Politics as Vocation

Examples of Politics as Vocation in the following topics:

• Formal Means of Control

  • Formal means of social control are the means of social control exercised by the government and other organizations who use law enforcement mechanisms and sanctions such as fines and imprisonment to enact social control.
  • The mechanisms utilized by the state as means of formal social control span the gamut from the death penalty to curfew laws.
  • Criminal sanctions can take the form of serious punishment, such as corporal or capital punishment, incarceration, or severe fines.
  • Weber writes of the definitional relationship between the state and violence in the early twentieth century in his essay "Politics as Vocation. " Weber concludes that the state is that which has a monopoloy on violence.

• Authority and Legitimate Violence

  • Max Weber conceived of the state as a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force.
  • Max Weber, in Politics as a Vocation, conceived of the state as a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force.
  • This definition of the state has figured prominently in philosophy of law and in political philosophy throughout the twentieth century.
  • The police and the military are the state's main instruments of legitimate violence, but this does not mean that only public force can be used: private force can be used, too, as long as it has legitimacy derived from the state.
  • States may maintain a monopoly on legitimate violence but outsource its execution by contracting with private parties such as Blackwater.

• Career Development: Vocation and Identity

  • A vocation is an occupation to which an individual is particularly drawn.
  • Any profession, such as a doctor, lawyer, or social worker, is an example of a vocation.
  • This idea of vocation is especially associated with a divine call to service to the Church and humanity through particular vocational life commitments, such as marriage to a particular person, consecration as a religious, ordination to priestly ministry in the Church, and even a holy life as a single person.
  • In common parlance, a vocation refers to one's professional line of work or career, such as being a doctor.
  • Define the meaning of the word "vocation" and how it impacts the choices people make as far as occupations are concerned

• Vocational Training

  • A rise in formalized vocational training followed the Panic of 1893, with vocational high schools and normal schools preceding.
  • Normal Schools began in Massachusetts in the 1880s as extensions of local high schools.
  • The Maryland institution was unique as a stand-alone campus.
  • A two-year, terminal education was seen as more socially efficient for students who could advance past high school but not continue to attain bachelor's degrees.
  • Discuss the political and economic circumstances that gave rise to institutionalized vocational training in the early twentieth-century

• The Working Poor

  • Of these families, 5.19 million, or 58.9%, had at least one person who was classified as working
  • Within the United States, since the start of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, scholars and policymakers on both ends of the political spectrum have paid an increasing amount of attention to the working poor.
  • Many scholars and policymakers suggest welfare state generosity, increased wages and benefits, more vocational education and training, increased child support, and increased rates of marriage as probable remedies to these obstacles.

• Tracking Systems

  • Students attend academic classes only with students whose overall academic achievement is the same as their own.
  • Thus, traditionally, students were tracked into academic, general, and vocational tracks.
  • Academic tracks prepare students for advanced study and professions such as medicine or law, whereas general and vocational tracks were meant to prepare students for middle or working class life.
  • Students in less academic tracks acquire vocational skills such as welding or cosmetology, or business skills, such as typing or bookkeeping.
  • Students in a vocational track may learn skills such as wood working.

• The Tariff

  • Contemporaries considered the Revenue Act a political triumph for Wilson.
  • The Act also provided for the re-institution of a federal income tax as a means of compensating for anticipated lost revenue due to the reduction of tariff duties.
  • That obstacle, however, was removed by the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment on February 3, 1913, and the Revenue Act defined income as:
  • Under the Revenue Act, the incomes of couples exceeding $4,000, as well as those of single persons earning $3,000 or more, were subject to a one percent federal tax.
  • Within a few years after the Revenue Act was implemented, the federal income tax replaced tariffs as the chief source of revenue for the government.

• The paradox of pay

  • Professionals were not paid for their work; instead, professionals received an honorarium, a gratuity from the community intended both to honor and disassociate the vocation from the necessities of the market, to free the vocation for the selfless task of caring for others.
  • As I have discovered, teaching is the most rewarding thing I can think of doing.
  • " I have only one answer: professions are rightly designated as vocations.

• Objective vs. Critical vs. Subjective

  • Weber took this position for several reasons, but the primary one outlined in his discussion of Science as Vocation is that he believed it is not right for a person in a position of authority (a professor) to force his/her students to accept his/her opinions in order for them to pass the class.
  • Rather, these theorists argued that the "personal is political" (e.g., our personal decisions - no matter how small - are ultimately influenced by the political context of our lives and ultimately will shape the personal and political realities of others whether or not we are aware of these consequences).
  • As a result, researchers can - as Feminists have long argued - attempt to be as objective as possible, but never actually hope to reach objectivity.
  • As a result, Weber's objectivity dissolves before the teacher ever enters the classroom.
  • Although the recognition of all science as ultimately subjective to varying degrees is fairly well established at this point, the question of whether or not scientists should embrace this subjectivity remains an open one (e.g., to be or not to be political in classrooms and research projects).

• The Nonworking Poor

  • Since the start of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, scholars and policymakers on both ends of the political spectrum have paid an increasing amount of attention to tackling poverty.
  • Many conservative scholars tend to see nonworking poverty as a more urgent problem than working poverty because they believe that non-work is a moral hazard that leads to welfare dependency and laziness, whereas work, even poorly paid work, is morally beneficial.
  • The working poor face many of the same everyday struggles as the nonworking poor, but they also face some unique obstacles.
  • As a result, many working poor people end up in living situations that are actually more costly than a month-to-month rental.
  • There are also some free childcare options provided by the government, such as the Head Start Program.