secure property rights, and market-determined exchange rates.

14. What major economic shift did India undertake in 1991, and by what name is it known?

    The LPG reforms—Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization—marking a move away from the state-led planned economy toward a more market-oriented, neoliberal model.

15. What is Karl Polanyi's concept of the 'double movement'?

    In 'The Great Transformation,' the dual historical tendency whereby the expansion of self-regulating markets ('disembedding' the economy) provokes a protective countermovement by society demanding regulation and social protection.

16. What does Polanyi mean by the 'embeddedness' of the economy?

    The idea that in most societies economic activity is embedded in and subordinate to social relations, institutions, and norms—rather than the market society's attempt to disembed and make the economy self-regulating and dominant over society.

17. What is the Rostow model of economic development?

    W.W. Rostow's 'Stages of Economic Growth': five linear stages—(1) traditional society, (2) preconditions for take-off, (3) take-off, (4) drive to maturity, and (5) age of high mass consumption.

18. What is the core claim of 'modernization theory' of development?

    That underdeveloped (traditional) societies progress to modernity by following the same path as Western industrialized nations—adopting modern values, technology, capital, and institutions through diffusion from the developed world.

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