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Terms of Sociology

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Labor Aristocracy
This refers to an upper and privileged stratum of manual working class which by means of scarce skills, position or organizational and trade union strength establishes better conditions for self

Law of Social Migration
Franz Oppenheimer's statement that men tend to move from a place of greater socio-economic pressure to a place of less socio-economic pressure.

Law of social motion
Herbert Spencer's view that social change or social trends tend to follow the direction of least obstruction.

Law of Stratification
Vilfredo Pareto's statement that a privileged aristocracy in a country can survive only so long as it uses force to perpetuate itself.

Life Chances
Coined by T Veblen ,a leisure class is defined by its sense of the indignity of manual labor and this disdain for work is expressed through conspicuous consumption, waste and leisure. The weakness of Veblen's approach was its conflation of aristocracy, bourgeoisie and nouveau rich although he was more concerned with social criticism than with sociological precision.

Life cycle analogy in sociology
The attempt to explain the development of social groups and institutional practices in terms of life-cycle stages of a biological organism for example the birth, growth, maturation, decline and death of an animal was considered analogous to the development of a group.

Lineage
Consists of all descendents in one line of a particular person through many generations. If this line is taken from paternal side it is called patri-lineage and if taken from maternal side it is called matrilineage.

Leisure class
This term was coined by Veblen in his book, 'The theory of Leisure class' (1899).When members of elites are engaged in conspicuous consumption they are termed as leisure class. This involves display and waste of possessions and goods. It has a specific form called conspicuous leisure.

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