The new economy is, in one sense, a very old concern of sociology. Since the discipline's 19th-c. origins, sociologists have asked how changes in material production and economic relations alter the ways that people live, work, understand their lives, and relate to one another. However, current interests in the new economy center upon something new: a flexible, "just in time" mode of industry and consumerism made possible by information technologies and related organizational innovations. The logic of this new economy, as well as its consequences for society, are the subject of this course.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. To analyze contemporary inequalities in wealth, job quality, career advancement, residential patterns, and consumer lifestyles through the lens of economic restructuring.

2. To explore how the new world of work reveals important changes in capital's pursuit of profits and labor control.

3. To investigate how market cultures frame our social impulses for creativity, authentic experience, and human interaction.